Beekman

Pojo's 2nd Fire District story in a week and oh what is next Tuesday (14th)? Didn't we play this same game last year around this time?

$3500 to draw up a map and plan???? How about having the Pleasant Valley Fire District assume the contract since they are Pleasant Valley's experts when it comes to Fire and EMS in Pleasant Valley?

The law prohibiting Fire Districts from contracting with an ambulance company was repealed several years ago. The NYS Association of Fire Districts attorney can cite the exact section. Beekman had to verify the change when the contract was transferred from the Town of Beekman to the Beekman Fire District. Union Vale Fire District was one of the first to contract directly with the EMS provider. I heard several other in Dutchess County are considering the same when the contracts get ready to expire.

Beekman Fire does. Some were past Interiors or Exteriors and then we have some who retired, joined BFD and just wanted to give back to their community and help out.

Check out Beekman's 34-61 and definitely Wassaic's new rig Wassaic

I give Mohegan VAC tremendous credit. To go from 100% volunteer to having a paid crew is a huge step that most departments won't take even though they need to. Regarding the employees vs contractors, consider this. Someone from Mohegan VAC just pays a bill (if there is one) once a month to Empress and then the Chief/Captain handles any issues that may come up. If you direct hire employees, you have a fixed number of employees, whereas Empress can pull any of their employees to fill in shifts at Mohegan VAC and you are also not dealing with the whole human resources aspect of the paid crews (vacation and sick coverage, benefits, training, certifications, terminations, hirings, physicals, immunizations, etc.) Beekman pays a bill once a month and TransCare handles everything else. I don't need any more headaches and I'm sure Mohegan VAC doesn't either.

As a Chief's Council meeting attendee, and nothing more, I haven't heard any discussions about "Unable to Assemble" or 3rd dispatches or mutual aid abuse at the meetings but there appears to be a willingness to start tackling some of the issues that have plagued the Departments at the Chiefs Council level.

60 Control to Croton Command...what's your pleasure?

In Dutchess County, the Dutchess County Chiefs Council sets the policies for the Departments to follow i.e. Radio Plan, Acceptable 6 o'clock announcements, etc. Couldn't this be done in Westchester? Dutchess also has timers for all dispatched resources including FAST. 5 minutes until 2nd dispatch/retone, then another 3 minutes until 3rd in which it should go mutual aid or to another department.

Several of the new homes I've inspected in the past six months have buried 1000 gallon propane tanks as well as, get this, two furnaces. The second furnace is hidden in the attic. It's the latest fad in home building.

Fire Company pays for everything including shoes. The Fire Company gets the funds from the 2% and donation, not taxes. Unfortunately I wear my uniform to more funerals than parades.

From the 14th round of 2009 AFG grants.....so now they are a Fire Department and have to comply with OSHA and PESH?

I don't believe it has to do with Departments that "deny" their older members participation in LOSAP but it's part of the program that the residents vote for/against. When Beekman's program was approved by the voters in 1999, the cash out age is 62. The question that Beekman has asked, and I couldn't tell you who they asked, was "do the voters need to approve raising the age for LOSAP?" The answers they got were "yes" and they didn't want to risk losing everything entirely with this economy.

There was an article on another website about ignoring comments made on these newspaper websites as the posts are "anonymous" and people will post things they would never say in person nor would they post if their identity was known. One would wonder why the papers still allow "anonymous" comments but the more controversial a story becomes, the more "hits" the website gets and the greater the advertising revenue. Paid, combo, volunteer, whatever.....there is always someone out there who hates us and has an axe to grind. Ignore them. Beekman Fire will have the honor of protecting Roosevelt while they mourn the loss of their brother. R.I.P. Captain http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/2007/03/the-great-newspaper-comments-d.html

So here's a question....how long do you keep the completed truck check sheets?