Village Of Port Chester Disbands Career FD

[lemonice 6]

34 minutes ago, PCFD ENG58 said:

As a member of local 1971 [ retired ]   and a 44 year member of the PCFD . It's not about the firefighters it's about the community

 

Why is this not about the firefighters also? People have lost their jobs. You seem to have forgotten where you came from and that is sad.

[Dinosaur 844]

11 hours ago, soccers22 said:

I Guess I'm wrong I was under the impression that is federal law to provide Police and Fire Service. EMS is optional 

 

State laws.  There are no federal laws requiring local fire/police/EMS. 

 

 

[Dinosaur 844]

Is this purely a financial issue?  The village is looking to save 600K?
 

[PCFD ENG58 1,085]

Don't worry about where I came from , NOBODY AND I MEAN NOBODY  spoke to the board about the jobs but firefighters . The pubic does not care about the jobs and that is my point , all they care about is tax's going up and that's what I meant by not to focus  on the guys because they [ pubic don't care ] about  the guy's

 

[mfc2257 464]

1 hour ago, lemonice said:

 

Why is this not about the firefighters also? People have lost their jobs. You seem to have forgotten where you came from and that is sad.

I wouldn't be calling PCFD ENG58 out over anything that is taken out of context on this site.  The guy devoted his whole life to the PCFD both with and without a paycheck.

[Frank1381 5]

What a political manuver done with the guise of saving tax payers money.  The reality is once the residential and commercial fire insureance rates go up and the ISO rating drops as a result of going from a paid Department to a all volunteer one, businesses and residents of Port Chester and Rye Brook are, on the whole, going to be paying more out of pocket anyway.  The only difference is instead of the town receiving the money in the form of taxes the insurance companies will receive it in the form of increased premiums, and the lives and property of both jurisdictions will be less safe because of it.

[firecapt32 282]

lets look at this another way  all the career  firefighters in Port Chester are National certified firefighters one and two.  they should have been doing their "in service" training of 100 hours every year. All of them  have  well over 400 hours of initial training from the career fire academy. from FF1-FF-2 -codes -haz mat- FF survival- rescue tech  EVOC - ladder ops --eng ops. ect.

 

that  my  fellow firefighter  friends means  you are well trained  and certified by not only the State of New York but Nationally.

 

This may be a blanket kind of statement--I am sure there are exceptions  but here I go adding my  2 cents    how well trained are the volunteers in Port Chester?  don't  jump  down my  throat  if you have facts please   air them  out.  I am asking-  not criticizing.   I gave facts about the career staff.  Do the Chiefs have any Officer creditable courses??   how many interior firefighters  complete with new York state Firefighter one and or Firefighter two do they have??  maybe the departments  that call upon Port Chester should take a closer look.  again  my opinion.

[Jybehofd 85]

how does the mayor and trustees have control over something like this?  shouldn't it be controlled by the board of fire commisioners?  what if the tables were turned and they laid off cops?   i can understand cutting a budget but completely getting rid of a fill in for a fire service....  seems like a knee jerk reactions and they also cut there nose despite their face.   should be intresting in the future and what the courts decide on this one.  

[RITRobotoX 29]

^^^I believe that Port Chester FD is a village municipal fire department and not a fire district. Thus there are no fire commissioners, only the village board of trustees. We have the same setup in Croton-on-Hudson, just on a smaller scale with no career FFs yet. 

It's a system that has pros and cons over a fire district. There's generally more local accountability and oversight of a municipal department than a district. However, it means that less knowledgeable politicians are making the budget priorities. Back in the day, the volunteer membership was a huge voting bloc, so the FD was taken care of. Recently, not so much.

[Bnechis 3,961]

7 hours ago, Dinosaur said:

Is this purely a financial issue?  The village is looking to save 600K?
 

It is clearly not a financial issue. Watch the village board meeting on their website.

 

1) they state they want to add cops

2) they state they failed to pass the tax cap override 30 days prior (as required by law)

3) they stated they can only add cops if they cut the budget elsewhere (since they can't legally raise taxes)

4) they started with a number of cuts, including the $600,000 in salary/benefits for the career firefighters 

 

now here is is the kicker.......

 

5) they included dropping the Rye Brook "payment" (with no explanation). This payment is approximately $1,000,000 for fire protection.

 

So how many cops can they hire with this math? $600,000 - $1,000,000 = negative $400,000. In other words, the village will have to come up with an additional $400,000 to fund the FD. 

