By Olivia Fowler
For The Courier

ofowler@thepccourier.com

COUNTY — Pickens County plans to levy a new fire fee against landowners with agricultural deferments whose property doesn’t have [cointent_lockedcontent] a structure on it, and owners of affected properties object strongly to it.

Property owners say they received no advance notice of the change, nor were they able to give input on the issue. The fire fee was inserted into the county budget as a line item instead of by county ordinance. An ordinance to create the fire fee would have required three public meetings with opportunities for public input before a final vote was taken.

An unoccupied five-acre field taxed at few dollars in 2014 now has a fire fee of $20 tacked on.

The fee is applied to each separate five-acre parcel, even if the parcels are adjacent to each other. There are several different fee amounts based on size of land parcels, ranging from $20 for one to five acres to $320, a flat rate applied to each parcel ranging in size between 100.1 and 1,000 acres. Property owners say this inequity makes it unclear how the fee rate is calculated.

Some property owners are considering paying the fire fee under protest as allowed under S.C. Code Ann. § 12-60-2550 (2000). This can be done if a letter is submitted along with payment stating the tax is being paid under protest and citing the reason for the objection. The county would have to return the fee if the fee is found to be unfair.

Several have said they’re discussing the possibility of bringing a class-action lawsuit against the county.

Property owners adversely affected by the fee say they are upset and plan to attend the county council meeting scheduled for Oct. 19 at the county administration complex on McDaniel Avenue in Pickens.

Anyone who wants to speak about their concerns on the issue must sign up prior to the council meeting. They may call the county at (864) 898-5896 for information.

Council member Ensley Feemster of Clemson, who represents District 1, said that in hindsight it would have been advisable to hold more meetings on the issue, as council members weren’t aware of some of the negative repercussions the fee would have.

Feemster said public meetings on the issue would have allowed those affected to bring their concerns to council’s attention.

County council chair Jennifer Willis of Easley, who represents District 5, issued a statement on Monday in defense of the fire fee.

“The fire fee has been in discussion in committee meetings for about two years,” she wrote. “A large portion of the fire calls that the districts receive are for vacant land (the number of calls vary district to district). However, until this year, those property owners did not contribute at all to the fire operations of the district, and yet, fire personnel had to respond to these fires, to put them out and insure the fires did not spread to the surrounding land/homes/structures.

“The fees generated by the vacant parcels will only be used in the district the property is in, as directed by the fire board for equipment and personnel. We continue to have more and more trouble recruiting volunteers to serve as firefighters, and this is one of many pieces of the puzzle in the county’s overall fire response plan.”

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