AFS1970

He is not changing his tune at all. This new force will likely be the ones charged with coming into your home and taking away your guns. Remember what the last civilized nation to disarm it's populace was.....that's right Nazi Germany.

Perhaps a way to standardize such requirements but still allow a touch of home rule would be to make them modular by function provided. A single engine department that does not do extrication or haz mat, might not need more than a basic level in those areas, so have some additional criteria for the specialties, that can be added on as needed. That way an officer does not need to be an EMT if the department does not do EMS, but he needs to be familiar with how EMS works. The core subject would of course be the same for everyone, with the specialties either addign more hours or being able to replace some electives out of the basic areas.

I remember reading during my Officer 1 class about a CT state law that says if you are a member of 1 VFD, and you work in another VFD's district and can respond during the day, you can not be turned down for membership based solely on your 1st membership. Now I do not know all the background on this law, but I would be willing to bet it was in response to departments having rules that did not allow dual memberships at all. This is not just a union issue, although that is where all the current press directs attention. So I can't see how the IAFC position will help a member challenge the IAFF rules, simply because they have no real effect on each other. Neitherone is a member of the other and neither one has any oversight of the other. This is a classic case of needing to agree to disagree. The IAFC even says it recognizes other organizations rights to make such rules. I still stand on the fact that this was a meaningless resolution passed too late to be of much use. Any remedy (if indeed such remedy is even being sought) will have to be in the form of a law, but most legislative bodies are very reluctant to pass laws requiring private membership organizations to have or not have certain rules and for good historical reason too.

I also favor requirements where classes like Officer 1 & 2 meet the requirements but are not the only way to meet them, a couple of examples that bring this to mind are: A class like that HazMat 1 that was mentioned. IF you have a rule that mentions it by title and the class is discontinued or changed then you may have a goal that can not be reached. If there is a newer class that meets the requirements then it should absolutely be allowed to meet the requirements. There are college level classes being offered in CT that are identical to classes like Instructor 1 or Officer 1 but do not have those titles. The state even recognizes the right to challenge an exam based on those classes. Why can't they be used to meet an internal department standard? I know a past Assistant Chief from a neighboring department, who owned or managed businesses for all his adult life. He felt taking Fire Officer 1 was unnecessary for him, as he was already a supervisor and manager and already worked with budgets and human resources. Right or wrong, agree or disagree, he did have a point. If he could document relevant training, why not let it meet these requirements? How about all these seminars that we love to host or go to. Many are put on by well known and well respected lecturers in the fire service. Most dwell on strategy and tactics for specific types of calls or buildings. These often contain more relevant information than all the textbooks you can stack up. These should definitely be allowed to meet requirements.

Was the voter intimidation in Philadelphia a sign of how the new National Defense Force will work?

This is veering slightly away from officer stuff, but in the last FF1 that we ran in Belltown, we included a 1 day introduction to RIT (FAST) class. This was by no means an all inclusive class and there was nothing on it included in the state test. We felt it was important to add this because, like it or not, any of us could be assigned as a RIT at any time. Very few departments have the luxury of a specialized RIT/FAST. Oddly enough, out of that Intro to RIT class we realized a need to work on a version that is more officer specific and are adapting it now.

Yes and ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN are the same for the Democrats, so no matter how much Fox says they can never achieve a balanced media. Change will be all you have left in your pocket once he declares everyone who works to be officially rich and therefore subject to his new redistribution of wealth program. But hey, if you like standing on line at the government store for coffee only to discover you are on the shoe line, and then you take the shoes even though they are the wrong size simply because you don't know the next time shoes will be avalible, then that's fine for you I guess. Time and time again it has been proven that socialism does not work.

Wow, is it even possible to hijack your own thread? I think the idea of a test coming from outside the department is interesting, as it comes the closest to being honest one can get, however this would not be without expense. In this day and age with everything costing more and budgets diminishing (more for some of us than others) can most VFD's really afford to buy a test from a private source? Now having a state academy make this up is also an option, but their banks of questions are generally based on the various certification tests they have on hand. While some of the material is bound to be the same, there are a few problems with just using a set of FO1 or FO2 questions. Unfair advantage to the certified candidates is one and as I have said I firmly believe that we need to be able to balance the certifications with other factors. I think it is interesting that some of us don't want a written test in the process and others do not want an election in the process. I am also a firm believer that these two methods can compliment each other if used correctly.