[Disaster_Guy 96]

Port Chester government press release in regards: http://www.portchesterny.com/Pages/PortChesterNY_News/023CF0E6-000F8513

Also, the Local has set up a new Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/PortChesterProFire/

[Bnechis 3,961]

#RyeBrook Mayor Paul Rosenberg responds regarding elimination of paid #PortChester firefighters. 

"To my Rye Brook Friends and Neighbors:

I want to bring you up as to date with a very important issue which has arisen in in the past 24 hours.  A shared fire services contract with the Village of Port Chester requires them to staff the Rye Brook firehouse with one “career” firefighter from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM daily.  In the event of a fire, they would respond together with numerous Port Chester volunteer firefighters.  

Last evening, as part of its budget adoption, the Port Chester Board of Trustees voted to remove the “career” firefighters from their budget, moving to an all-volunteer fire department.  When that happened, Port Chester put all “career” firefighters on leave, including the firefighter who was staffing the Rye Brook firehouse.  At that point, we made the decision to staff the Rye Brook firehouse overnight with Rye Brook Fire Department personnel.  

Despite Port Chester’s breach of contract, the Village of Rye Brook will ensure that the Rye Brook firehouse will be staffed around the clock while we consider all of our legal options.  As in the past, the Port Chester volunteers will continue to respond.

Please be assured that the safety of our residents is of paramount concern to us, and we taking every step to protect your safety. 

I will continue to keep you informed as events warrant."

[kinkchaser 352]

Port Chester has had an amazing turn around in their downtown region, bars, resturants ,big box stores. rejuvenated Capital Theater, plus a multi screen movie complex. All this spells a lot of people coming to the Village, it has become a destination. Thus it is Port Chester's responsibility to protect these people not put them in peril.

 Remember a generation ago Port Chester suffered a huge loss of life in the Gulliver's fire, one of Westchester's worst public assembly disasters and that was when the Village had a small percentage of the gathering places they have now. 

 With crowed venues and a depleted Fire Department another Gulliver's is lurking.

 

 

[LTFIREPRG 154]

The tax payers will not see a penny of savings.  This was not a cost cutting measure but a way to fund additional positions and raises without going over the tax cap and doing so at the cost of the 8 firefighters and their families. 

[Chkpoint 131]

This is very tragic.  The PC local needs everyone's support.  What is being done to get these guys some income once May 31st comes?  Any type of fundraiser? 10-13 type.  Sounds like some these guys have families to feed.  

[nfd2004 750]

Of course I find this unbelievable of how a place like Port Chester, NY could eliminate its skeleton crew of firefighters. I find this very hard to believe because in this day and age, we all know it is a national trend that the volunteer fire service is NOT attracting the numbers like it used to. That is a sad fact, but with todays economy that is a fact of reality.

 

I live in the eastern half of Connecticut. It is an area of mostly rural towns but with two or three smaller cities. Many of those surrounding towns have been forced to hire some type of fire fighters due to the fact that those volunteer numbers are dwindling. Just within the last ten years, the following rural towns have been forced to hire some type of career fire staffing:

 1) Montville

 2) Waterford

 3) Colchester

 4) Voluntown

 5) Canterbury

 6) Preston

 

  In some cases, they have been forced to hire MORE than just one driver. Preston hired three, Colchester is up to five (I believe). Montville and Waterford has added evening shifts. Within the area are two casinos (Foxwoods and Mohegan) as well as the U.S. Federal Sub Base Fire Department who have their own staffed fire departments that also are used to protect these surrounding areas.

 

  More towards the middle of the state, the smaller Town of Portland, Ct has contracted with the staffed City of Middletown to provide one engine company on a routine basis for fire emergencies.

 

 Apparently all of the above realize how important it is to provide some type of fire protection for their areas. Is it a fully staffed fire department ? Of course not. In some cases the fact remains these are only skeleton crews and there is still a much needed force of a volunteer system of firefighting.  

 

  But for a fire district or town to take a step backwards like this is putting its citizens at a greater risk. I would think that would be a liability issue for this district should a serious event occur. I am reminded of a very serious fire that took the lives of 24 young victims the night of June 30, 1974 at a place called "Gullivers" right here in Port Chester, NY. One of the worst fires in our nations history. Apparently that is all forgotten about now.  

Edited May 4, 2016 by nfd2004

[PCFD ENG58 1,085]

My hands are still shaking over this . I was at Gulliver's  and as you all know to well that it is the early stages of the fire  that are the most critical and that night  we through firefighters after firefighters at the rescue side of it and  saved over 100 but that was when Engine 58 had a 2 man crew and Engine 59 had a 2 man crew because there where 16 on the job and the Volunteer side had men hanging off the rigs because there where no seats left to sit in. Port Chester is a very busy dept  and the call volume will burn out the volunteers going to the small calls like CO ,trash, brush, car, and what ever in the middle of the night . One of the Chiefs is a member on here .

