gamewell45

Another alternative would be to sell the existing property and building; buy a piece of level land; install some quonset huts, drill a well for water supply and let it go at that. It'd solve the problem of making it ADA compliant and keep your costs to a minimum. I'm sure the taxpayers wouldn't object too much.

For those of you who work in either the public or private sector, this is the perfect reason why you should work unionized. if he were non-union, he'd been permenantly gone with no recourse. At least he got his day in court. Unions are like an insurance policy; you hope you never need it, but if you do its there.

They are all a bunch of crooks in my opinion. We should be paying more attention to the third party candidates. I think they tend to be more honest and patriotic then mainstream candidates who are mostly professional polliticans.

I prefer a top mounted pump; you have complete visibility 360 degrees. Plus the engine noise tends to be less so you can hear better.

What gives??? Do you expect people to work in unsafe conditions? No one should have to work under unsafe conditions whether career or volunteer especially at a fire station where you have or should have control over the conditions of the building. As far as the esthetics; thats ultimately up to the taxpayers; If they think its too expensive, they'll vote down the referendum. If you live in the district and you think its too much money to spend, then get out and campaign against it.

I would concur with you; the firefighters need a place thats safe to work in; no one should expect anything less. Its a cost of doing business and hopefully the community will take that under consideration when casting their ballots for the referendum.

Both candidates came off as very bland and it was obvious both were telling the world what they thought they wanted to hear. Typical politicians. Boy is this country in trouble.

Fat chance on getting them to loosen up their purse strings. The reason they have all that money is because they don't spend it. They want something for nothing and most of the time won't step forward to volunteer their time.

I think the guy is an oddball; most radio stations, the jock would have turned off the mic and attended to the fire; at least thats what i'd have done.

They might try to go ahead and do it. But given the financial climate existing right now, the if a referendum is conducted the taxpayers might nix it like they did a few years ago here in Dutchess county when one of the towns wanted to hire a few paid firefighters.

They don't make much unless they work in the major markets like NY, Chicago, LA, etc. In the smaller markets most of them live off of dog food and crackers.

What would Palin think? Good potential for mooseburgers.

Typical combo operation.

ALS, I must disagree with your rationale; while people have a right to a quality of life, the siren was most likely there before them; depending on how active the department is will obviously predicate how often the siren is used. it might be a nuisance to some of them, but its in the interests of public safety. To equate it with a car "making the same amount of noise volume" really has no bearing. The same could be said for fire apparatus responding with sirens blaring at 3am. Its an emergency situation and people should thus rationalize it such. Using your rationale, someone could complain about their neighbor mowing his lawn on a Saturday afternoon and make an issue out of it with city hall. Fire house sirens and mowing lawns are to be expected in small towns as there are volunteer fire departments and people who have lawns that need mowing. In my opinion there is no merit in either case.

I'll bet if their house was on fire they would't mind the siren too much.

I think most departments keep them as a redundancy incase the paging system goes down or the firefighter is outside without his/her pager.

Sorry JCESU, I don't buy into your position; if anyone is going to deluge people with so-called facts of that magnitude, they need to give sources. I don't trust anything that anyone tells me from either side unless they give credible sources.

Okay, roof, how about this: The Babylon the Babylon Town Board has unanimously approved a measure allowing the town's 800 volunteers to buy into its health insurance plan starting next year. This makes them the first in the state to offer the program which was recently passed by the NYS legislature. I don't have the link, but I did read it in Newsday.

Thats alot of information to digest. Whats your source for each one??? Unless I missed the source, how do we know that what your telling us is accurate.

If anyone could indicate some direction or provide some insight perhaps through their experiences or knowledge it would be greatly appreciated. It all comes down to properly managing the firefighters (whether career or volunteer) and by this I mean the line officers and/or chief keeping tabs on them. As in any business or organization, you'll have self-starters and slackers; Its human nature and the managers (line officers and/or chief) need to constantly keep tabs on them and monitor who is doing what and who isn't. Supervisory direction should be given to those in need of it and if necessary, one-on-one discussion of productivity deficiencies should likewise be addressed. In most private sector businesses, those employees who don't show promise or growth potential are generally shown the door if work ethic doesn't improve after counseling. The Public Sector is primarily the same (except those with union contracts which are subject to negotiated discharge language) with minor differences based on civil service law. The officer knowing what his/her employees/volunteers are doing, where they are and what they should be doing will have alot more success in managing the fire department and fewer headaches. Those officers who don't feel that they "don't want to baby sit" employees/volunteers should not be in the ranks of the officers. While technical and practical knowlege is important for fire officers, properly managing your employees/volunteers is equally important.

