And I clearly understand the “Guest Poster’s” support for the issue of public safety line of duty funding but it is his associations abuse of the local taxpayers and the 911 system that I find to be the related issue. Everyone loves cops, firemen and other public safety folks until they have to fund thier public safety needs then nobody wants to pay…

This is talking about the E911 tax that the Senate wants tacked on to phone bills, not an alarm tax. From his letter, it doesn’t appear they oppose this on the merits of the fund, but on how it’s taxed. Did you miss the whole piece on transparency? Why not fund it outright in the general fund if lawmakers feel it’s a worthy stand alone expense? Seems like that is all Mr. Walton is saying here.

As to speaking for or against a bill, it is up to the Committee Chairman to allow or cut off the speakers and limit the comments.

Mr. Vaughn, aren’t people who are going to be taxed allowed to speak against the concept?

I personally wrote that “union” bill as a method to fund the Line of Duty fund outside of the General fund. I feel it is a better and fairer method to refund/provide funds to the localities and the families of dead/fallen in the “line of duty” public safety members. Given your comments, let me explain why I choose this method.

The alarm protection system companies benefit from the use of the local police, fire and ambulance services for free. Your clients pay you for a monthly service that every taxpayer funds for ALL citizens thru local taxes. Your clients then receive a “personal service” when their alarm activates. An alarm goes off and you call 911 and the emergency response police, fire and EMS respond for you at no cost. The regular taxpayer without an alarm system, has to stand in line (relative term) while your clients needs are met first. That “personal additional service” costs your clients a monthly fee, yet you return nothing to the localities in return for their public safety funding. In Virginia Beach as an example, the citizens fund approximately 130 million a year for public safety. You get yours for free and return zero dollars on that investment. Not a bad deal for you and you clients.

IMO: You could hire a private response force or security staffing to respond to your business and clients but instead you use the taxpayer funded forces. But that would cut your profit. Why should every taxpayer fund your alarm service while you keep 100% of the profit? So why should your business receive a free work force while the taxpayers fund them? It simply does seem right to me that your alarm business has thousands of first responders assisting you, yet you do not have to pay a responder payroll, worker’s comp or equipment and insurance for those thousands of responders. You get it free and you keep 100% of the monthly service fees. That is why I ask the union to push this bill. You can blame a union for this but it is your own abuse of the local emergency responders that you should blame.

FYI: I have an alarm system in every home I own and I pay the monthly fee. I am a recipient of the special service of my alarm company while the regular taxpaying citizen gets a lesser degree of emergency response. I don’t believe it is too much to ask you to return funds based on your abuse of the local police, fire and ambulance departments and the taxpayers.