Bnechis

"I bring you these 15....opps...........10...10 commandments" - Mel Brooks

Another advantage of having an up to date billing system is during a disaster. 2 years ago we had a significant flooding event, that generated hundreds of thousands in OT (FD, PD & DPW) plus other costs to the city (Damaged property & contract items; like generator rental and EMS provider cost [we increased the number of units during the storm]). Westchester County asked us to get them our estimated costs within 5 days and finals within 2 weeks so they could forward them to SEMO & FEMA (to get to the minimum $$$ for a federal disaster declaration) I forwarded our final costs within 1 hour of the request (city cost was over $400,000)and we got our check 1st in NYS. SEMO Region II liked the system so much that they have offered it to everyone in our region (they asked us 1st). We have also used this to recover costs when we have sent members to federaly declared disasters in other regions. After responding to flooding in Delaware County, we sent a bill to cover our OT costs (knowing it would be paid for by FEMA). the local Vol. FD chief almost stroked out when he saw the bill and he called. You could hear him yelling from across the room through the phone. Till we re-explained that the attached letter said we did not expect them to pay it, just as the IC he needed to sign that we performed the work list it and hand it to the SEMO/FEMA PAC/PAL team that was working out of his fire station. We are always willing to go help and we would never consider billing a dept for that, but the system is designed to cover these type of incidents and in that case why should our community have to foot the bill for multiple days of OT and other costs (Fuel, Food, Housing etc.).

We do not bill for MVA's, but we did the reasearch into all forms of billing. Those who bill for MVA's generally bill $500 per. For us that works out to only about $7,000 per year and alot of paperwork for it. We do bill for Hazmat which the average bill for a large spill is $40,000 - $70,000 (which is only about 10% of the total clean up cost, which would double if we didn't stop the flow and start the clean up prior to the clean-up companies arrival).

I agree, property taxes should cover, but what happens when they do not? If it costs $1 and the tax is $0.99 what other option is there? Also most property insurance policies include payment for FD salvage and closing up a building. And what if they only paid a portion? If we are not being funded to the level needed, then we may only be funded to be available to respond, not to actually operate at an incident. What if the owner of the vehicle already paid the insurance company to cover the cost of emergency response? Many insurance policies have that coverage included and we all pay them for that potential. Under Federal EPA CERCLA / SARA Title III the spiller is responsable for all costs associated with hazardous material spills, this includes oils, gas, and every other automotive fluid. This even covers admin. and legal costs. A couple of years ago Getty Oil spilled a gasoline tanker on main street in NR on a weekend. The city of NR incurred costs of well over $38,000 in overtime and supplies used. We tied up the entire FD plus call back of 20+ ff's for the day (we had flammable vapor in 100's of buildings, including COSTCO & they sued and gasoline all the way to Long Island Sound), PD had to bring in doz of officers as did DPW/Sewers & Drains. We used all of our foam and absorbants. We billed them, they offered to replace our supplies, but not pay the OT. We advise if they didn't pay as required by law we would see them in federal court and our lawers were alread on the clock (they get to pay that too), they paid....It not like they did not know the law. Alarm fees are not about FD not being available to another call, they are about making it cheaper to fix a faulty system, than to have the FD come back over and over and charge each time.

Rye Brooks politicians used this argument when the broke away from Port Chester. "We pay more in tax and the they use the services more" so they split and brought in Rual/Metro. So they went from paying 60-80% (I dont remember what the % was) to paying 100% and getting very little service. Don't some property owners in town A pay more than others in town A? do they get the same level of service or do they get more because they pay more? We need to teach the public that fire stations and fire trucks do not fight fire or respond to emergencies. It takes firefighters. The main reason that stations are closed in a consolidation are there are too many empty fire stations or the building has not been maintained/is at the end of its life and is no longer safe to use. Everytime I hear this I have to explain the economic value of a fire department. This is something that the fire service is very poor at doing. Now if you have a poor ISO rating and high tax this one does not work well, but in our case: The average home owner in NR pays $425 per year in tax that gets to the FD. we have an ISO of 2. If we give back the $422 and get rid of the FD, that property insurance will go up $1,200 - $1,400 per year. That means if we never do another call we save that property $800 - $1,000 per year. We also make development more competative, if it is cheaper for a company to come to us than go somewhere else.

