gamewell45

Don't say never; we said that in Pawling and guess what?? They disbanded the police department on us and now we have county sheriffs patrolling.

That is correct; I proudly take credit for the post.

You are so correct; additionally, most of them don't care to know the difference. We generally don't come to mind unless we're needed. They call; we respond. Thats where it starts and thats where it ends most of the time.

In all honesty, If a member of the public approached me and asked for a breakdown, i'd have no problem with being upfront with him and giving him a break down if thats what he wanted to know. But I really think the average person, aside from those in the fire service or a buff does not care. They (the public) are more concerned with taxes most of the time. In the eyes of the public, a firefighter is a firefighter irreguardless of what function that person serves at the fire station or on the scene.

I think the answer to your question is that most departments woiuld say "we have 27 members" and not differentiate between the breakdown. I've yet to see any fire department (Although its qute possible) describe themselves to the public as consisting of a department of "x" amount of interior firefighters, exterior firefighters, paid truck drivers, aministrative firefighters, fire-police, junior firefighters, cooks, house watchmen, firefighter/dspatcher, etc. I think most generalize their numbers most likely since the public could care less.

No that's a sin.

They were very lucky indeed; I have a friend on Long Island where the same thing happened while having cable service installed. He lost a bedroom and part of the kitchen by the time it was contained. From what he told me, his Insurance company sued the cable company for the damages.

While I can understand your angst in this matter, I can't speak for other departments, but in my department, if you don't have the prerequistes that are required to be interior, don't even think of trying to enter a burning building or donn an SCBA. As far as spreading it out over a year or two, like its been said in here before, many volunteers have full time jobs; many do shift work and at times the courses are scheduled to the point where its next to impossible to attend them; as such they have to wait until a course comes up that fits into their schedule. Through my experience, most new firefighters complete there required courses well under a year. In the meantime, until they take the required courses, they have no business on the fireground. It's a good incentive to complete your training if you really want to be in the fire service. So "what good are they?" I think once they complete there training they'll become an asset to the fire service. At times patience is a virtue.

If they want to spread out the training thats fine as long as the person doesn't do any fireground or interior work until they have completed the required training courses. If it takes them a year or two, then so be it. As far as looking into the crystal ball and opining that every ambulance in their county is going to go paid, it might go paid but only as far as the market conditions will allow and nothing more.

There certainly is a lot of unanswered questions that come to mind; hopefully more information will be forthcoming.

Changing the rules in mid-stream can have negative consequences depending on how you change them to what degree & along with the mechanism used to enforce it and that's how you could end up in litigation. That's why when changing the rules you have to take a lot of variables in to consideration. Nothwithstanding the above, most departments already have rules in place that set certain standards which work best for the particular department and i know that my department has a set policy and enforces them to the last sentence for everyone no matter who you are.

I don't think you read my post correctly or perhaps you mis-interpeted what I posted. Public Service Announcements (PSA's) are done at no cost for not-for-profit organizations. Certainly you can buy time on the air and put on whatever you want to but PSA's are always done at no charge to the organization. Most volunteer fire departments probably don't realize this is available to them. Please understand that there is no legal obligation for radio/TV/Cable stations to offer them, but almost everyone of them do.

Good luck dealing with all the potential litigation that could come from that. Better you than me.

I believe the "Ad Council" has generic Public Service Announcement copy/pre-produced spots available for radio stations in their media kits which can be easily customized for local/regional used and may be obtained by either a phone call or on line.

The answer to your question is: most likely nothing; Most radio and television stations provide free public service announcements (PSA) to public agencies or not-for-profit organizations. It can range from the announcer simply reading a scripted PSA or playing back a pre-produced one.

There are several main-stream unions out there that do an excellent job of representing those in both the private and public sector and have excellent political influence in Washington, D.C. and locally in Albany, Trenton and Hartford. Some are; CWA (Nurses, Dispatchers, Law Enforcement, Paramedics, public service workers), Teamsters (Nurses, Dispatchers, Paramedics, public service workers), ASCFME, (Nurses, Dispatchers, Law Enforcement, Paramedics, public service workers), SEIU (Nurses, public service workers) and others. Only and only until an overwhelming majority of private/public sector workers are organized will conditions improve for workers in our lines of work.

You know why? Because the flagman is most likely a member of a union. I have a friend who flagged both union and non-union; when he worked union he made $35 an hour; when he flagged non-union, his pay went down to $11 an hour and he has a high school diploma. What honestly needs to happen is for all private sector EMS workers to organize under one union; one that has a good track record of representing their members at the bargaining table. If the "Free Choice Act" goes through as expected, it will make it a lot easier to organize. Only then under the strength of collective bargaining will terms and conditions of employment improve for everyone. One other thing, the union is only as strong as the members of the bargaining unit; if members are strong and united, then the contract will reflect that. Another reason why Fire and Police contracts are so superior to their non-union colleagues; they all stick together. Food for thought.

NBC News now reporting up to 12 dead. The gunman is reportedly found dead.

I sure hope its a little more realistic then the 1970's series "Emergency".

There's definitely some very sick people out there.

That sounds pretty reasonable.

They most likely wouldn't itch & moan. There are already plenty of groups in this country that are white-only or discriminate based on religion or ethnic background. Likewise there are plenty that will accept anybody. As long as you don't receive federal or state funding I see no reason why the courts/ACLU/Liberals/Conservatives, etc would challenge it.

I took a brief look at their website; they appear not to be a labor organization covered under the NLRA of 1934. Its just an association for fraternal relationships and common interests among black firefighters.

Thats one pick up truck that will be headed to the scrap yard.

I concur that Beck is a weirdo; but then again so are most of the other so-called radio/television commentators. Most of them are nothing more then appologizists for whatever political pursuasion they come from.