spin_the_wheel

I think I remember reading somewhere, where it is not just the FD moving into this building, maybe a new town hall or other village agencies/offices.

For that reason NO pd should be dispatching fire calls as well, the sgt. is on the phone taking the robbery info, and the other line is ringing for a house fire. All fd's should go through 60 control. This would help them increase manning, probably get better pay and help in a host of other things. The same problem exists here in Nassau County.

Hey, last time I was up the Ossining way about 7 years ago, when fire dispatch were in the old office, they had their own daytime fire dispatcher, and then a partime person took over from PD during busy eve hours from 7-11 or something like that. Do they still do this system? This is a unique system in Westchester correct? Anyone else do something similar?

Thanks guys, very interesting system. Be safe.

Wow I did not know there were that many FD's that were PSAP's...the norm is for the PD to take the calls and give to FD's, even with their own dispatcher. I do believe it costs alot of money to be a PSAP....anyone know this for sure, it's not a simple process. So when you are in Hartsdale and dial 911 Hartsdale FD answers the phone, and then switches PD calls to the right PD agency? Or the PD who answers switches the fire calls to FD? In Nassau no FD is a PSAP. There are a few PD's besides Nassau County PD who are PSAP's. In this case if your in their range, your 911 call goes to the PD dispatcher who will alert the FD in their area or call Nassau Fire Communications with the alarm for dispatch.

Share the same building ok, but keep the fire dispatchers doing fire and the PD doing PD. This is what is causing the FDNY problems, talk to anyone who wants to give you an honest answer.

You mean Police Chiefs....It's not the Fire dept.s fault..it's all the individual Police departments that are their own PSAP's....I may be wrong but what Fire department in Westchester is not with 60 control and has their own dispatcher and PSAP?

Most Departments in my neck of the woods buy quints to address manpower issues. They figure this one wonder rig can do it all, and makes a great all purpose first due rig. My answer to them when talk of mutual aid is brought up, is if this is your thinking, then that rig should never leave the borders of your district. If it's the super rig, then it should never be a mutual aid rig. Keeping that in mind, we never call for this type of unit mutual aid into our district. Its either an Engine or a Ladder, maybe a special need for tower ladders, ladder towers.....a bucket. If a Dept. has a quint, it was probably bought for a special purpose or need in their own area, it should stay in their district. JMO.

This is about as bad as it can get as a first responder. Does Westchester County have a CISM team, I am a member of the Nassau County fire service team and as a Chief officer it would be a must to have them come down...NOT mandatory for anyone to attend mind you, but at least to set up a time for a sit down with all that were involved on a voluntary basis. This is the sort of incident that can make a 30 year veteran of the fire service have flashbacks of past things that may have been blown off and now start to come out, as well as new people who will outright quit. We don't want to loose our new folk like this , people who may not understand it's normal to feel like they do, and they are not alone.

I have a set of Blue and Yellow NY plates on my 1972 Hurst Olds. I bought the plates when the car hit 25 years old and I was able to register as vintage.

The open cab Mack they are not selling, the 88 will be sold.

Bravo to the Dept....it was the Dept. who brought this matter to the attention of the village officials who contacted the DA, with the full backing of the FD.

No wonder why NYPD cops still think Barney Miller was the most realistic police show about the NYPD!!!!

The logo on the rig is also very creative.....their firehouse sits on property of an old Long Island Rail Road right of way, the tracks are long gone, but its a cool reference to the past.

A little history on the Company that the 09 Velocity is going to, this rig is replacing a 1988 Mack CF. The 88 replaced I Believe a 1968 Mack CF, which was one of the few semi open cab CF's ever built..... a few photos...credit to the original photographers. By the way the company still has the open cab CF.

Although not popular I love these Mack R model Engines.

Dispatchers, speak when spoken to..prompt the IC only when needed.

If my info is correct there is only a 2% decrease in premiums going from a class 2 to a class 1. The biggest % decrease is an 8% decrease going from a 4 to a 3. Not counting going from a 10 to a 9 and a 9 to a 8.

Good old Maxim ladders....those were some good rigs.

Yes you can have nothing to do with the fire dept.......one of our housemen has never been a f/f in his life. Another that retired years back was laid off from TWA and a resident in our town. No they dont have to punch out but the "time of alarm" as dispatched is the "punch out" time, we put the time back in qtrs on our run sheets, I think they use 15 mintues after that time to see what the total "alarm time" is, simple to figure out the time for a day or week to be made up. Why not hire firefighters...well like I said above, they are hired to "run" the everyday business of the district.....not to sit and wait for fire calls...they are NOT firefighters per say. And if it's all for the taxpayer I think they would want Housemen at $55,000 a year compared to Firefighters who will have to be paid on par with the Police officers in the area at about $100,000 a year. You want to talk about hipocrisy....the whole point of this is to provide better service to the public and "taxpayer"...so these departments have found a way to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and some people want to compalin about it. Like I said before the people getting the pay dont care, the distrcit doesnt care and the public would not care. I think the real reason some are annoyed at the "houseman" title is the fact that those people want to see the volunteer service fail, and this is a way some volunteer depts have filled the daytime gap. Why would there be any other reason to be against this system?

