Yorktown Heights FD Moves Forward With Kitchawan Station 3 Plans

[FF402 133]

NOTICE TO BIDDERS

Contract to Purchase a Steel and Metal Manufactured Building System

The Board of Fire Commissioners (“Board”) of the Yorktown Heights Fire

District (“YHFD”), pursuant to its unanimously approved motion made and entered at its

regularly scheduled monthly public meeting held on September 8, 2015 to go out to bid

to purchase the steel and such other metal and material as is required to construct a preengineered

or pre-fabricated metal building system, to be known and used as the

Kitchawan Fire and Rescue Station, invites submission of sealed bids for its purchase of

a pre-fabricated steel building

From: http://www.yorktownfire.org/content/notice/

[newsbuff 286]

More duplication of services! Gotta love it.

[BBBMF 158]

What a waste of money AND resources.

[dwcfireman 656]

Are they moving any resources from the other two houses to this new location, or are they going to buy more stuff to put in there?

And, is it really necessary to build a third station? Could this be better if it was a relocation of the second station?

[BBBMF 158]

Why not just use automatic mutual aid from Millwood?? Their substation is 1500 feet away with an engine, tanker, brush rig AND 4500 gallons of water.

[LineCapt 134]

Yorktown can't depend solely on Millwood to cover THEIR district.

[mfc2257 464]

Yorktown can't depend solely on Millwood to cover THEIR district.

No they can't. I don't think anyone is suggesting that they should. What has been suggested for years is a dual response by YHFD and MFC for the part of the YHFD south of the reservoir. The taxpayers should not suffer the unnecessary burden of purchasing this land, funding the construction of the building, maintenance, utilities and what eventually will lead to another apparatus purchase when there is a station from another fire district a mere foot stroll down the road. Subsequently, when a significant event occurs south of the reservoir, the aforementioned MFC substation will, based on history, be dispatched as a mutual aide company anyway. The fire district lines were drawn poorly many moons ago and frankly it makes zero sense for YHFD to have any response area south of the reservoir. The taxpayers of Yorktown Heights have rejected the construction of this station multiple times over the course of many years. The commissioners of the YHFD have, in plain sight, found a way to circumvent the will of the taxpayers by over funding other budgetary line items and then allocating those monies to the building fund as opposed to yielding to multiple rejections to referendum the taxpayers have already weighed in on. Finally, while I have no proof of it, logic would dictate that most citizens living south of the reservoir who are interested in being volunteer firefighters are most likely members of the MFC not YHFD. Therefor it would also make sense that the members of YHFD that are required to staff a full response crew for the apparatus housed in the new station will most likely respond from north of the reservoir where the lion-share of YHFD members reside. As a result, the benefit to those protected by the YHFD south of the reservoir is limited by the fact that the response of members is still coming from from north of the reservoir as it has for decades.

While it is probably easy to think that I'm ranting because I'm a former MFC member, but I have no skin in the game as I live in Florida now, and frankly even if I still lived in the district, the construction of this station doesn't affect MFC's response one bit. MFC never responded to routine calls in YHFD's territory south of the reservoir and I don't believe that YHFD would ever enter into a dual response relationship to do so anyway. MFC has always been a mutual aid company to YHFD's district south of the reservoir and frankly the addition of a single engine company in a sparsely populated area isn't going to eliminate the need to call MFC for mutual aid on larger calls. So for MFC nothing changes. But this rant isn't about MFC its about a poor stewardship of the people's money and the fact that the YHFD commissioners have chosen to brazenly ignore and circumvent the wishes of the people who elected them in the first place. What ever happened to the "consent of the governed?"

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

What ever happened to the "consent of the governed?"

The governed gave their consent by only voting on the referendum and not voting for the commissioners that support their opposition.

IMHO the taxpayers of the YHFD are getting what they deserve. Being screwed out of their own tax $ by the YHFD fire district.

[mfc2257 464]

Great point. And much shorter than my rant.

Doesn't make it right though. This is the problem with government spending in our country. The federal government isn't the only government wasting our money!!! It's on our doorstep!!!

[Morningjoe 162]

Why not just use automatic mutual aid from Millwood?? Their substation is 1500 feet away with an engine, tanker, brush rig AND 4500 gallons of water.

Since the Taconic Parkway closure in 2012, where the NB lanes were shut down, Millwood FD has been on a dual, automatic dispatch for any possible structure fire on the south end of the Reservoir with YHFD. They still operate under this.

[Dinosaur 844]

The governed gave their consent by only voting on the referendum and not voting for the commissioners that support their opposition.

IMHO the taxpayers of the YHFD are getting what they deserve. Being screwed out of their own tax $ by the YHFD fire district.

If the taxpayers voted "NO" it shouldn't matter who is in the commissioner's seat, should it?

Just out of curiosity, were there any anti-station 3 candidates for the board of fire commissioners? Makes it hard to do what you suggest when all the candidates are pro- and you're against. It leaves you with no option other than voting down the referendum.

[BBBMF 158]

I am not saying they should rely solely on Millwood for fire protection. I am stating the fact that resources are not being properly used. There isn't a single reason to build an additional substation when there is a firehouse up the block. God forbid someone misses pulling into a job first due and has to give it up to another rig from another department.

[mikeinet 37]

I'd think there's a little more to it than just "let millwood respond" -- don't forget, this is district lines... so the concept of "let millwood first respond" is also "let millwood auto dual-respond/first respond for us for free"

I think the RIGHT strategy would be to look at the fire district lines and understand what makes sense and where the best coverage can be provided - not just keeping existing lines and buildling up to support an imginary line in the ground

And it goes both ways - maybe there's areas where YFD is faster than MFD (and there are)

The above is a "big picture" statement though and holistically looking at things...but why would we bother to do that