Raz

More like a step in the right direction. There are some other parts of SAFER that should be overhauled before I'd call it a fiscally responsible bill.

I'd believe a study done by an accredited institute over "a bunch of stuff looked up on the internet" (even if it is by the police chief) pretty much everytime.

Thanks for all that info AA

I did it. Then I went out and got my EMT cert. Then I passed the civil service test. This is why I don't respond well to most of the times when people cry foul when it comes to training.

Everybody's main complaint about the bill is the lack of school district inclusion. In my opinion, not including school districts was the greatest idea to come out of this. Let's crawl before we walk, here. School districts have the biggest issues facing their dissolution, so I'm glad that we can give this bill a shot at passing without involving the myriad of problems that including them would bring. It would've torpedoed the bill before it had a chance to get going. We can always revisit the issue after proving how much tax money could be saved by consolidating other districts.

Apologies, I wasn't referring to the bill, I was responding to this post:

Adding my two cents to the IAFF vs FASNY debate, I've always seen it like this: The IAFF will be for every piece of legislation that will increase service to the community and improve safety and training, but if you want it, be prepared to pay for it. That's capitalism, pure and simple, and the IAFF is a labor union. I see nothing wrong with saying "You want that? Fine, here's the bill. If that's too much, look for another option." FASNY, on the other hand, seems to be against every bill that will increase public safety, the safety of their members, and take power out of the hands of fire departments and place it in the hands of the people who bankroll them. THANK YOU FOR THIS. Damn, I've never seen the truth get twisted so fast as I've seen with this bill. I just spoke to an obtuse "firefighter" who was livid because "Albany is trying to push a bill that would require paid departments every x amount of miles. They're trying to end volunteer departments!" Honestly, there's no use talking to these guys, they fall in lockstep behind anyone who says there's a threat against them. This kind of fearmongering by FASNY is sickening. That's the thing, requiring the vote of "50% of all taxpaying citizens" is the same as writing "don't worry, it'll never happen." I think voter turnout in my town is something like 15-20%, and that's for mayoral elections. It's inconceivable to think that 50% would magically turn out to an election, regardless of how bad they're being fleeced. All this bill does is send a message to underperforming/overtaxing districts, saying "change or we'll make the change for you."

The bill applies to all fire districts, it is undoubtedly a fire service issue. The reason there are people in this thread speaking out against FASNY, is because once again they've hijacked a legitimate issue facing the fire service and turned it into a struggle to maintain power without oversight. For an organization claiming to serve, support, and educate volunteers throughout NY, they seem to do an awful lot to fight everything that could improve service to the citizens that ultimately foot the bill. Can't train for 8 hours a year,? Don't worry, thanks to FASNY, you can now complete your OSHA training in about 15 minutes online. Want to drive a 50,000 lbs vehicle? Any other service would require a CDL, but not here in the NY fire service, thanks FASNY. I'm pretty sure they fought the adoption of FF1 classes here in NY as well, leading to the short lived creation of Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced FF classes, instead. Which served to put more unqualified "interior" firefighters into the ranks.

You just answered all of your own questions with one word.

That isn't exactly true. I don't want to open the same can of worms as last time, but you can do a forum search for SAFER grants and see what I mean.

^ Actually, IFSAC and NFPA test to the same standards, so their certifications can be viewed as somewhat interchangeable.

Things will no doubt take time. Since the recession hit, some people have noticed that cops and firefighters make a decent wage. People also complain/brag that a majority of East Coast emergency workers are Irish or Italian. Some of those people don't put two and two together to realize that 150 years ago, being a cop or firefighter was such a low paying, crappy job that only the immigrants wanted to do it. Now, I don't think we'll have to wait 150 years for EMS to start paying out a wage that can support a family, primarily because the groundwork has already been laid out. As more and more municipalities branch out into fire based EMS, the IAFF will naturally absorb those numbers and gain their leverage in DC. Some municipalities (Greenburgh) have proven that policed based EMS is a viable route, and the PBA will take additional members under their wing. As for the rest, they'd probably be best off joining a catch-all union. It's not the best option for them, just the most viable. In this day and age, I can't see a major labor organization rising from nothing. At least the unionized medics would be able to collectively bargain, which is number 1 on the list of things that need to happen if they're going to see a decent wage. I don't believe the Taylor law applies to private EMS employees, which could work to their advantage, if everyone is willing to stick together. Something has to change, paramedics are the most trained/least paid out of all emergency workers.

