The Higgins Fire District hopes the third time is the charm for an increased assessment that’s being mailed to property owners for an August special election. The fee has not been increased in 35 years. District Public Information Officer Pete Marchinek says they need more revenue due to a decline in funding…

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Higgins Fire Protection Board Chairman Bruce Jones states, in a news release, that without the grant money they’ll be forced to close one of their three stations by June of next year and layoff as many as six firefighters. Marchinek says it that would slow response times 10 to 12 minutes…

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The mail-in ballot election is August 25th. The district covers around 12-thousand residents in southwestern Nevada County. The proposal to raise the current annual fee of 25 dollars a year to 141 dollars a year was just 29 votes shy of the two-thirds approval needed, in May of 2013, which was the second time it had been mailed to property owners. Marchinek also says adding more volunteers is difficult because a new state law now requires all volunteer firefighters to meet most of the same training requirements as paid firefighters.