FD828

Do the candidates that took that test all those years ago have an legal recourse?

Everyone, PLEASE pass this along to all your co-workers, volunteers, friends and family! Great time to be had by all and to help benefit one of our own! Thank you! Donnie

Saturday, March 24, 2012 3:00pm until 7:00pm [*] Join The Highland Rovers and Stamford Professional Fire Fighters L786 in support of our brother Chris Rosiak in his time of need at Tiernan's Bar & Restaurant (187 Main Street, Stamford, CT) Chris has helped others his entire career. A paramedic for over two decades, he has been a firefighter with the City of Stamford since 1995 and a registered nurse for the past four years. Chris has also been known to run marathons (5) to raise money for pediatric burn victims. Chris and his wife have boy/girl twins who will turn 3 in April. While planning for their birthday, he suddenly became the person who needed others’ help. Chris was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor called Stage III Anaplastic Astrocytoma (high-grade Glioma). A month later, Chris had the cancerous tumor surgically removed and he is now recuperating at Yale - New Haven Hospital and preparing for his chemo-radiation treatments. Chris plans to have long careers as a firefighter and nurse – two jobs he has enjoyed and been proud to have. But for now, he cannot work to help support his family. Cost: $50.00/person Gets you: 4 hours Open Bar / See The Highland Rovers / Ticket for door prize raffle. Even if you can't make it please consider buying a ticket to support a man who has spent his entire life supporting others in their time of need and you'll still be entered into the door prize raffle. Please purchase your ticket in advance.

Somebody asked, but yes St. Baldrick's is a charity organization 501c3 and donations are tax deductable. This is from their web site. My link for this event St. Baldrick's Foundation 1333 South Mayflower Avenue, Suite 400, Monrovia, CA 91016 USA | P: (888) 899-BALD (2253) | F: (626) 584-6374The St. Baldrick's Foundation is a non-profit 501 ©3 organization, IRS identification number 20-1173824. Donations made to the St. Baldrick's Foundation are tax deductible in the U.S.

Good evening to you all. I am posting this because it is such a good cause. Myself and a few other Stamford firefighters have joined up to help collect money for the St. Baldrick's Foundation which helps raise money for children with cancer. On March 8th, at Bradford's Grill & Tavern in Stamford, CT we will be having our heads shaved to help support these awesome children. Please take a moment, check out the link below. Please consider making a donation to help these children, all tax deductable of course! Thank you, be thankful for what you have and stay safe! Donnie St. Baldrick's Foundation

This nice kid in Chicago won a contest for best design of a sticker honoring all FD/PD/EMS and got shot down! What a terrrible shame. From Yahoo

The IAFF is promoting Penn Foster College for online education. Don't know what degree programs they offer, but here is their info. Penn Foster College 14300 N. Northsight Blvd., Suite 120 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 1-800-587-4450

Absolutely. That's why I said it would be up to the REMAC to be responsible for all working in their area through (hopefully higher standards then we presently have) whatever means. I would hope it would involve senarios and skills stations. And IMO I disagree that having it be a license as opposed to a certification does have a bearing on our profession. You think the pilot recert program is doing anything for the quality of EMS personnel working in this state? It is a joke. You sit for CME's and send it to the state and you get a new card. With the REMAC being responsible, you could ensure competent people working in the field.

Like "Goose" said, you would pay a yearly fee for your license renewal and would not have to report any CME's to the STATE. However it would be the responsibility of the local REMAC's to set CME/skill requirements. They could do it on an annual, semi-annual or every 3 years as they currently do. But here are some benefits that I see. What if you wanted to take a couple years off to say persue another carrer path, say nursing or PA school? What happens now? You don't recertifiy and you loose your medic card. But if you could send a check every year, you wouldn't have to worry about loosing something you worked so hard to get. It would be up to each REMAC to certify each medic working in their perspective regions. Not to mention it would be income for the state. I pay $150/yr on my birthday to Connecticut for my license. $150yr x how many medics in NY? = $$$ for good old NY. If EMS was truly a career with the same pay/benefits/retirement as PD&FD, and you only had to work one job, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad to recert every 3 years. And isn't making it a license saying it is more proffessional? Don't nurse's get licensed? And no offense to RN's at all(Married to one, mother-n-law is another, most of my aunts are RN's), but I think what a medic does in the field in some terrible conditions is more then what an RN can do at an ER with all the proper lighting, security, an IV team, respiratory and an ER doctor all sitting there. But what is the average number of hours someone in EMS works in a week and at how many different jobs? Maybe that is what the state should be concentrating on doing. Make EMS a CAREER not a JOB.

Does anyone think this will be a first step towards a licensure as apposed to a certification? It would be income coming in every year as apposed to going out. I am not holding my breath, but it would be nice.

I wish we could just flip a switch and get thermal imaging in our masks! But it all goes back to you have to know the basics(and train) for when the technology fails!

Port Chester-Rye-Rye Brook EMS - 5,389 calls

Advocate

The vote that allowed the VFD firefighters into SFRD was done to prevent guys from being laid off right at Christmas time. We were put between a rock and a hard place. So even though not everyone thought it was a good idea, nobody(well that's not exactly true) wanted to see the guys laid off. And IMHO, I feel the best way to get a compromise, and work together is if the VFD chiefs pull away from the mayor's plan. If they do that, and allow the SFRD Chiefs to sit and come up with a plan together, it might just work. If the BOR sees that (because they have stated they want us all working together, and I truly feel they don't like either plan) it just might go a long way. And I honestly think it has to be Belltown that leads the charge, because lets be honest. BFD is the only ones doing their jobs out of the VFD's. They are the only ones that have credibility showing that they are getting it done. Not saying that they wouldn't need help at some emergencies, just that they are answering the calls, turning out guys etc. But as long as the VFD's continue to back the mayor and his plan, there is no cooperative planning going on. Of course those that are intending on getting a new job out of the deal will railroad this in every possible way.