My point with that post was that consolidation maybe coming to Larchmont regardless of what depts it consolidates with. The Mamaroneck (Town & Village) and the vilage of larchmont are talking about a number of different consolidation areas. What is interesting is they did not include VMFD in the FD consolidation. My guess is they are strong enough politically that no one wanted to go there. There have also been many public discusions about TMFD taking over and getting rid of LFD including firing all career members. This has been proposed in the local paper by a group of volunteers that quit LFD and want to punish the career members for pushing to get a career chief. The 6 or so studies that have been brought to the table only talk about how much money could be saved, and no consideration for FD capabilities. The County has nothing to do with any of this and there has been no interest expressed on anyones part to include them. The 100% volunteer departments are not included in this planning because the gap is to great. When NYS has one standard for all firefighters and they believe that NFPA 1710 is the minimum standard that should be meet, then they could be included. YFD helped the rest of us get up to speed, they are the head of WSOTF and would continue to be so. Very well said. We have looked carefully at that and you are 100% correct. When speaking with one of the council members from a smaller community, that concern was expressed, that his rigs would be in the cities covering them, why should his taxpayers subsidize the cities? My answer was, have you ever had a fire that you did not call mutual aid? I asked him if he new that the cities tax payers have been subsidizing his dept for years. He later told me he never considered that. He also never considered that 2 - 5 firefighters would not be able to get the job done at a working fire, much less one in a large multiple dwelling.

The one thing that the study implied was that there are greater efficiencies as the coverage area increased. Yonkers would not be hurt since they already meet the standard, but it is not clear that they would be drimatically helpped either (granted we did not study the coverage with them. White Plains currently operates with all 3 man companies which would have to be increased to 4 man companies. As we move forward we would be willing to include any community that borders this project.

The career chiefs concept was the study was of the "willing". Each chief had to go back to the elected leadership (board of fire commissioners, Manager or Mayor) to be included. White Plains (and Yonkers) assisted in the study but opted out of being a particapent. The door was never shut on any dept. as long as they were contiguos (shared a boarder). As we consider the next phase, which is primarily a super detailed financial review, depts can be added. White Plains has had a major change in leadership and is facing a massive budget shortfall. Who knows, they would be welcomed if they are interested. This issue was documented in the study.

One interesting thing I have learned from this thread is we need to consolidate documentation. The Yonkers incident I recieved the call narative from YFD (in looking at it, they sent 2 narratives with the incident location info cut off in the fax) so the 2 incidents may have been switched. The MV incident report was handed to me by the DC who was incharge that day (so if there are inacuracies in what was written, those issues never made it into the original incident reports). All chiefs in the career chiefs were asked to review the study for acuracy prior to the final, and neither of these issues came up. This shows how critical good documentation is after the fact. I believe the examples are still valid, as the problems identified still remain.

I have never heard of this. I do know there are some issues with cross state automatic aid, but thats it. Thanks Chief. To get the 10 depts. in the study today you would need to call 6 different dispatchers.

I had mentioned that political change was in the air and it would drive this, here is what occured this week that might affect FD consolidation: Feb. 11, 2010 "Mandell sets three goals for village" - The Journal News Liz Feld is stepping down from the Larchmont Village Board at the end of her term on March 31, after serving four years as mayor and another four as trustee. Running for her position in the March 16 elections will be Josh Mandell. He is running unopposed for Mayor. June 4, 2009 - "Mayor Liz Feld has selected a financial investor and political newcomer, Josh Mandell, to fill the vacancy on the Village Board of Trustees.......Mandell Will Be Fire Commissioner. Mr. Mandell joined the Larchmont Fire Department in July of 2007, a few months after the board’s appointment of a paid chief precipitated the resignation of many long-term volunteers. Mr. Mandell is now certified as an interior firefighter. As fire commissioner, Mr. Mandell said his primary responsibility will be to “insure the safe and efficient operation of the department by offering the assistance, consideration and support of the Village Board,” To that end, ”I’d like to work with the chief and others to insure the community enjoys the same local services our citizens have always enjoyed,” he said. Another issue that may confront the new fire commissioner is allocating resources for the department. ”They need to either hire more personnel or recruit more active volunteers,” said Mr. Wiener. “You need to have enough people to safely fight the fires – for the residents and for the firefighters. I hope Josh will have the time to evaluate this in a more expeditious manner.” http://www.larchmontgazette.com/news/political-newcomer-is-new-vol-trustee/ "With government budgets tight and revenues shrinking, consolidation of services has assumed a position of great urgency among elected officials in the area. The Larchmont Village Board took up the topic at their Monday, July 7 meeting with announcements about a new local committee and discussion of a newly released study on merging ten fire departments in Southern Westchester." "Studying Consolidation: Locally and Near By..........Larchmont’s newest trustee, Josh Mandell, announced that the Town of Mamaroneck and the villages of Larchmont and Mamaroneck had formed a Tri-municipal Shared Services/Consolidation Study Group to identify efficiencies and cost savings. They will explore ways in which sharing services or consolidation of some functions can achieve these objectives. (See also: New Tri-Muni Group To Study Possible Consolidation.)"....."Mr. Mandell also pointed to the Pace University’s study on the consolidation of fire services, which he said raises more questions than it provides answers. The study looked at how a higher level of service could be delivered more efficiently by merging departments and districts across ten Southern Westchester communities, including Larchmont Village. The report did show how consolidation can achieve better service, said Mr. Mandell, but the costs are not yet clear. A second phase of the study, expected within 9 months, will provide further financial analysis." http://www.larchmontgazette.com/news/vol-taps-new-former-trustee-for-consolidation-group/

