Editor:
Montezuma County’s deputy emergency manager Paul Hollar said, “One perk of a hazards plan is eligibility for future mitigation funds ... for mitigation work, such as culvert widening, bridge reinforcement and creating defensible fire space.” I know that sort of mitigation can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I understand being frugal and protecting rugged individualism, but Montezuma County isn’t wealthy. I would respectfully ask the commissioners to try and see it as a $2,075 insurance policy.
In any case, don’t you think we should get, with our own taxpayer money, whatever assistance we can during and after an emergency? Look at it this way: If we don’t spend the paltry sum of $2,075, we still pay federal and state taxes and that ends up giving our own tax money to other counties by funding FEMA emergency plans in any case.
I feel it amounts to giving our money away in the short, and worse, possibly in the long run when there is an emergency, where we will not get any federal assistance, and that could cost Montezuma County hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The commission’s decision seems penny wise and pound foolish.
Richard M. Feit
Cortez