Cogs here is a quote from your post above #1739 "SFRD and the union was my way or the highway". Again, the UNION did not make the sweeping changes to your departments so STOP BLAMING THEM! We were faced with an altimatem just like your departments FROM THE CITY. Stop bashing the wrong people. It was NOT the UNION's idea to merge all the paid guys into SFRD. Just out of curiosity, how many times has (and I will just use BFD here) your department officially requested SFRD to attend one of their training nights, and of those times, how many have been refused by SFRD to attend?

The union can say anything it wants, THEY HAVE NO SAY IN WHAT HAPPENS. The union has no authority to implement anything. So your statement of "my way or the highway" is nothing but union bashing. The union has it's opinions sure, but no way to implement anything. It is the mayor and your chiefs that have to be willing to look at other plans.. The unon is an outside party looking in.

Well again, as you have stated, the "Brown Plan" needs a fair examination. Chief Brown has no say in how the VFD's are/would be funded, so I imagine that's why it wasn't included in his plan. And it was not the SFRD that decided to make sweeping changes to the VFD's and their funding. We were not in a great spot either when all of this happened and not all of us were for the changes. So if the city administration and the VFD's could fairly examine this plan and all the possible positive outcomes, you and everyone else involved might just find this plan to be better then you thought. What if the VFD's kept their funding, and worked out all those concerns? Would it be so bad for SFRD to be the paid staff in the combo houses? So the X-TOR chief couldn't control and hand pick who will work in his fire station, you would still have the paid staff the VFD's are looking for. There are provisions for training together, riding out with the career staff, and creating a pathway for those that would like to make ff a career choice. And who's to say that it can't be some combined form of the 2 plans? Oh wait that is 888 and the VFD's. Everyone forgets the fact that the union has no say in any of this. We can petition the BOR and the public, but having actual say and input? Nope. We have to accept whatever the final outcome is. There are so many questions and assertions about the union and the contract, yet never has the union been asked to speak or provide data for the BOR meetings.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't Belltown under the "BP" stay exactly the same as it is now? Belltown is all volunteer and is responding to all of their calls. They are staffing the station 24/7 with volunteers, training regularly and are bring in more members then they can handle. So I am a little confused on "the people of Belltown as well as the BFD, stand to lose far too much to simply agree to the terms of the "BP"". What exactly are you losing? You don't have paid ff's now so you wouldn't lose them. The "BP" basically leaves BFD to remain all volunteer and continue to respond as such. I just don't see what the down side is for Belltown. If I were a BFD member I would want to distance myself as far away from the other departments as possible.

"Chief" Whittbread hit the nail on the head with his presentation. His comments said it all. It truly stated what this whole thing is about. Control. He made the statement that they would be able to "CONTROL" the paid firefighters that work for the new VFD where they cannot CONTROL the SFRD career ff's. He also said that they would be in CHARGE/COMMAND of all calls that SFRD responds to in their district. Besides some of the misinformation (volunteers wouldn't be able to ride out on SFRD engines even if they are sitting right there in the station, there is no room for career ff's to live at the stations - for example) he really let the public know what this is all about. VFD's in CONTROL and if they don't get their way, they WILL NOT allow SFRD in their stations and force more hard decisions about public safety and money spending instead of working together. For all our sakes I hope the public and the BOR were paying attention. And they say it's the union and career ff's that are causing all the problems? Perhaps it is the "Chiefs" and not the firefighters(from both sides) at all! So my original question still stands, if after all is said and done, if the BOR/public choose to have 1 fire department with 1 chief, will the VFD's accept this decision and work with SFRD in the name of public safety? Or will they exercise their right to sue and use the TOR judgement and cost the taxpayers more money? SFRD will have to accept whatever the final outcome is, how about it VFD's?

The only problem here is the statement of "40 ADDITIONAL SFRD personnel" this is very misleading - There is NO additional personnel being added under the "Brown" plan so there would be NO INCREASE in cost for the SFRD operations. The same number of SFRD guys working today would be working then. The Chief would just be relocating where guys/apparatus are stationed. 52 ff's now, 52 ff's then. SFRD is currently sending a full response for all calls in the North District, so basically other then where the appartatus and ff's are located, the day to day operations would be the same. The only way there would be a cost increase is if the VFD's refuse to accept this plan if approved and refuse to allow the SFRD to utilize their stations to better serve and protect the residents of THEIR community that they so strongly claim they are there for. That IMO would be short sighted and childish at best. This is about our safety as firefighters and the safety of the public. SFRD will have to accept whatever the final outcome/plan is wether we agree with it or not. Will the VFD's? The VFD's want and need paid personnel they just don't want SFRD.

Just out of curiosity, if a volunteer department decides to do a pay per call incentive program, do they need to get approval from the tax paying public? Or is it up to them to do whatever they want with their money? What are the volunteer departments doing in Stamford? Pay per call, or some other incentive program? Is it working?

I have to respectfully disagree on this one. IMO most residents have absolutely no idea who or what department responded to their emergency let alone if they were career, volunteer, or paid per call. I don't think the average citizen has any idea wether or not the volunteers are receiving compensation of any kind. I am not saying that if they knew they would have an issue with it, I am just saying they don't know. They see a BRT show up and ff's take care of whatever the emergency is period.

Maybe I will put in for one of the "transfers", that is more then the current top FF salary at SFRD!

Just look how great New Jersey is doing because of the very same thing.

Perhaps all the newly elected people should cut their pay in the name of public safety and to save the jobs of all these individuals. They all say we have to understand the financial burden but they never seem to have to suffer with everyone else.