gamewell45

Would you stick your hand into a nest of agitated ants?

Ok they might just be voicing their opinions as individuals.

Where did you hear that? I've been to FASNY meetings before and have never heard FDNY's name mentioned in any bad light whatsoever.

Plain and simple; they don't. In order to join FASNY, they must meet a certain criteria in order to be eligible for membership in the organization. Membership in FASNY does not qualify and organization to be recognized as a legal entity in NY State.

No. They are an association composed of volunteer firefighters whose primary goal is to represent the volunteer fire fighters best interests in Albany concerning benefits, training, laws and other related areas of interest to the volunteer fire service. There is a social element to the organization as well, much like social events put on by labor unions for their members, but that is a secondary goal of the association's purpose.

Good luck. Given the mindset in Westchester its highly unlikely you'd ever get full and complete county-wide consolidation.

Interesting concept and I agree it would radically change the way firefighting is conducted.

Whether it was a good knockdown or save; I think we all need to remember that the bottom line is that no one died so everything else is secondary.

I'm sure all they can do is to train as much as possible. Eitherway, one thing that is obvious is that their fire prevention program is working.

Do you know if this is a temporary or permenant shutdown?

I believe that bill died in committee.

I think the muster held in valhalla (fairchester hose haulers) petered out in the late 80's. It used to be one of the best one's around in the day.

Yes they are sworn Peace Officers and have powers of arrest, although not to the extent that a sworn Police Officer has. Some Fire-Police do have additional training above and beyond the required training such as Article 35 and in some cases are either active-duty or retired police officers. Most Fire-Police will call for a Police officer if they feel that an arrest needs to be done. However in those very rare instances where there are no police officers around or you have a long wait for one to show up, they can place someone under arrest. Its all a judgment call when you come down to it; I highly doubt that any fire-police officer who does not feel he/she cannot handle a situation alone is going to do anything other then call for police.

We actually had a small fire break out in the transmitter building in 1981; luckily for us, we were able to extinguish it with on site fire extingushers; the phones were knocked out as a result of the fire,so we couldn't call 911 if we wanted to and if I had to walk to City isand to find a working phone I dreaded the thought of having to call Radio City and telling them that their precious transmitter building was burning down. BTW, your right tho' hours do seem like days.

I used to work on High Island, which is another small island off of City Island. The island is accessed by a small bridge that, at least when i worked there could not carry anything much heavier then a passenger motor vehicle. I often wondered what they'd do if one of the two main structures (transmitter building and the caretakers residence) on the island became involved in fire. There was no water supply on the island. I figured most likely it would be a fire boat-type operation and minutes would seem like hours.

I'll see if i can find the article and post it here.

I remember reading and seeing a picture a couple of years ago where they caught a 6ft timber rattler up in Unionvale. It killed a couple of sheep and a dog before they got it; Sure was one formidible looking snake.

I haven't seen any Fire Commissioners walking around with antlers on their head.......yet!

We have a term for people like that who pay no taxes and expect services when there home is threatened by fire; Freeloaders. America is full of them; they want something for nothing. You can't do a "bill after the fact". What would then happen is that most people wouldn't pay a penny until they needed the fire department to respond and then they'd be waiting outside with their checkbook. Most fire departments cannot operate in that fashion. They have bills to pay and need to budget accordingly.

I thought she was in a hurry to get to work since she was already late??

I think its a bad idea; primarily because you'll have created in essence a second class citizen by hiring part timers; it would also give the city the opportunity to pit the part timers against the full timers at contract time. I have seen this happen before in other unionized shops and it creates more problems then it solves. The city ought to re-think this.

You are correct. The public in general is almost never concerned about emergency services until they need them; at that point it becomes an extreme priority and that's when the finger pointing begins. Just like the public vilifies Attorney's until they need one, then suddenly Attorney's are the great savior; it all depends on the need at the time.

Not trying to be confrontational, but I think each department should do what works best for it and the family regardless of public opinion; if people are offended by the type of Department service rendered, they don't have to attend the funeral. I'm sure at this point Mahopac could really care less what others outside the department think since public opinion is non-binding..

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in NYS aren't police officers always "on duty"? even when off the clock?. If so I think technically regardless of whether it was an accident or not, he was on duty.

Still its an option; better to have something you may never use as opposed to needing it and not having it. There are ways to craft language protecting career jobs in the event that they wanted to utilize volunteer firemen at fire scenes; however, if as you say, they have been converted to CERT Team, then its a moot point.