“The fire house is a great thing the fire department does a great job but if it increases our taxes that much it’s gonna hurt a lot of people,” said Jerrett Allen. Jerrett Allen and his wife Elizabeth own and operate the Bean and Bins Antique and Co-op in the Village of Churchville. They say a fire tax increase could hurt business. “There’s been a lot of changes and concerns of trying to fund the fire department and now the talk of the taxes going up is quite alarming to us because we have property in the town as well as our business here we're afraid it'll effect our business as well as many others,” said Allen. The new fire department facility is estimated to cost 3.7 million dollars. The site for the new building is on Washington Street just north of Buffalo Road. The Churchville Fire Department has raised about $250 thousand dollars for the project. Riga residents are expected to see there fire tax nearly double- from 94 cents per one thousand dollars of assessed value to $1.80 per thousand dollars. “Well. I think that between the landfill money that the towns taking in and what the fire departments come up with they can find other way to get the money and not tax the people,” said longtime village resident Kenneth Bater. Bater thinks a tax increase is unnecessary. “Cause we're already paying a tax for the fire department as it is in the village. So, I don’t know what’s gonna happen but we don’t need this,” said Bater. Elizabeth Allen agrees. “We need the fire department it’s obviously a necessity here. I have an old building and they've been here before. We really appreciate what they do my concern is, I'd like to know why some of the funds from the landfill cannot be directed towards the firehouse,” said Allen.
