Bnechis

The law does not allow for us to demand (only inform). All developers (even for very small projects) are required to produce a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) which must cover all impacts, including the impacts on public safety. The FD and other agencies are suppose to add there comments. Then after a public hearing or hearings a final environmental impact statement is produced and the lead agency (usually city council or other appointed body like an IDA) must determine if the project has a negative impact and how it should be addressed. The impact can be on a municipal service or a reduction of service to existing properties. But if they say no impact or minimal impact the FD must live with it.

So much for the camera program that many EMS agencies got into because the MD's wanted to see pic's of the mechanism of injury and potentially see the patients conditions during extrication.

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But I thought the main argument from the volunteer fire service has been "we do the same job for free"? Since most are not "fire-related" why send firefighters then? Does FDNY require all of its firefighters to meet the same standard? YES. Are some working in lower Manhattan or other built up areas where they run 1,000 of calls and may have to climb, but others are working on city Island doing 150 calls per year and nothing bigger than 2 stories (well maybe 3). But they maintain the same requirements. FDNY rotates and rehabs its members more than any other department because it is the right thing to do and because they can. Most small departments do not have the luxury to call for another 50-100 firefighters at a time. Also FDNY puts more firefighters on a hoseline than many depts can muster for a call. So the physical needs in a small dept may be greater (assuming the member actually is doing the job and is not just a lawn ornament). While there maybe different community needs, a house fire is a house fire and that 60 hours vs. 600 hours can not be considered a small difference, particularly in combo depts with members responding to the same call on the same rig.

Yes, 1 on day 1 and a different 1 on day 2. They are only used to set up the cars, the class does not use them.

Yes it maybe legal. Is it ethical, ir it right........ My understand of the pension is you ae determined to be disabled by the state doctors on the day you are disabled. After that if you recovered its to late to change your status in the pension. Now part of the disability pay comes form the employeer and they do have some say if you are "working" a new job and can and have revoked the municipalities portion of the disability payment.

The doors are high enough for the ladder, but still well below the 14' high standard. The look was more important than the function. At some point in the future they will pay for that.

Great offer thanks Everyone needs to remember that an excerise is not the 1st step. I have seen many agencies try to hold an MCI drill and they fall flat on their face, because the members have not 1st trained in triage, ICS and MCI managment. Start small, if you cant handle a drill with 4 patients in a 2 car MVA, dont try for 30 in a school bus. Work up to it.

Same for the career depts in Westchester. We meet every month or two and have worked most issues out.

We now have a good radio system for interoperability in EMS. THe issue is not the radios, long before we had radios we would do a face to face com. to transfer info to manage MCIs. if you dont know how to run an MCI, & you cant communicate what is needed face to face (in a class room or drill) the best radios in the world will not help. I wish I knew why EMS agencies do not participate. Only the state could make it mandatory and I see no move to do that.

Thank you Not true. While it is true that you can not have county run fire because of home rule. There is no requirement for EMS in NYS County, City, Town or village law. Since it is not mandated or for that matter even mentioned its not part of NYS municipal laws. Article 30 does not require EMS, only that once you provided it you must follow rules. Counties can and do hold CON's for ambulance service. But you are correct NYCRR needs fixing.