3 years ago the Province of Quebec ordered 100's of its FD's to merge. They mad it simple since they collect & redistribute the taxes. In talking with fire officers from Montreal, they said they had never done Mutual aid before the consolidation they said the biggest challanges included different types of equipment, no common radios, different terminology and here is the best one, 25% of the departments only speak english while the majority only french. They claimed that as of last March it was working well. If they can get past those issues and we already do work together, we should have no problem. The big issue in most consolidations (like No. Hudson or Quebec's) it was forced on the FD's by the oversight governments. We are proposing to do this on our terms.

I wrote the info in the study based on the official fire report that was given to me by YFD.

Well said, Thanks Chris. Unfortinatly it has become very clear that many are not in it for the public. To many politicians are afraid of lossing power, same for the unions, volunteers, and some of the chiefs (I say some, because they supported the study). Now I have always said that consolidation is in the best interest of the members (as well as the public). Arriving with enough ff's to be safe, requiring enough officers to supervise (thus also promoting more officers)and not having to fight for table scraps (tax base)is in every firefighters best interest. With the issues that are affecting many of the depts in the study (Budget cuts, layoffs and forced ellimination). "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately" - Benjamin Franklin (How ironic that he was a fire chief). What is coming down the road over the next 3-5 years will shape the fire service, if we do not lead this change, it will roll right over the top of us. But, I am sure that many will try hard to dispute the idea. I believe that consolidation is coming, I do not know if it will be during my career, my lifetime or my childs, but it will happen. Then we will look back at this time in the future and question why we did not fight harder to make it happen sooner. Yonkers is the only dept that meets the 3ff/1of per rig and 16 ffs/of on a 1st alarm, but that does not meet NFPA 1710. The standard also says that staffing is based on a 2,000 sq ft structure without a basement. Based on that YFD is under staffed and all other depts. are in worst shap than YFD. They are not even close and almost every thread here has shown that. Yes they would, but we would not want that because ____ (fill in BS reason here) & pound on ones chest at the same time. If that fire occured in any of the other 57 departments in Westchester we would make the cover of every magazine in the country. THe only difference from one dept to another would be the body count. This is when the public will start asking questions of their fire chief and this is when the "we did our best" will be tested in the court of public opinion. Because it cant work, I will no longer be king, just because it works everywhere else does not mean it will work here, We dont needed it since everything here is perfect, We cant work with them they have yellow trucks....etc....etc...

"pulling it together" at the last minute is not good enough. Most EMT classes spend less than 1 hour teaching triage, ICS and disaster managment. When I've evaluated MCI drills in Westchester it has taken hours to get the 1st patient transported and at actual incidents I've seen crews grab one patient cause they looked bad and left without triaging anybody else. EMS needs training, planning and a command presence to have a chance of pulling it off. To EMS "getting the job done" often means transporting everyone, which I have no doubt they will get it done, but transfering the disaster to the ER does not solve anything. The problem is not the dispatchers, its the fact that to get 20 ambulances they need to make dozens of calls, you cant coordinate if every service requires a seperate phone call and then having to call MA to cover when that 1st (2nd or 3rd) agency can't get out. Are you talking about Westchester County NY? Maybe there is a Westchester in Tx. We keep having issues with getting 1 or 2 ambulances on the road and you think some how these issues will resolve itself at the moment of a disaster. I always teach that you need to practice the way you are going to play. We do not practice for disasters and we can't get enough players on the field for a scrimage so how are we going to shine during the "big game"?

