Bnechis

Commissioner is a civilian administrative head of dept. Chief is the highest operational (field) position.

Its the economy....thugs cant aford slugs.....blades are reusable and no greenhouse gasses so these thugs are going green

Very sad fact...but true The national standard for BLS is 4 minutes (AHA & NFPA) the ALS time is 8 minutes (Also AHA & NFPA). The only group that uses 8 minutes 59 seconds is AAA which represents commercial ambulances, because they sell that its still 8 minutes, the seconds do not count. Be all believe that when we pay $19.99 because at least it was not $20.

Is being "exclusive" a good thing? Why is it exculsive, because they will only sell to pierce or because only pierce wants it?

Hazmat operations is mandated by NYS (PESH) and federal (OSHA)law for all firefighters before they are allowed to respond on any calls. plus annual refresher. Additional hazmat training is also required for anyone who maybe an IC (so all officers) and anyone who shows up prior to officers.

While the chief, points out that it does not obstruct, this is a design issue with most of the manufacturers. Few dash board designs can accomedate the electronics now in use. I have seen where all of these items do not obstruct the view until the officer has his arm up to control the radio or siren (particularly looking at the mirror). Additional concern with the hanging radio's & siren's. are the brackets strong enough to hold the G forces in a crash? We need to think about the potential for a crash and what will happen with all the equipment. I do not like the idea of tools in the cab, since your primary tools are in a compartment (Irons) having secndary tools in the cab are unnessisary potential missels. Finally, does the dept (or others) actually use the front intake? My experience is they are either not or rarely used, very expensive, prone to failure and very poor for water flow (most loss 40-60% in FL). Sorry to be down, but these are issues I see over and over again. Good luck with the new truck.

The transition team is not just looking to cut. It was charged with evaluating what works & what does not work & to give CE Astorino a "snap shot" of everything and an initial road map. Very well said. Rumors do not help anyone. That being said, I still didn't get a Harrumph out of that guy! Tonight News 12 reported that Spano is against the BOL, last minute try, and I heard other members of the board are also against it. Lets just wait and see what the CE elect comes up with.

Solid waste is what the County BOL is full of. County Exec elect Astorino, suggested consolidation over 4 years ago and the BOL & Spano told him to get lost. THey did nothing to rain in costs, expanding every department. Now Asterino wins, and many including "boss" Ryan almost get booted and in less than 4 weeks and without any study they manage to reorganize the entire managment structure of county government. I found it particularly interesting that they got rid of positions that are vacant and claimed the savings. THey also got rid of positions that actually bring money into the county. The new CE takes office in less than 3 weeks and the BOL needs to prove they can get the job done fast, since they have done nothing in the past 12 years. The Asterino transition team has hundreds of people looking at every department in the county to evaluate what is the best way to make this happen. Mel Brooks said it best (as Governor William J. Le Petomane in Blazing Saddles): Holy underwear! Sheriff murdered! Innocent women and children blown to bits! We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!

Also veterans credit is applied = 5 years of city time

2 - 3 weeks

We evaluated the actual cubic space of both the walk around and the walk in and we determined that our current walk in used 47% of the total box space for walking space. With our new rescue less than 10% of the total box space is not used for storage. My experience is that many walk arounds do not add enough compartments and or shelving and trays to utilize the space that is not filled above the base shelf. It is also often common to see depts. have enoght basic extrication equipment to fill a small rescue but they buy a large "Heavy Rescue" and it ends up with most of the compartments empty. If you look at the compartments on R-16 it looks like they have packed most of the space.

The strongest membership in the world will only get what the market will bear. Thats why union EMS does not do drimatically better than nonunion, and as I previously wrote, sometimes works the other way. The main reason for unions was and will always be, when the employees feel that managment is not looking after them. When managers understand the value of the workforce and set clear policies and compinsation employees will never want a union. Too bad so many managers do not understand this. When I worked for a hospital based non-union job 1199 wanted to come in and organize us. The CEO allowed 1199 to meet with every employee and post materials, then we had to vote on the union. over 6,000 employees vote, less than 150 vor the union. Why? The summer before 1199 went on strike at HHC citywide for 6 weeks or so. We were to get our annual raise during that time. The CEO advised us it would be delayed, but do not worry. about 6 weeks later, 1199 settled with HHC and the next day we got our raise, it was 1/2% higher than the % 1199 got, with retroactive pay and we did not lose 6 weeks of pay. Our CEO understood how to take care of us and we understood that the union could not help us. You maybe much better off with a union, but it is clearly not written in stone. I believe the IAFF has done a pretty good job of moving the fire service forward, same for the state and the same for the PBA's and state PBA associations. I still have yet to see that unions provide EMS the same advantages. Can anyone answer what the pay ranges are at TC (non-union) and empress (union)? I think if the ranges are similar my point is proven.