It will destroy all services in every community. The smaller the community and the smaller its budget base the worst they will get hit. The Gov. wants this to reduce the overall property tax load, but the schools which take up 60%-80% of the local property tax will see the lowest effect. Schools will cut afterschool programs, sports and music/art and bussing which affect students and in many communities will place additional burdens on police. In the villages they will have to cut something, what do you cut the police dept that runs 1 officer on the desk, 2 on the road and a sgt or the VFD (or combo dept with 3 FF's on duty) or do you cut the 6 man highway dept and stop collecting garbage. Special districts like Fire Districts get hurt the worst. I looked at the calculations for a couple of small VFD's and a couple of small tomedium size combo depts and they are in real danger if this happens. In the combo depts. they will need to reduce the minimum manning by 1 position every year until the cap is lifted. So if the dept is running with 10 onduty this year, next year its 9, the year after its 8 and so on. In one small VFD with an annual budget of less than $850,000 they will not be able to meet the certiorari and the bond obligation. If the town has not done a recent reassesment (which can cost millions) the FD has to give back more money than the tax cap allows them to compensate for. In addition state law requires that the 1st thing after certiorari that is paid are bonds. In one dept the only way to pay the bonds for firehouse reconstruction and a new engine (that the voters approved) is to sell the engine. What the gov. fails to acknowledge is what is the cost of cutting. In addition to the loss of service. Insurance rates will go up, and other services will be dropped requiring the use of fee's or privatization to offset any savings. In New Rochelle we had a state mandated tax cap for 15 years (starting in the early 1990's) and the only way to save services was the city added a household garbage fee. So everyones taxes dropped by $250 but you paid a $250 fee that is not tax deductable on state and federal income tax. so you paid the same amount for the service, but got taxed on the fee. The city also considered closing a fire station and laying off 16 ff's to save $1m but that would raise insurance premiums by $12m. The other thing the tax cap does is it destroys the communities bond rating, which means the interest rate goes up on its bonds and may prevent it from getting loans for capital improvements. After 15 years of not doing capital projects due to a tax cap, NR found itself needing $200 million in infrastructure work, including storm and sanitary line replacement, road replacement, fire station replacement, apparatus replacement, snow removal equipment, roof work on many city buildings, etc. Myself and some others have been warning that this was comming (it is included in the consolidation plan for the career depts written in 2009) and it would wipe out depts. Consolidation will help and if you look carefully at what has gone on in Calif. since prop 13 (property tax cap) was passed many depts have merged or establised joint authorities. We truly need to change the way we do things in NYS, but this is not the way to do it. The newly increased hydrant fee's that NYS has allowed united water to charge New Rochelle, Eastchester, Pelham, Pelham Manor, and greenburgh (including some if not all of the villages) is more than the tax cap, so we will all need to cut emergency services to pay for fire hydrants. The tax cap will force consolidation, because many FD's , and PD's are going to be elliminated due to lack of funds.

2007/8 and no revisions were made at that time. It is currently under review with major updates particularly in communications and ICS sections. The leaders signed off on it. I do not if they disseminated it, you need to ask them. The same is true for NYC, one heck of a day and they are clearly light years ahead of Westchester. The county Trunked Radio has worked very well for EMS interoperable communications. They were. The biggest problem is an almost total lack of participation in EMS planning and MCI training. I have said this many times, 99% of the providers & leaders have never participated in either.

The New Rochelle Uniformed Fire Fighters Association (UFFA) Local 273 sponsors an annual car show each fall. It is held at Glen Island Park in New Rochelle. Last year over 250 classic cars and trucks were displayed, including 2 antique fire engines. This year as part of the New Rochelle Fire Departments 150th Anniversary we are looking to expand the show with a new category for antique fire apparatus (and other emergency vehicles). I am requesting any individuals, agencies or groups that would be interested in showing their antique apparatus (and competing in a newly formed apparatus award section) please contact me. In addition anyone who has contact with those individuals, agencies or groups please let them know about this and if you can forward contact info I would appreciate it.

NY Daily News

FDNY Accountability Board (prototype) NRFD EMS & Fire Command Boards NRFD Fire Command Board has 2 mobile radios (fire ground & dispatch) area for documenting unit location in a multi story structure Fire Command Board shows radio speakers, incident timer & clock, light & radio power on buttons and internal/external antenna switch ( a remote antenna or our highrise leaky cable can be attached to one of the radios. Fire Command Board shows unit accountability list just out of view are checklist & hi-rise info. EMS Command Board shows trunk radio (EMS & hospitals) out of view is 2nd radio for fireground or dispatch Hospital Bed Status and Accounting of # of patients sent to each (by triage catagory) Unit Tracking (Staging, Triage, Treatment, Transport)

While they do not generally respond to EMS calls the wholetimers are trained to the EMT level. While they are not called EMT's they use the BRADY Basic EMT textbook in the fire acadamy. I watched a training scenario at the Morton-in-Marsh Fire College where a pump crew (engine company) responded to an MVA and they extricated the patient including placing the patient in a KED and onto a long board. They performed this well enough that all members would have easily passed that station in a NYS EMT class.

This all depends on the IBM facility. I was contracted to provide training to IBM EC (emergency control) annually for over 15 years. IBM's EC employee's were full time firefighters/EMT's and we trained at the Poughkepsie, East Fishkill, Kingston, Yorktown and Endicot. The training included confined space rescue, firefighting, and hazmat technician. Depending on the IBM location, they operated 2 engines (1 was a foam unit), 1 medium rescue, 1 hazmat unit, 1 hazmat trailer, 1 mini attack and a BLS ambulance.

