By Mary Weston
Oroville Mercury Register
OROVILLE, Calif — After a lengthy public hearing with about a dozen business owners protesting the new fire inspection fees for businesses, the City Council finally voted 6-1 Tuesday night to revoke fire inspection fees for the first inspection imposed on Business Occupancy businesses. B Occupancy are businesses that provide a service.
“I love America,” Steve Christensen shouted from the audience.
Steve and Lorraine Christensen had waged a four-month battle against City Hall to get all the fire inspection fees revoked that were adopted in January of this year. The Christensens have operated a business in Oroville for 46 years. They wrote numerous letters to city staff and the council objecting to the fee on businesses, which are already inundated with fees and struggling to keep doors open in a slow economy.
They also objected based on how the fee was adopted and noticed, saying it was unconstitutional because it generated income rather than just recovering costs of inspections.
City Attorney Scott Huber and staff, however, insisted the fee was noticed properly and adopted in according to laws just to recover the costs for fire inspections that are required annually or semi-annually by the state.
Councilman Gordon Andoe voted no, saying it would not be fair to other business and apartment house owners to only exempt B Occupancies from the first inspection fee.
The fee for 10 categories of B Occupancy businesses that ranged from $26.75 per inspection to $267.50 was suspended for first inspections. However, if a business doesn’t pass the first inspection, a fee can be charged at the same amount for re-inspections.
The first fire inspection fee will remain in effect for mercantile businesses that display and sell goods.
The argument from councilors and staff supporting the fee is that the city has lost funding from the state and other sources and needs to recover the cost of services for fire inspections.
Several mercantile business owners like Buzz Huntington of Huntington Sportmans Store and RCBS also objected to the fire inspection fees at several meetings as well as at the meeting Tuesday night, saying businesses were being charged new fees and taxes when they are struggling to stay in businesses.
“If you cut through this clod of bull hockey that everyone is bringing up, you shouldn’t be charging fees,” Huntington said.
Huntington said businesses are making less and paying more, but they have to operate within their budgets, and so should the city.
“Don’t get it off the backs of businesses,” Huntington said.
He suggested they charge ambulance companies a fee every time the fire department has to respond to a medical call.
Victoria Coots and other business owners urged the city to revoke the fee on businesses and to be business-friendly, as fewer and fewer people are sharing the tax and fee burden that supports public agencies.
In the end, Councilor Cheri Bunker motioned to exempt fees on first inspections and only charge fees for second and multiple inspections.
“My problem with this is I agree with the business owners,” Bunker said. “We have taxed people to death, and especially businesses.”
That was seconded by Councilman Al Simpson and several councilors voted yes on the digital voting screen.
However, Fire Chief Charles Hurley reminded the council that the motion as worded would only exempt B Occupancies.
Hurley said he wanted to clarify that, so the city wouldn’t be back in the same corner with business owners.
After a lot of council chatter, Bunker tried to amend her motion to exempt all businesses that had been charged the new fee this year from paying a fee for first inspections.
However, Simpson, who had seconded the first motion exempting B Occupancies, said he didn’t want to exempt other businesses that took a lot of time to inspect.
When it became clear that the council wouldn’t support a motion to revoke first-time inspection fees on all businesses, Bunker went back to her original motion to exempt B Occupancies. The motion passed.
Hurley said all businesses will receive a letter before inspections with a copy of the inspection points on the back.
In addition, businesses can get information from the fire department about the most common type of fire and safety violations.
He emphasized that the purpose of inspections is to prevent fires in businesses.
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