You make an interesting anology and i can see the rationale in it. Its a nice gesture from the department.

I think its great, especially since it doesn't cost the taxpayers anything; As I understand it, you would pay the same price for the insurance policy as your municipality pays for its employees. so if their employees pay $250 per month, thats what it would cost you to maintain coverage for yourself. Most standard medical insurance policies cost on average between $900 - $1,200 depending on coverage per month. So there is a significant difference in cost level.

I just came out of Grand Central North; I remember it was a clear blue day; and thought how nice a day it was going to be. Once i turned the corner onto madison avenue, there were a bunch of people crowded around a window at one of the banks looking at a television set. I was curious so i walked up to the crowd and looked over there shoulders and saw WTC Tower one on fire. I looked south and sure enought, it was burning like hell. I asked someone what happened and they said that they thought a commuter plane hit the building. I was like "wow, how the hell could a plane hit that building with the weather so nice and clear, but things do happen". Anyhow, since i worked in the media, i knew it was going to be a busy day, so i went up the the studios to see what was the gameplan for coverage. within 10 minutes of my arrival the second plane hit WTC tower 2 (south). At that point it became evident that it was a terrorist action against us. Because our building was on the city's terrorist "hit" list, they shut down our building at 10:30am and all of us evacuated the building and stood out on the street and watched F-16's fly overhead and National Guard troops in full battle dress driving down 6th avenue in Humvee's with M-60 Cal machine guns mounted on the top of the vehicle. When both buildings had collapsed, we watched the cloud of dust slowly work its way uptown; we were on 49th street; the cloud petered out around 42nd st. Of course you couldn't get out of NYC as the subways, trains and bridges were closed. So we sat around and waited looked at the smoke most of the day. I finally got a train out of GCT around 7:30pm.

I am amazed that there are departments out there that would allow that to happen. In my department, if you don't get your points (and that doesn't mean just showing up, but participating)you get absolutley none of the benefits (LOSAP, membership rights, pool passes, etc) that you'd normally get. Those who do nothing, and show no viability in doing such, should be invited to tender their resignation.

Say what you will about Obama, and i'm not saying i support him, but those of you who are union members and that includes the public sector (Fire,Police & EMS) should know that McCain has publicly stated that unions are no longer needed and have outlived there usefullness. And with the economy in the toilet, taxpayers are already crying the blues, look for laws to be crafted prohitibing collective bargaining in the public sector. Here's what I have found out regarding John McCain; he's blocked the "Employee free choice act"; he voted against voting rights for federal employees; he supported a national law to make it harder to gain a voice on the job and opposes the "fair pay act". He furthermore has stated that government union contracts have "crippled" government workers. Additionally McCain voted to deny firefigthers and police the right to discuss workplace issues with there employer in 2001 and skipped a vote on the issue in 2008. (H.R. 3061, vote 323, 11/6/01; S. 2123, , 10/1/07; H.R. 980, Vote 126, 5/13/08). He has a 17% lifetime AFL-CIO Rating. This is according to the AFL-CIO McCain Congressional Scorecard. Not too impressive. O'Bama on the other hand; co-sponsored the "employee free choice act" and has pledged that he'll sign it into law; he voted to for the right of public employees to collectively bargain; voted in favor of the "fair Pay Act"; he is a known supporter of union workers and striking workers. He has a 98 % lifetime AFL-CIO rating and this is according to the AFL-CIO Obama Congressional Scorecard. It Speaks for itself. Those of you who are public sector employees and those in the private sector might want to look at the overall picture when you make your decision; its your livelihood at stake. Obviously i realize for some of you, there are more important issues that will determine your vote; but it never hurts to know how your candidate of choice stands regarding working people and there ability to form unions and collectively bargain. Just imagine a non-union world where the state or city can cut your pay back 20% or change or even eliminate your benefits without your voice? Or layoff whom they want irreguardless of how much "seniority" you have. Food for thought.