Residents at Talking Rock hearing urge return of $3,000 fire allotment and creation of emergency fund

Talking Rock held a public hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget starting at 06:30, where residents asked the town to restore a prior $3,000 annual allotment for the volunteer fire department and to establish an emergency fund to cover flood damage and other urgent repairs.

A long-time resident (Speaker 2) told the council the draft budget includes no allotment for the volunteer fire department and asked that the $3,000 annual payment previously provided "be put... back in the budget." The resident said volunteers and fundraisers supplied labor and materials when the town building was refurbished and asserted that volunteers "put... $4,050,000 dollars in this side of the building alone." The resident also said some community members took out a personal $25,000 loan decades ago to complete part of the work and volunteered to search town minutes (which they said go back to…