Electing officers is not only a hallmark of tradition, it serves two important functions. First of all it provides a regular vote of confidence in the officers. Can everyone who is in a department that appoints their officers for ever truly say that they have the best officers or that they are confident in their Chief? The second important factor is that it allows for a larger cross section to be involved in the selection process. How is having a handful of elected (or worse, appointed) commissioners select a Chief any better than having the membership do so? The key is, as Cogs has said having qualifications in place to ensure that the choice is made only from the best candidates. I would actually be in favor of a system that ranks the candidates on a variety of factors and then allows nominations only from a small group, say the top 5 or so. The factors I personally would like to see would not only include certification, but also seniority, as there are some very good Chiefs out there that predate all these little pieces of paper that some of us chase after. I think a time in rank factor could also be used, where time as an officer might be worth extra points. Of course like I have said many times before, whatever qualifications you put in must be realistic. Any class that a department requires must be accessible to the membership in a reasonable location. Simply being told to check the state calendar and travel 90 or more miles away several nights a week, is unreasonable for most people. I also am much more in favor of a system that requires courses in a given subject matter not a specific certification title. There are many classes out there about strategy & tactics, or personnel management that are not academy certifications. There are college courses out there that lead to a degree but not an academy certification. All of these need to be taken into consideration. I too have seen departments that have subtracted requirements, and while it is not always advisable, it may be because of the nature of the requirements. If you have something as a requirement and it causes you to only have a single candidate, and that candidate is not a good officer, how have your requirements really helped the situation? Especially if the requirement was put in place years ago because only a select few held it in the first place. This is not the case in every department but it is in some. There are also classes that are no longer offered. Officer requirements do need to be dynamic.

Is there any real reason why our states restrict the different colors by function? Think about Blue and Green, does it really matter if it is a Volunteer Firefighter or EMT? Are not both going on Emergency Calls? Despite both Police Cars and Fire Apparatus having red lights, red is one of the least visible in the spectrum. Other than retaining a historical identity that can be done by other methods do these colors serve any real purpose? Now I am not usually one to rave about how things are done in other countries but I have noticed that in msot if not all of Europe all agencies use Blue lights and noone seems to get confused between the police, fire and ambulance agencies and they pull over for everyone.

No extra hour of drinking here in CT, although we get many calls from the bars asking this question. There is usually a memo out from the state on this. Since bars here close at 2:00 I believe the theory is that it actually does become 2:00 then switches back to 1:00. In practive I have watched the clocks on our computers change as well as the cable box at home, and they all go from 1:59 to 1:00. I guess since the change is still a couple of hours away from 4:00 NY does get the bonus time.

We also get the hour of Overtime. In the springtime we get the 8 for 7, but it is rare that the same group is working for both. The 8 for 7 is really more for making the hourly rate compute right. Not all Government employees are exempt from FLSA, so you might want to research that.

I hate to be the cynical one about something that has obvious benefits to the Volunteer Fire Service, but upon reading the whole article a couple of things popped out at me. The IAFC has never before taken a strong stance one way or the other on this issue. This in and of itself is kind of strange because this is a hot button topic in the fire service, and I would assume that a Chief's organization would have some type of an opinion on it. Then it says that in the DC case, two VCOS Board Members were among those charged, so it became personal for the VCOS to take up the issue. I am glad they did, but I think the motivation should have been there regardless of who was involved. This position comes out now in 2008, after such restrictions are disallowed in programs such as the FIREAct grants and after some states have already addressed the issue legally. This is kind of nothing more than feel good legislation, basically saying the agree with what is already in place. 10 (or even 5) years ago this position would have been groundbreaking. Will it help things? Probably in the long run, but I think any department that was waiting on the IAFC ruling to make their policy was probably missing the boat. Oh and as for other dangerous outside employment, I suppose that someday those may become issues for pension boards to deal with. This issue with Firefighting is probably that a) it is much more dangerous than those other jobs so the injuries are, at least in theory, much more serious and since the fire does not know if you are getting paid or not, it might be hard to determine what fire a long term injury was sustained at. Perhaps the answer to the pension issue is a statewide firefighters pension plan, with VFD's also required to pay into it, and prorated pensions for Volunteers like some places do for permanent part time employees. That way both Town B and City A have to bear some of the responsibility, and anyone who can make the commitment to two departments can earn a little bit more in their pension. Seems like a win/win for the fire service.