Very true. During a proposal for a higher quality EMS system a city manager stated to me: "they all say NYS Certified on the back, we don't need to pay for better quality than that". As long as that is the position of the person contracting the service money will always be the factor. This is not completely true, If the union is strong enough on a statewie level they can lobby for (and have) stronger standards. We have all seen commercial services who have hired medics who should be working at McDonalds and not EMS, we have also all seen medics with the ink still wet hired and ut on the street when a slot needed to be filled (even if the copany "standards" normally required a break in period). Most agencies like to point out how progressive they are. What special skills there medics can do. None even acknoledge that some of there medics are "border line" and when you add those sills, it maybe beyond there abilities. Consider this system: you have been autorized to start a new service and hire 30 medics. The community wants the best and will pay medics $250,000/yr. you get to hire the best 30 medics in the world. One will still be the worst of the 30 and the system must realize that (even if he/she is better than all the other medics in the world). I have worked full time for 4 different EMS services (as a medic). 2 union, 1 non-union and 1 was union and the employees decertified and went non-union. The non-union jobs paid better (1 much better) and the job that decertified paid the ame before and after, but I got to keep my dues. All that being said: I am pro union, an active member both locally and on the state level and I believe unions can be very effective, but they must be large enough to lobby the state to change laws and set the stage. IAFF & PBA's are. EMS unions are too small for the state to even notice.

In general unions have had a major effect. I have yet to see them do much of anything for EMS. I've worked multiple EMS union and nonunion shops. Worked one where the best thing that happened was we tossed the union out. People here have said it depends on the people, it also depends on what deals were struck and by whom to get into the union. I know one where the EMS crews wanted out of EMS, got the place to go union, then got fired and the union rewarded them with 2x the pay driving supermarket 18 wheelers. I also know a company that managment went to the union to set it up, not the employees, who do you think the local was working for in that case. RM did come to Westchester for "less" they performed so badly that the were shown the door. Then the IAFF got the state to ban private fire. THe difference is Union EMS cant get the numbers to change Albany

The reason that Commercial EMS unions have not worked is because of the amount of funding that municipalities are willing to pay for EMS service. If unionized company X agrees to pay its employees $100 per hour, it will need to bid 5 times (or so more) for the municipal contract. As long as there is compitition available the municipality can go with the non-union company that will charge less, the other option it will have is to start a muncipal service. If the unionized companies charge too much, they will not have contracts and there wil be lay-offs. THe bigger issue is how much money is medicare/medicaid and private insurance willing to pay for EMS service. As long as its the current rate unions will have little effect on the amount of money EMS employees make.

The WREMSCO is not a county agency it is state funded and governed by the rules of NYS. It is contracted to DES to provide the personnel and space for the "program agency" which has a series of deliverables to the state DOH, but the remsco only answers to NYS. Of the 30 voting board members only 2 work for DES.

The county established a local law to regulate taxi's and limos as allowable under county law. Taxi's are not regulated under this in the citys as they have there own TLC's. NYS county law does not give the counties the legal oversight of EMS unless they run EMS (Westchester does not, so everyone would have to agree. With the change of county executive, it is very unlikely we will see any move toward county EMS, since he promised a reduction in county government. Go back and read how bad those paramedics from the xyz company are.......nobody can do what we do...blah blah blah......not going to happen to many people think no one but there agency can do EMS, I dont see them woring together for anything.

State purchasing law requires bidding for purchasing, not for contracting of profesional services. That requires an RFP and the municipality can ask for a request for proposal and not advise everyone. They can also determine if a company is not or no longer qualified to put in an RFP (potentially if it feels it has not been performing). My understanding is that Empress did not have a contract in MV for many years (or if they did, it was only for 30 days, with constant renewals) This was reported to me by A MV official (do not know if its true or not). So the statement about MV government still hold: who gave any company: Abbey, AA, Abbey, Empress, Trnscare or MVFD the contract?

Sounds like you might have an agenda against transcare. It is very inapropriate to hint that Jim O'Conner has done anything wrong, unless you can state facts. Almost everything stated in this thread is a repeat of almost every statement made everytime a contract changes. I remember the same statements made when Empress got NR, MV, Yonkers. and when Abbey got the same ones. Reading the same from the Dutchess county changes to. Since this does not affect NR or WP and we both use Transcare (and I have heard no complaints) what makes you think they would even notice?

Through the generosity of The Terry Farrell Fire Fighters Fund, the New Rochelle Fire Department has placed in-service a new Dewatering Unit - "U-96". This utility carries multiple trash pumps, sump pumps, generator, and other tools for removing water from structure. We Thank the Farrell Fund and WE WILL NOT FORGET the sacrifice that Firefighter Terry Farrell made for this nation.

THe dewatering units are assigned to station #5 (Stratton Road). During normal requests, a firefighter from E-25 will operate it along with the 1st due engine or ladder. During major storms it is often manned with firefighters (2) who have been recalled to operate it.

Thanks Seth. You said it would be tought to beat E-25............I told you it was not going to be a problem. Also need to thank the crew at SVI & NEFEA they did a fantastic job.

Be on the lookout for R-4 on the highway. It left the plant this morning. The following pics were taken just prior to leaving.

Good eye, Wheeled Coach amb, converted to a dive rescue. WFD.

Thank You Don't assumue it does not have that....but of course we have not allowed that in many many years. We usually do not, just get it in-service. Let them see it at work.