All Vashon residents desire to have a fire department with functioning equipment and a staff level that makes sense for the island. Proposition 1, however, is financially irresponsible. The insistence on purchasing expensive firefighting equipment, for instance, is ridiculous.

Today, most fire departments are choosing to lease their fire equipment rather than purchase them outright. This allows the spreading of the cost over years, easing the tax burden. Over 90 percent of fire trucks nationwide are financed with a lease purchase agreement, according to a July 2012 article on the Fire Rescue 1 website written by John Hill, an apparatus budgeting consultant for First Bankers.

This lease works just like an auto lease. The fire department owns the truck during and after the agreement period. A lien on the title is released after all payments have been made. There is no residual or final purchase payment.

It qualifies for low, tax-exempt interest rates.

Secondly, this levy would increase the amount we pay to the fire department by 87 percent this year, and over the course of the six-year levy our contribution could increase by 151 percent. This is an unbelievable increase. Does the fire department really need to increase their levy income from $2.4 million in 2017 to $6 million in 2023? As prudent taxpaying citizens, we must ask ourselves if the Vashon fire district really needs the amount of money they are requesting to provide high-quality services to our community. I suggest that they do not.

— Karen Gardner