Two Oregon counties have reportedly rejected property tax increases that would have funded law enforcement and public safety services. The counties once received federal timber subsidies, but those days are over — and now they're scrambling to pay for essential services.

In Josephine County, where nearly 70 percent of the land belongs to the U.S. government, Tuesday's vote that was too close to call last night. But in Grants Pass, Ore., reported Wednesday that voters rejected the new levy.

The impact of the loss of federal funds in the county — and the reported 80 percent layoffs in the local police force that it forced — was illustrated in harrowing fashion by Amelia Templeton's Tuesday, as she played a recording of a woman's desperate 911 call from August 2012, when the caller was told that there were no officers who could help. The problem was that the county's police were only on duty during daytime hours, from Monday to Friday.

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Move over Galt’s Gulch! Get out of here, Somalia! Josephine County, Oregon, is here to show you how real rugged individualists do: by refusing to vote to raise property taxes, even though the county ain’t got no more police outside of regular business hours, and the sheriff says “every day” someone is the victim of a crime he cain’t stop (because criminals seem to have figured out this whole “business hours” thing), and by the way, if you’re planning on being the victim of a crime, he suggests (very nicely, really!) that you move.

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