ex-commish

I had the honor and privilege of serving with Tom in the Pleasantville Fd in the 1980's. He was truly a gentleman and I was proud to call brother. Andy Mancusi

No, care to elaborate?

Wear your mask

What other steps do you recommend. Andy Mancusi

Prayers for a speedy recovery

Hawthorne has a contract with Empress EMS for coverage 24/7. In my recent years on the board of fire commissioners I did not see any attempt to recruit people for EMS. They have however recruited a fair amount of firefighters. If I recall paid ems was supposed to be temporary until either we recruited more volunteers or sought other means of providing EMS coverage which I was a proponent unfortunately fell on deaf ears with some of my colleagues on the board. And GAW6 is absolutely on point when she says PVAC was bailing us out thanks to them our calls were being covered

Good job!!

RIP

RIP

There has been a lot of talk lately about the declining of volunteer firefighters and how can we retain them I want to put out there an actual scenario ( I will leave the department name out of it) that has happened here in Westchester which as a member of the fire service as well as a taxpayer makes me scratch my head. We all know OSHA training is a considered safety training and I don't meant to demean the importance of it but those of us who have been around know there has never been actual measure of competency for OSHA ( I believe that has been changed now) all you have had to do is be present for the training and you were issued credit for the training. Many departments incorporate OSHA with their regular drills or hold extra classes for OSHA. In the case I am referring to a member who was a former chief, daytime driver and held many state and national certs was dropped as a member for being non-compliant for OSHA. He was out of service for several months and missed drills and towards the end of the year he was short on his OSHA hours. He approached his chief and asked if there can be make up training for those who were short on OSHA ( he was not the only one short) and with the chief's approval a class was given by a competent and experienced instructor and the completed training was also approved. Make up training was a common practice in this department and the approval was always maintained at the chief's level with simply a meme to the board that the members were compliant.And to add the board adopted a resolution to allow members untill 12/31 of that year to be compliant. At the January meeting of the board of fire commissioners they ( 3 out of 5 members of the board) chose not to accept the training that the chief approved and hence the member with almost 35 years in the fire service, certified instructor, hazmat tech, someone who has conducted hundreds of hours of training for his department and again a daytime driver was cut loose. Now there is a personal side to this story that I won't get into but in this day and age where you see signs all around town asking for people to volunteer, when at a time apparatus do not get out because of no drivers, and where it is hard today to keep members, why would any commissioner vote to drop someone in this case especially when the attorney representing the district rendered an opinion that the members who are short should be given ample time to "re-up" OSHA training perhaps put them in an in-active status until the do. Commissioners, of which I am one, are elected officials who are charged with the responsibility of making sure their districts are protected as well as represent the best interests of the taxpayer. Throwing someone out because they would not accept OSHA training approved by the chief in my opinion does not represent the best interests of the district and the residents of the district. It also undermines the chief's authority who runs the department and who has to rely on quality people to make the incidents work. We also have to maintain quality people especially those who want to volunteer and serve their community and are willing to take the necessary measure to do it. If you are not willing to see the quality in people than you might as well take down the " we need volunteers" signs because obviously you don't.

Not illegal. State law only prohibits a commissioner from being a chief or assistant chief. Nothing to prevent a commissioner from serving as a fire company officer wether it be line or administrative. I do believe it is a conflict of interest because it is in the case to the situation I am referring to. One commissioner is also president of the fire company and a lieutanant, another commissioner also serves on the fire company board of directors.

How about commissioners who also serve on fire company boards or as line officers or do all three? I see that as trying to run the department.

No apologies needed you did express some great ideas

Cogs all great ideas however I was referencing the ignorance of dismissing quality, trained people for no reason.

"Never having served in a district with elected commissioners, I am unfamiliar with what role they have in the operation of the department. Are they able to decide if they will accept training that has been approved by a chief on a case by case basis? Are they able to dismiss a member outright? It would seem to me that this would be outside of the administrative role that I always thought a commissioner had." There are rules about dropping people. There are laws about dropping people. The rules were not followed which is a common thing with some of the board members.

Rest in peace

As a sitting commissioner I wanted to and suggested to my board in the past to look into seeing of they would contract to private EMS it never went anywhere and until my term is up this month it wouldn't be proper to say here publicly as to why but I have my suspicions if you want to know e-mail me at amanc2196@aol.com

The police as well. Besides having to have to respond to fire and ems calls they are up there frequently for assaults, robberies and other crimes. While agree the frequent flyer calls are a waste of taxpayer money there is still a duty to respond. Biggest problem is the administrators at Cedar Knolls have their heads in the clouds and don't seem to want to deal with any issues.

For those bleeding hearts including Obama who wants to take away this type of equipment from law enforcement I wonder how many cop's lives this piece of machine saved.

I am retired from that job....money is good they gave the test in 2012 and I believe they barely made it to the 80's with the score you have to score high not like years ago

Lots of nuts out there watch your backs

I also believe that this would have to go to a public referendum.

From what I read it's not a done deal the board just set aside money for next years budget in the event hiring a full time chief is warranted.

Another barbaric action by the murderous ISIS who will stop at nothing to force their way of life on everyone. So much for the "contained JV squad"

Didn't the military downsize? Is there a need for a draft? I thought enlistment was up due to a poor economy. As far as bringing it back I am not sure that is a viable option but if it was they should allow people over 35 to enlist I am 52 and would rather go than my 23 year old son who is a NYPD cop and fighting a different war here back at home.