One thing the Volunteer Depts do have is the ability to cut costs if you think the spending is to much...carrer depts...not much room. I was looking at the Greenburgh study the average pay is over $115,000 for all 3 paid depts. This will only go up....forever..it will never go down. like I said above 30 years from now where will we be? I dont understand why you are so against LOSAP or tax savings for under compensated firefighters. Even with these "perks" it's still cheaper in the long run, at least compared to these 3 depts. What size are those districts, populations served? How many automatic alarms do they go to? Any ambulance calls? What are the run #'s for the 3? How many Workers? That study also seems like it is leaving the Volunteer depts. alone as they are cheaper to have them, it's the paid depts. that are costing alot. Hey maybe Im wrong this is your area. Another thing I noticed that it stated next to education costs fire protection was second highest. On LI there are many many taxes higher then the fire protection tax. I must note Gordon Heights is an exception.

I agree he spends way to much time searching this stuff out, but it does get the blood flowing dont it!

The one thing I will say at this point is we feel strong about our system and you feel strong about yours. Our system still works....take away the LOSAP, tax breaks, 40 inch tv screens in our "club rooms"...I don't give a crap......bottom line is you still get more manpower at a working fire in the volunteer system on LI then if it were a paid county dept. Make it paid you will have less men on a rig, less firehouses with more of a distance to travel and more of an area to strip or relocate at a large scale event. Sure you save money by selling off rigs and property, but its a one time deal. Will the paid people say no raises for the next 30 years? 30 years from now you will be paying more with a paid system and less manpower then with the current volunteer system in place on LI. Should some small departments merge (the ones doing 250 alarms or less a year) with bigger districts of course, but the larger volunteer departments should not have to merge. The depts around me all do from 1500-2000......let the state watch our spending I could care less, screw dept. dinners and the like. You always talk of the public......so in the case of housemen whats the big deal? The public doesnt care. It's the unions who object...why because it is helping the volunteer system. The public does not care that someone has the title of "houseman", as I have argued in past posts the 3 in my dept. have to makeup time if they go to a call during the day. Some of you have no idea what it takes to run a fire district, thanks to osha and the like there are always things to do for the workers. So when we go for our scba fit tests during the week at night a district houseman is doing the tests. He is there working for free, making up "alarm time" instead of making overtime, or when he is handing out gear once a month to the new members coming in, or when he gets called out at night because of a mechanical problem with a rig or building the list goes on and on. The time is all accounted for. Despite what you think these people were hired to do many many other things, but if they can hire a class A firefighter and they can respond to calls during the day its a win win situation for everyone. The member with the job does not complain, the District does not complain, the public does not complain only the unions. Why because it helps the volunteer system, if they truly had the publics interest in mind they would applaud the districts for finding a way to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Want to call my dept a combination dept because we have 3 daytime class A's that can go to alarms if they are available, fine do so. And it's interesting that there are 2 Voulunteer Dept.s in Suffolk county, where their "housemen" are members of the IAFF...hmmmm I guess as long as you pay dues they don't really care. I guess it's not the "title" they care about, just buck up your dues and we will look the other way. Maybe the "1,200 housemen will all join" If you can't beat em' join em'. Bnechis...I think you stated once before to one of my posts you can't compare the LI voulunteer service to Westchester...whatever problems the rest of you guys have towards the system on LI it still works. When all is said and done most, if any serious consolidation will be done off the Island. The politicians who voted no were almost all from LI, they know how the system works, they are on our side for the most part. Gordon Heights was the start of all this once they merge, which they will, very few other dept.s I can see doing this...as long as the people in charge don't go crazy with spending $. Which they have not in the past years, there are other factors in place now to watch the spending. I dont know of any other community where they are calling for the merge of a fire distrcit, only the Gordon Heights case, at least on LI, and thats with all the Newsday reporting. In very old voulunteer based dept's its not going to be easy to close down the neighborhood firehouse thats been there for 100 years.

Again I guess trying to compare Nassau County to Westchester is apples and oranges, I admit I thought Westchester had a stronger volunteer base but I guess I was only looking at the Ossining's and Port Chester's.

It is what it is, I'm working in the system that has been handed to me, don't make me out to be the bad guy here, not everyone in "lidsville" is a bad guy.