Why pay taxes to Bernalillo?

El Picador wants to know---why do residents and businesses in Los Ranchos (or Albuquerque for that matter) pay taxes to the county? We pay the same any property owner in the unincorporated areas (and now even a mill more, but I digress), but unlike the county residents, we get absolutely NOTHING from the county in return. We have to pay for our own fire department---that incidentally spends do much of its time responding to emergencies OUTSIDE of the village, in the county, that LR is having to pony up millions to move its fire station to 4th street--our own police protection, our own planning department, animal control, etc.

We pay extra for building inspection, animal shelters, etc. Worse, we pay BCS for three officers and a Sargent, their cars, clothing, equipment and vacation/benefits---and they are sent throughout the North Valley command, and even into the east mountains!

Los Ranchos is a huge cash cow for the county---they rake in millions, and it costs them nothing in services. And no one knows this better tan our very own double-dipper, Juan Vigil, who had a whole previous career in county government, most recently retiring as the chief administrator with a healthy pension, now supplemented handsomely by his extravagant LR salary (his counterpart in Albuquerque, who supervises a government with many fold more employees and a budget many orders of magnitude larger and more complex makes about the same scratch)

So how about it Juan----why is it again that we pay county taxes at all? Especially when THEY should be paying US for the work our BCS officers and our fire department do in the county!