Bnechis

Agreed, its amazing that all the duplication is in the agency that is 1/3 the size of the other. To make this worst, the police officers work for the same agency as the dispatchers and will see them almost daily, the loyalties will be much greater there than for those outside fire & EMS agencies that we do not work for. In the eary 1990's we switched from dispatchers in the police communication room to 60 Control. Some of the dispatchers were "fire" but they often got pulled from our dispatch to run plates and do other police related work, because that was more important. While fiancial issues pushed us towards 60 Control, the final eason was do to the priorities of dispatch. I have worked for multiple EMS agencies that had police radio's and were dispatched by "the desk" and experienced multiple examples in a number of different communities where we were told to standby after declaring an emergency, because runing the plate or dispatching a noise complaint was a priority. Incidents that stick out include; trying to advise that the hotline alert for the bank robbers was in the car ahead of us, an apt fire with people trapped and an EMS call with guns being drawn. While this might improve things, it is much more likely they will get much worst. Maybe thats how the county will save money, we will all get out of 60 Control

I wonder if the 40% or $330,000 increase (from 2009 to 2010) in these funds can be used as the county sees fit or does the state &/or NRC have deliverables that are required, which will cost the county to produce?

Legendary........OMG I ould have fun with that. Thanks, now I know I've been around for ever.

We have been having a similar experience. 3 of our 9 rigs now have the firecom system and most members do not like it. We did change from the under the helmet style to over the head and that did help a little bit. The next engine has been ordered with it and will include the wireless pump operators unit (a 1st for us) Everyone how saw that felt it would be used, sice it is almost impossible for the pump operator to hear the radio.

The law requires providing for PPE and having policies. But the law also requires that employees must actually follow those policies. The biggest hurdle are 1) getting members to follow the policies and 2) getting the officers to be officers and not worry about being buddies.

When I was 1st learning to drive, all of the Sr. FF's said to always roll the window Down or at least crack it open (in the winter) so you could hear other vehicles, ff's etc.

First of 5 parts of the proposal 8-10-10ConsolidationProposalDPSDES 1-5.pdf Part 2 pages 6-10 8-10-10ConsolidationProposalDPSDES 6-10.pdf Part 3 pages 11-15 8-10-10ConsolidationProposalDPSDES 11-15.pdf Part 4 pages 16-20 8-10-10ConsolidationProposalDPSDES 16-20.pdf Final part. page 21-23 8-10-10ConsolidationProposalDPSDES 21-23.pdf Sorry its so big, but there is a lot of "info" (feel free to read "info" in other words). Special thanks to ChiefHAC for bringing this to our attention. As he pointed out, if you have issues with this, make a stink. They have one shot to get this correct or we will be stuck with it for 20 years.

This was a department that had 14 career firefighters or 3 per shift. Due to budget cuts, on Jan. 1 2010 4 firefighter positions were cut and those. members were laid off. That left 2 career ff's on duty. On July 1, 2010 an additional 4 were laid off leaviing 1ff on duty in the department. The proposal to switch came from the city manager who admits this was her idea and did not come from the Fire chief or the volunteers. The majority of the volunteers had not completed there 6 month probationary period by the end of July. When the 1st lay offs occured there were no volunteers qualified to drive apparatus. The FD budget went from $2.4m to $1.8m due to the cuts. To make up for the lack of personnel the chief has developped an automatic aid system that on all fire calls two FD's respond and a 3rd goes on standby. The CFD had an average response time of 3.43 minutes prior to the lay offs. The 2 mutual aid VFD's have an average response (in there own districts) of 5.97 minutes and 9.28 minutes. According to the chief all 1st allarm assingments now require 3 departments. Here's an interesting fact: the fire chief reports that the city paid the volunteers were paid $200,000 to take over. THe chief also reports that response tims for the volunteer engine have incresed to 7-8 minutes. The chief said they have 24 volunteers most have started training. It is his goal to “ramp up” the force to at least 40 active volunteers by the end of the year. He noted, however, that numbers aren’t everything. Some FD stats: 2 fire stations (1 in the city, one in the town). 11,000 residence in the city and 5,000 in the town in 40 square miles. The FD responds to 900 calls/yr. Prior to Jan. 1 there were 21 volunteer, 14 (made a minimum of 25 of the 900 calls), 7 of those were interior qualified. None were drives. So they gained 3 volunteers after laying off 8 career ff's. According to ISO those 8 career memebrs will require 24 additional volunteers. In 2007 the city hired a consultant to review the FD. the conclusions drawn were they needed an additional 5-15 career firefighters, particularly since attempts to increase the volunteer response had not been working. The city council approve the FD to apply for SAFER grants in 2006 and 2008. The FD was awarded the grants which were then rejected by the city council. ALso of interest is the Merrill Hose Volunteer Fire Company, which is there volunteer unit. Its website claims to have over 100 members (but dept records show only 14 made it to more than 2% of the calls.) There is a 2nd volunteer company, but I could not find any info other then a mention of them in one of the studies (Erina Hose Co.) that they were recieving both tax money and 2% funds.

Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.

Dive, Dive aruga...aruga. Master of the boat bring us to peroscope dept please>

ROFLMAO....He carried that box on the ambulance and engine as well

WRONG. 1) Self insured communties have to meet a number of standards set forth by the NYS Insurance offce and the comptrolers office. How much money they must set aside is based on actuarial tables (the same ones used by the insurance companies). If you have poor safety compiance you have to put more money into your self insurance funds. 2) We are self insured which has no bearing on NFPA rules and on the last 3 rigs the manufacturers (Pierce, SVI & Smeal) all said if we did not want something that NFPA required such as chevrons, then we would have to sign a liability waver which stated that not only would we hold them harmless but we would cover any litigation cost they incurred from an accident.

And now NFPA says NEVER wear them while responding.

Either bill everyone or bill no one. I don't pay property tax in Westport, but do renters? What about store owners (the property owner does), but the store generates tax $$$. If I go into Starbucks, the tax I pay goes to Westport. And federal $$$ go to Westport thru a number of different programs.

I know of a couple of districts that have. I do not know if its legit or not but it is done and those depts have been audited by the NYS Comptroler and still contract. I believe Fairview (Dutchess)Fire District was considering this.

Except if its an outside contracted service like an ALS provider. The current bill has been introduced every year for the last 20+ its needed, but NYS legislature has been unwilling to pass it

The public hearing that the board of fire commissioners (BOFC) held never discused empress or any other agency, but they made it very clear that Pepsi & IBM wanted ALS response to there corp. buildings and they would pay for one year to prove it was a valid concept. The reason they were willing to pay is prior to there proposal the BOFC said the district could not afford it. Once it was free they came out with the "we dont want paramedics telling our FF's and EMT's what to do". This was about 5 years before the YVAC deal. I had never heard about that deal, could it have been a seperate attempt? Yes it was free for one year to determine if it would work. There are other ways like thru billing to pay for it. But the BOFC could bring that to the voters who could determine if there lives are worth a couple of extra bucks (in 1980's dollars).

yes

So you were a member back when IBM & Pepsi offered Free ALS to Somers FD and it was turned down because: "We don't want paramedics telling our firefighters and EMT's what to do" and "patients in Somers don't want paramedic service from strangers, they want their trusted nieghbors to help them in their time of need". I was at that public meeting and that was what was stated by chiefs and commissioners when they turned down free ALS. Yes Sommers has come a long way. Keep up the good work. Nice to see patients coming 1st.

They had at least 5 in production when I was there in 2009. I was told it was part of a huge order.

Can also be found in laptop PC's

In the late 1980's we had a rear mount with those gull wing doors and 3 were open (they were about 8 feet in the air. Alarm came in and 3 members ran underneath the open doors on there way to get in the rig. The Engine pulled out 1st and the driver of the truck said he never heard the buzzer or noticed the red flasher because of the engines siren & lights.

Yes it did.

We've been there, but not since we switched to roll up doors 10 years age

If you are not a riding member of the sponsering agency, NYS considers this fraud.