Fire!!
I hesitated to post this when I arrived here this morning, as I could not find a news link to it and still cannot I feared that the lack of proof of the occurrence would generate the wrong type of response.
After stopping at the local watering hole after work yesterday I came home to my condo to a fire in an adjacent building. At the time there were two sheriffs directing traffic and one truck hooking up to the hydrant. I was directed to drive around the other side of the building to get to my unit. After parking I got out of my car to walk over to the side of my building to get a look at the goings on. By this time another unit had showed up and a ladder truck was pulling in. They swung the ladder over and I heard a saw going and it looked as they were cutting through the roof, for what reason I do not know. From what I saw they contained the fire well and it looked like just the one unit was damaged.
The response was excellent. Although a fire is something someone never wants to see ... even more so when it is that close to home, I am always impressed with our public servants.
I remember moving over to this area and having some of the people I know tell me of the pitfalls of this area of town, known as Champions Forest, just north of the City of Houston. One of the main things I heard was cost of living, aka ... high taxes. Property taxes are high here, school tax alone is $1.44/$100 add the county taxes and municipal fees and I pay close to $3.00/$100 of appraised value. We see stories all the time on the web, and posted here on DU, about Texans and their values and it was nice to do some digging today and find out not only did our local school district approve our latest bond initiative, all of it was spent on actual schools and not fancy sports stadiums and overpaid head coaches. (I learned we approved a 3% raise for our teachers this year) I was looking because it was "Champions Emergency Services District" that responded to the fire. If you are familar with the area, that is where the St Patricks Day parade starts every year, when they close down 1960 (one of the busiest streets in Houston) for the day.
Not all of Texas is backwoods knuckledragging rednecks, guess that is why I seem to have great conversations at the local watering hole, some people understand that paying taxes works ... even more so when the money is spent wisely.
I love where I live.
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