If they want to maintain the points...yes. At the same time I suggest they look at the policy on when it is used. ISO does not require it for all calls (or any for that matter) as long as its periodically tested and can be used as a backup if the primary system fails.

The town is 56 square miles. as a comparison it is the size of Somers and Yorktown combined (2-3 FD's). With a population about the same as New Rochelle (1 FD).

ISO does not accept cell phone text messages as a notification. I have recieved notifications long after I was on-scene.

Are you sure it was "at the FD's request"? or was it the mayor, manager, or board wanted more productivity and this was a way for them to provide "more" service for little or no additional funds? In many cases it is now contractual and one can not just "get yourselves deleted from the response". This is like saying you can un ring a bell. The Fire Service not only complains about many of these alarms, particularly steam from the shower (poor detector location), malfunction of alarm and set off by workers, in most communities we have fought for ordenences to fine property owners and often on a high sliding scale so repeat alarms will result very high fines, which will encourage repairing or replacing faulty alarm systems. Thats not completely true. While we have determined how many apparatus we will send to an EMS call. We have made multiple requests to use EMD to screen calls and reduce the number of apparatus that is sent. 60 Control has advised us that they can only use the EMD protocols when they can screen the caller and that in most cases they only get a 9-1-1 transfer in 20-30% of the calls. This means that in 70-80% of the calls we have no decision, since 60 control will be dispatching us. I have also gotten requests to not do all that ALS stuff and just drive fast to the Hospital, or I dont want to go to the trauma center I want to go to the hospital that my cardiologest is located, or "its just a little fire can you only send 1 fireman in a pick-up. That does not make the citizens request correct. Why are you recieving calls from a neighboring community? I would assume you correctly referred they to the proper agency. We have also run into this in a number of cases when the home owner refuses to acknowledge that they actually live in the city of X not the village of y. Years ago I remember a 2nd alarm fire in a residential home that was clearly in my city and the community was outraged that our FD was fighting this fire and why wasent the village FD here. Even after they admitted that they pay 100% of the property tax to our city, they still claimed they lived in the village next door. 1st - Is it really the noise issue? In many cases "Skilled Nursing Facilities" (a poor choice of words) has a financial interest in freeing up beds and turning over patients as many have paid a large upfront fee and then use medicare for "maintenance". 2nd - Over the years we have gone round and round with our "Skilled Nursing Facilities" about this and found they often use 9-1-1 for direct admits when it suited it and other times they would call for a commercial tx unit for a chest pain. I find the argument of what they vs. what is in the best interest of thier patients and the community at large is the real issue here. The issue in Boston was a poor maintenance program, not that they had been on an EMS call. That riging and almost the whole fleet had unsafe breaks and a crash was coming. The same could be said for some of the EMS providers who really want to get out of EMS and can not. I would appreciate not having to deal with the issues that come up in those cases. I would also appreciate for EMS providers to stop cancelling other resources when the patient would benefit from the additional help, particularly if the reason for the cancel is we want to "be nice" to the FD/PD etc.

There is a lot more to this story than is being listed here. No mention of the fact that in January this mayor suggested closing the only firehouse to reduce overtime costs. When questioned about who would provide fire protection he he suggested maybe they could merge the fire dept. but its unclear if anyone wants to merge. Also this is not just reponding to EMS calls as a 1st response. The plan is to get rid of the FD ambulance. For such a major change, the mayor has yet to tell the public who will take over this service and what it will cost.

Ok, so I want to buy a Ford, Should I go to the local dealer, pick it out and pay what they ask? Or if I really like that Ford check 2 or 3 dealers and see if one will charge $20,000 while another is $23,000? I have seen depts that bid a truck knowing that they want X and the pratically write X (the best was one spec that said what town the factory had to be in). I have witnessed dealers showing up to a bid opening with 2 bids, waiting till the last minute to find out if anyone has bid and if it turns out that no other bid was recieved they hand in the more expesive "sole" bid. In one cast I know it drove the price up by $60,000. Having a legitmate spec and bid process creates compatition for your contract. You can still get what you want. But everyone sharpens their pencil.

You do not have to re-bid it, however when the state comptrolers office audits you, you have to have substantial documentation justifying your actions and if there was a reason for only 1 bid and why it was acceepted. I.e. the bid required the ladder to be no taller than a local bridge or the fire house and only 1 brand currently meets that.