Ghostbusters 4? What happened to 3? Seriously an movie about old Ghostbusters, that should be about as great as most sequels tend to be.

I agree there should be charges in this case, but there will not be. This is because the liberals will scream that this is the reason that all guns should be banned, and the conservatives will respond that such protests are exactly why they should not be banned, and in all the political crap from both sides, the actual incident will be more or less forgotten. When it comes time to look at charges, everyone will gush with misplaced sympathy for the father who tragically lost his son, and say he has been punished enough. He has not. I am a strong advocate of private gun ownership and think we have too many gun laws as it is. But what really gets me is the lack of enforcement which turns those gun laws into a joke. If we as a society make an example of this man for his bad parenting, maybe it will keep the next jerk from handing a child an Uzi and possibly save a life. As for this Instructor, perhaps his certification should be at stake. There is a huge difference between teaching children about gun safety and letting them fire a weapon. Why should someone who obviously doesn't grasp range safety be allowed to teach anyone anything about guns?

I know, it is the day before the new batch of Samichlaus is released for public consumption? Samichlaus And I can't think of a better way to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition than with a nice bottle of the above.

Gut reaction is charge the line at the front door. First and foremost this is to ensure that you have water. Second even if you are not at the seat of the fire, you are probably protecting a means of egress while you get there. The only qualifier I would put into place is that smoke/fire conditions will dictate allot of what you do, but being in a burning building with an uncharged line under most circumstances sounds like a bad idea.

This is frightening to see that someone actually studied this. Valid or not, why would you even think to try?

There is a BIG difference between one emergency crew moving another crews vehicle because it is blocking operations and some citizen moving an emergency vehicle because it is inconvenient for him.

As far as I know Long Ridge has not canceled Automatic Aid from Banksville (The merger thread info was about Long Ridge canceling Automatic Aid from Turn of River). There are only a few streets that Banksville comes in on that are in the Taconic Rd area, and there are not that many calls there. Taconic Rd crosses the Greenwich - Stamford Border and Stamford units have to go into Greenwich to get tot he section that is in Stamford. The route to get to Taconic Rd is not an easy one, this is why Banksville has always been called. We call directly to 60 Control for this response, so I don't even know if Greenwich FD is even aware of the calls. For EMS calls in that area we call for a dual response from Greenwich EMS along with Stamford EMS. This area has allot of M/A arrangements like this due to the lack of good East/West roads. Long Ridge has about 15 or 20 streets they are first due on in Pound Ridge, NY for the same reason.

This brings up the related topic that is a pet peeve of mine, why do Fire Departments let in members for any reason that are not firefighters? I know all the arguments, this guy is an accountant and can do our books, this one is a mechanic and can fix the trucks, but then it quickly devolves into this one is a friend of so and so, and that one is somebody's cousins best friends coworker. a** that to the Veterans and Exempt members who have put in their time but now want to retire, and you have the potential for this scenario we are all reading about in PA, where the non active members outnumber the active ones. What can the 6% really do against the other 94% in a vaguely democratic meeting?

Either donate or don't donate, that is a personal choice each of us will have to make more than once. But I am offended by the way this thread is leading, for one reason: If this were a 10-13 party for a Police Officer, Firefighter, EMT or other field personnel there would likely be no debate held, the brothers would do what they always do and step up to the plate. This thread is about helping out dispatchers, who are often the red headed step children of the Emergency Services anyway, and all of a sudden we are enabling them because they live in a flood prone area, that they probably grew up in?

Does anyone know the actual definition of Federal Aid Highway? Would US1, for instance be considered? How about State Routes, which probably every town has a few of? I realize that the proposed changes will likely make this a moot point, but it would be good to know. I do agree that one should probably err on the side of caution and just wear the vest on all traffic incidents.

This is actually a raise in the rate that is allowed for volunteer activities. But I agree that making it a law in this way will jsut cause problems since the rest of the rates are set by the IRS in their administrative law. It would seem to me that while this will make some folks feel good, it will eventually be a lesser rate once again. I also wonder how much of a benefit this will be. We have had a bunch f threads on here about the various incentive programs and if they really help to recruit or retain volunteers, is this rate just another one of those well intentioned but rarely used plans? How many EMTBravo members currently deduct volunteer miles on their taxes?

Get Well Soon, Doc