They have only 12% of the population of Westchester but 600% more land to cover. It is not a big surprise that EMS response times are poor. They only have 3 hospitals in an area that is 4 square miles larger than Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland, Orange, The Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn combined

Because nobody was (or is) willing to let anybody else play in their sandbox.

I don't know if thats it, but from the Brooklyn Bridge walkway its about 33 feet to the edge of the bridge. If you jump off the walkway its about 15' down to the road way & then you get hit by a truck.

Front suctions have a number of disadvantages: Added cost(in the $40,000 range) Added maintenance (we had 4 rigs with them, 3 cracked from there own weight, 1 was damaged in an MVA and when we found out the cost to repair, it was removed. High Friction loss - with all the turns it is generally equal to 100' of hose to travel 15 feet. This reduces the amount of water that can be pumped. When we had a 6" front suction on my engine we maxed at 1,150 gpm. a 6" steamer can do 1,500 - 2,000 gpm. In some designs it increases the turning radius The best one is many MPO's tend to nose the engine into the hydrant when they have it. This can push the tail end out into the street. At a MA call about 2 years ago I got a great pic of an engine doing just that and cutting off the tower ladder that was now 500 feet from the fire building. The way we keep the MPO safe from traffic is to bring the line in on the right (or left if needed) steamer connection.

I liked the plan that had a walkway on it. That way jumpers could park on either side and not hinder traffic. It is amazing that on the one hand they are willing to spend $$ on a fence while on the other they want to make it easier to get near the edge.

They could not have done this 500 posts ago?

Nice to see. As Chief Flynn, ALS, Myself and others have been trying to bring people around to this. Because we spend our money on too many trucks, too many stations, etc. We have a number of depts that cover 1 square mile with 3 engines, a tower ladder, a rescue and 3 chiefs and they are only handling a couple 100 calls per year (1 or 2 and actual fire). All of those counties cover larger areas with fewer rigs, but they are fully staffed, properly trained and backed up within less time than it takes for some of the VFD's here to get a crew out the door. Also how good do you get when you only do a few calls each year? Great so now what? Just let everyone suffer, good planning. Lets sope calling exterior only personnel firefighters. Lets call them helpers. Its great that they can pack some hose and change an SCBA bottle or make a hydrant to free up real firefighters. Oh wait, they can't or won't do that. How much of your tax dollars are going to them? Your taxes paid for their turnouts, medicals, LOSAP, and a host of other perks and MY TAXES and those of all the career communities paid for the training that DES is providing for them. Oh police officer please remove this buff to the other side of the fire line, he is not one of us. Well said. So the volunteers that do not go into the fire building do not like the state law that requires enough people outside who are willing to go in, how ironic. The morale issue has been a problem there for over 8 years. The career firefighters were included in the Westchester Special Operations Task Force and were trained in Yonkers to be Hazmat/WMD Technician and were going to become squad 7. But after completing all of the training and getting federal money to fund the equipment, the commissioners determined that having the ability to respond to a chemical emergency would hurt the dept moale to the point that they ordered the career staff to drop out. Silly of me to think that when an elected official swore on a bible that they would do what is in the best interest of the community, they would actually keep politics out. Since these vacancies occured over 7 years and most during the best economic times we have seen in decades, I suspect this has nothing to do with the recession. Its a very tough sell when you can not even convince the members that they have a problem when a department with 6 frontline rigs can not handle a house fire without calling the world to help. Consolidation is not a temporary fix, its a long term solution to a growing problem.

From the Westchester County Fire Mutual Aid Plan (section 6): "Mutual Aid and/or automatic responses are not to be used to supplement an agency’s inadequate staffing or equipment inventory. The intent of Mutual Aid is to provide the needed additional manpower, equipment and specialized resources during those instances when a fire department has first expended all of its own resources. Mutual Aid should not become a chronic practice, nor should it become abusive or a burden to the providing agencies. Mutual Aid is intended to be a reciprocal practice. Why should they be given a break? Is it because they are volunteers? Are you saying that they should be held to a lower standard, or no standards? There are standards for how many volunteer fire fighters need to show up. Try to factor that in

Or just use: or as recently sugested in another thread: Thanks Chief....the devil made me do it....lol