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My dept and district have no drama, which is rather unusual. We are a cohesive team, and no, the commissioners do not "steamroller" the chief, nor does the chief/dept create problems and vise versa. Our dept isnt huge, we dont run tons of calls, and we are a pretty decent family. The Chief doesnt ask for crazy things, and the commissioners do our best with in our small budget to get what we need to provide a high level of fire protection to the town.. Our meetings are open (as all fire districts in NYS meetings are), and we have one citizen that shows up to show his support for the dept/district. Honestly, I wish more citizens would get involved to see how we operate. I think all they really care about is that the big red truck shows up when they have a problem so we can fix it.

Exactly what markmets said..

Fire commissioners report to the taxpayers, and the NYS Comptrollers/ the county DAs office if they really screw up with money. NYS laws authorize fire districts to be political subdivisions of the state of NY. Someone has to be responsible for it. Who else would do that job? -

Does anyone have any experience with places that repair the older (2/3/4) Minitor pagers that Motorola doesnt support any more?

I saw them and http://www.pwservice.com/ Any experiences, good or bad with either?

All, Does any one have experience with the "accessories" that you can plug into the back of a Motorola Amped pager charger? One that will flash a light or operate a "pillow/bed shaker"? Good brands/bad brands/ any tips? Thanks

My district uses these guys. Reliant Fire Hose Testing 67 Lake Road Salisbury Mills, NY 12577Phone: (845) 784-6391 We have never had a problem with them, and we have been using them for several years. I dont know how far they wil travel for 5 lengths though...

I just got this in an email. Looks like if you have over 50 people on the rolls and do 30 hours per week, it could be costly. I assume Obama wants us to pass these costs on to taxpayers, as there is no mention of additional funding to pay for it. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, also known as "Obamacare") requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health insurance to full-time empoloyees or face a tax penalty. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has determined that for tax purposes, volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel are "employees" of the agencies that they serve. Previously, this determination was only significant with regard to how benefits that volunteers receive are reported to and taxed by the federal government. With passage of PPACA, however, volunteer fire and EMS departments could end up being required to provide health insurance to volunteer personnel who "work" for the agency they serve for 30 or more hours per week on a regular basis.

If YOUR fire district that you pay taxes to says "we need to cover volunteers with Obamacare, and your firetaxes are going up XX% to cover it" are you OK with that? And right now no one knows what X% is. Say it is 5-15% on top of the "normal" tax hike? Im just trying to get a feel for what the public may say to that.

The federal gov't will cut a check to a fire district to cover it? I haven't seen that reimbursement listed anywhere..

Antiquefirelt, Lots more info here. http://www.naylornetwork.com/NFC-nwl/articles/index-v2.asp?aid=234231&issueID=25401 but this link seems to sum it all up.. http://www.iafc.org/files/1GR/gr_PPACAfactSheet.pdf Im not getting into the "is it right/wrong" debate. All Im saying is that fire districts, if this does apply to them, will have to pay for it via either taking it out of fund reserves or raising taxes..... Just another unfunded mandate to be passed on to the taxpayer.....

Thats the thing. Say you take a 12 hour "i'll be on call" shift. Do 2 of them a week... Add in a drill, a meeting, and 30 hours isnt too much of a strech for a busy VFD. It's not a bad thing to offer to members, but the district's taxpayers will have to foot the bill. Sounds like another "Unfunded Mandate" our Governor said he wanted to eliminate......

I am looking for a decent deneral purpose TIC. Im not looking for "TV broadcast" abilities, or 200 different colors on the screen breaking down temperatures into 1/10th of a degree for hazmat spills. I just want a basic, bombproof and reasonably priced TIC for general firefighting use.. I am checking out the Scott Eagle Attack currently. Any suggestions/info?

So what TICs are people using and happy with that are currently availible?

A great article on the Neptune system. http://fw.to/wKz3z3F Union County NJ Drills Using Kidde Neptune System From September 21-24, personnel from the Union County Neptune Task Force met in Port Newark, New Jersey, for an annual drill involving deploying the task force’s Neptune system and Iron Man nozzle.

The lady at Safe IR was very informative, I have much more research to do. Thank you for the link. Safe IR does not recommend any particular unit/brand, as the lady informed me.

Thats not what I meant. It was badly worded statement. I should of said I have been impressed with Scott's products in general. I will check out the link you provided, they are 20 minutes away from us. Thank you.

We have a Scott Protoge 4 gas meter, it worked out well for us.

All, I know every fire dept in the country has a pile of old "junk" they no longer use or radios that are no longer usable on "new" radio systems, but still usable. Does anyone have Motorola Minitor 3/4's (I assume everyone is using 5's now) they aren't using anymore and need a good home for a Fire Dept in Ulster County? We are still dispatched on Low Band, 33.90, and doing our best to stretch the budget. we have an influx of new members, and are down to our last few spare pagers. We do have the ability to program them. Anyone have a pile of stuff that needs a new home? I can provide Fire District Letterhead/phone # etc. Thanks!

I can send you a real letter on district letterhead, pick them up in a district vehicle, and have the chairman of the board of fire commissioners do it all personally. I know the guy.... I will message you in a bit. Thanks.

I agree that those situations are also perception problems, but they are all what I would consider in the "scope of work" for any fire dept, and "understandable" by most people. DWI Checkpoints, no to the scope of work and understandable.

If it is a call, then they are covered by.. But you still have that perception problem...

I will 100% agree about doing preventative DWI things. Education, demos at High Schools, etc. You want to borrow the light tower, fine, here is how to operate it and please fuel it up before you return it. But thats where FD involvement needs to end. As for having FD people at a checkpoint in any capacity (or none at all), absolutely not. Way too much liability, not to mention "not my job at all".....

My district is in Ulster County. We weren't ask to do such a thing, and even if we were, my fire district, I'm 99.999999% sure would say no, as we are not LE, and I fail to see why LE would even ask FD to assist with this. Very interesting.. My dept has great relations with our local PD/NYSP/UCSO, and we all work very well together. Just the legal "what happens if someone gets hurt, as it wasn't a fire call" could be a huge mess, one that I sure wouldn't want to deal with on the district or dept level.

NFPA 1901 covers that, HFD219