You're talking in circles. Especially that last sentence. First off, the volunteer FD analogy is full of holes, because EMS has clearly definied guidelines as to what's acceptable and what's unacceptable when it comes to certification. While a volunteer FD can get by with the old smoke and mirrors of "we have X amount of members", a VAC has to have documentation of every single EMT under their umbrella (including recert dates, etc.). The strain of maintaining qualified people makes any comparison to the Fire Service unreasonable. Also, unlike the Fire Service (discounting the grey area of code enforcement), EMS has a bonafide available revenue stream. After all, commercial services wouldn't exist if there wasn't money to be made, right? I'm not saying that municipalities will see a profit, but a rather sizeable portion of the cost of running a service can be recovered and offset if you do your own billing. Further reduction in costs could come from integrating EMS into your existing FD, after all, you're already paying the guys to train and wait around for emergencies, right? I'm not saying that every podunk town should go out and get a municiple EMS system, but there are places with paid PD's and FD's that have no municiple EMS, and that just doesn't make sense to me. Of course, when you have someone who's willing to go to school and do the work for pay that puts them below the poverty line, while saying they don't need a union and praising the low cost of commerical EMS, I don't expect anything to change.

You can be 17.5 years old to take almost any Civil Service test, and they'll require you to have a H.S. diploma at the time of appointment. The real reason for this is very *wink* *nudge*, so I like how Lad12derFF said it

According to the Homeland Securtiy grant seminar I attended in Irvington about a month ago, when a volunteer department is given a SAFER grant, it's treated as a "free lunch." That's exactly how the guy described it. I was floored at the discrepancy in fiscal responsibility between career and volunteer departments. I wouldn't have believed it, if I didn't hear it straight from the source. It's an outrage, quite honestly.

The thing is, those two things go hand in hand. There are only so many hours in a week. Once you subtract sleeping, working, commuting, meals, and time with your family, the number of free hours in a week can start to look slim. Personnel that are compensated for their time gain an extra 30-40 hours a week to train, drill, maintain equipment, educate themselves, and be available to respond. That's well over 2,000 extra hours each year of dedicated time, and there's no way that someone can be expected to give away 2,000 hours of their time annually, no matter how dedicated they might be. There's nothing wrong with that, and nobody is faulting volunteers. However, it is a simple logistical impossibility that an all volunteer team could attain the same level of cohesion that an all paid team could. Someone is going to take that as an insult, and I'm sorry because I don't mean it as one (and, in a way, I'm playing volunteer advocate here), but it is what it is. Even FASNY agrees, which is why they constantly fight the increase in mandatory training levels. It's unrealistic to place such lofty expectations on someone who's giving their free time. There's nothing wrong with that. The odds are so stacked against volunteers that we have a ton of exemptions to state law when it comes to them, but instead of accepting the fact and working within realistic parameters, we get ridiculous bullheaded statements like "a volunteer is a professional, doing a professional's job for free." So in the end, who is disrespecting who?

I love Dropkick, I really do, but that last album was rubbish.

I stand corrected, my friend works for Clearchannel, which owns all those other stations I listed (and WXRK, I thought). Either way, I still believe the switch is happening.

A friend of mine works for 92.3's parent company (they also run Z100, Power 105, KTU, etc.) It's happening, enjoy it while you still can.

I look at something like this, with the house layouts and tactical discussion, and think "there's a pretty good tool." That's all it can ever be, however. Unfortunately, there are idiots out there who think that "virtual" and online training can easily replace actual hands on training, and are working to undermine the training standards set by the NFPA and OFPC. It's ridiculous, would you go to a surgeon who only learned and practiced online? I played Call of Duty on my Xbox last night, does that qualify me as a soldier? It's yet another example of common sense getting thrown out the window once the words "fire service" are mentioned.

Congratulations and good luck.

Stop using IE and get a real browser. Firefox, opera, etc. They're all free, and you won't have to worry about security holes you can drive a truck through. If you're looking to fix your copy of IE (though really, it's not worth it), Hijackthis will work for you.

Blue doesn't "travel faster" than red, anymore than blue travels farther than red. It's light. It travels at the speed of light. It's a constant (hence the "C" in e=mC squared). That's the whole point. Otherwise things like this and this wouldn't happen.

Very nice website, guys. I like the simple layout, too many fire websites are cluttered to all hell and end up looking like someone's myspace page.

Apples and oranges. According to ISO rating, 30 full time career FF's is the equivalent of 90 volunteers.