gamewell45

Do you know if they have peace officer status?

I think we have to consider the fact that this site may have run its course as many end up doing. In addition, as a few have mentioned, many of the topics posted do not require much of a discussion if any.

Remember, every day is Saturday for the rest of your life. Congratulations.

On a scale of 1-10 rating: Production: 8 Technical values: 8.2 Music: 3.7 Overall rating: 6.6 Hope this helps (I do this for a living).

If I can expand on that and do a comparison; While I understand that conditions in a major city differ greatly from rural departments, much of what you have mentioned is already provided by the town I live in (and I suspect many of the towns where I live). We have a f/t building inspector, along with a part timer as well and between the two they do code enforcement, inspect properties and enforce the NYS UFP&BC. While we provide volunteer EMS as part of our mission statement, we also provide ALS service through a commercial agency to meet the needs of the town. those residents whom may require assistance to get them home healthcare, special home equipment and facility placement are referred to the county social services. Likewise, the county maintains a hazmat team; technical rescue is handled by the various county agencies. My department also trains with other departments, particularly those charged with providing us mutual aid and visa versa. I think it's pretty obvious that due to the size of the city you work in, they end up putting much of the workload on the fire department. But then again there is funding for that whereas where I live that would require funding (which the tax payers are not willing to bite into) and of course would mean duplication of services and as I'm sure you'll agree, that would be the last thing most of us would want to see especially in the era of consolidation encouragement. Training for volunteers in the areas you mentioned that are out of the 4% scope of fire suppression where services already exist to handle that would be superfluous at best.

Stereotyping again I see.

As long as the taxpayers don't mind paying for the service, there should be no issue.

I think it all comes down to this: in most cases, once elected the primary goal of the elected official is to get re-elected once his/her term expires. Many of them have made pledges to keep the costs down in the tax bill and unfortunately that generally has a negative impact on services provided by the city/town/village. If a politician who understands proper staffing with regards to the fire/police/EMS and/or other services, they are accused of sleeping with the unions by opponents; it's a no-win scenario in most cases and it usually takes a disaster to make people understand the importance of proper staffing. Like you said, they are playing Russian roulette with the staff and residents; at some point the gun will fire.

It's quite possible that it is atmospherics; we've had a lot of sun spots in the last week or so. It can have an effect on low-band frequencies in particular.

I think at the least, a water can. Our ultility truck carries both water can and a dry chemical.

There service is pretty slow; of course you get what you pay for. Their servers make next to nothing which=lousy service.

I think we are all aging ourselves!

In the volunteer fire service its a lack of properly trained FF's committed and/or available to respond on demand; in the career service its a lack of funding for proper staffing; everyone wants proper staffing levels, but either don't want to raise taxes or shift funds to pay for it. In all honesty, I don't expect it to change materially much in our lifetimes given the current mindset of our politicians and voters.

Very tragic indeed. It is likely that various law enforcement agencies will be forced to review their policies regarding allowing media to get close to the action in certain types of calls.

One thing you failed to mention in your post (unless I missed it) is that you can be the most highly trained, competent firefighter in the business, yet if you cannot work with others, your completely useless to the fire service.

Let's be honest here and admit that there are people, both career and volunteer who have no business in the fire service. To deny that is being blatantly dishonest with yourself. In fact, almost every job, whether public or private sector have the same situation that is found in the fire service. Not all, but most firefighters, whether career or volunteer are professionals who do the best they can given the tools and training.

If you want services, it costs money. If they don't want to pay, they won't have the level of service they expect. It's as plain and simple as that.

So can the garbage man; what good are they if they can't handle a mattress job?

If it was done legally and according to the article it was, then there should be no issue other then the decrease of volunteer numbers in the affected fire district which obviously will become the topic of discussion if the numbers of volunteers continue to shrink.

Is there a copy of this decision on line that we can read ?

Give it a break will ya? Try to be positive just once in a while?

Thought it was a 94 Pierce; typo perhaps?

There are always three sides to every story; his side, their side and the truth.

No, I never said that. What I said is that I'd to see a credible link to basically back up the allegations that this pitchman made. Obviously there are people who use the system regardless of whether they are on welfare or not. I'd just like to see where they got their information from and the sampling rates unless its an opinion piece in which case it has no crediblity.

It's a partisan website; how about posting a website with that on it which is non-partisan in nature? Lot's of allegations, but not much real evidence unless you believe the pitchman.