[FirNaTine 370]

I just hope the fellow Career Brothers in neighboring Depts don't respond in to cover them!!!!!!! After all we are a Brotherhood right? Yeah OK!!!!

[SECTMB 612]

On 5/3/2016 at 11:40 PM, alextom said:

Now we're gonna see if the Port Chester Volunteers are truely Brothers. They should all resign immediatly. All of the westchester fire depts should remove themselves from Port Chester mutual aide response until the Board reverses the descision. 

 

he life or property you save may be your own.  I have needed the services of my own member departments several times.  I would hate to call and have no one answer.  How about you?  If you want to effect change, the fire department membership, directly and by extension through family and friends, can be a powerful voting block.  Used effectively it can bring about changes both in policy and politicians. 

 

Received this via a forwarded e-mail

 

From: Mayor Paul S. Rosenberg <rbinfo@cit-e.net>
Date: Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Subject: Rye Brook Fire Service
To: Rye Brook Blast Email <rbinfo@cit-e.net>
 

 

To my Rye Brook Friends and Neighbors:

 

I want to bring you up as to date with a very important issue which has arisen in in the past 24 hours.  A shared fire services contract with the Village of Port Chester requires them to staff the Rye Brook firehouse with one “career” firefighter from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM daily.  In the event of a fire, they would respond together with numerous Port Chester volunteer firefighters.  

 

Last evening, as part of its budget adoption, the Port Chester Board of Trustees voted to remove the “career” firefighters from their budget, moving to an all-volunteer fire department.  When that happened, Port Chester put all “career” firefighters on leave, including the firefighter who was staffing the Rye Brook firehouse.  At that point, we made the decision to staff the Rye Brook firehouse overnight with Rye Brook Fire Department personnel.  

 

Despite Port Chester’s breach of contract, the Village of Rye Brook will ensure that the Rye Brook firehouse will be staffed around the clock while we consider all of our legal options.  As in the past, the Port Chester volunteers will continue to respond.

 

Please be assured that the safety of our residents is of paramount concern to us, and we taking every step to protect your safety. 

 

I will continue to keep you informed as events warrant.

_________________________________

Paul S. Rosenberg
Mayor, Village of Rye Brook
938 King Street
Rye Brook, New York 10573
Phone (914) 939-1121 | Fax ( (914) 939-0242| Email mayor@ryebrook.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FirNaTine 370]

19 hours ago, firecapt32 said:

lets look at this another way  all the career  firefighters in Port Chester are National certified firefighters one and two.  they should have been doing their "in service" training of 100 hours every year. All of them  have  well over 400 hours of initial training from the career fire academy. from FF1-FF-2 -codes -haz mat- FF survival- rescue tech  EVOC - ladder ops --eng ops. ect.

 

that  my  fellow firefighter  friends means  you are well trained  and certified by not only the State of New York but Nationally.

 

This may be a blanket kind of statement--I am sure there are exceptions  but here I go adding my  2 cents    how well trained are the volunteers in Port Chester?  don't  jump  down my  throat  if you have facts please   air them  out.  I am asking-  not criticizing.   I gave facts about the career staff.  Do the Chiefs have any Officer creditable courses??   how many interior firefighters  complete with new York state Firefighter one and or Firefighter two do they have??  maybe the departments  that call upon Port Chester should take a closer look.  again  my opinion.

FF1/FF2: National Certification etc etc doesn't mean a dam thing! I know a shitload of Career guys who have Certificates up the yingyang and are dumber then a box of rocks actually putting their lives along with their fellow Career FFs lives and the Public who they swore an Oath to protect in further danger. This can be directly attributed to, Nepotism,  lowering the Standards, turning a blind eye etc..etc... Just because you sat in a class and passed a test doesn't mean your automatically a Professional FF! If the Public only knew how many knuckleheads were out there so called protecting them! The Fire Service in many places is no longer a "Calling" its just a paycheck now unfortunately! Gimme gimme gimme!!!! Another handout Profession!

[PeterK 14]

2 hours ago, FirNaTine said:

FF1/FF2: National Certification etc etc doesn't mean a dam thing! I know a shitload of Career guys who have Certificates up the yingyang and are dumber then a box of rocks actually putting their lives along with their fellow Career FFs lives and the Public who they swore an Oath to protect in further danger. This can be directly attributed to, Nepotism,  lowering the Standards, turning a blind eye etc..etc... Just because you sat in a class and passed a test doesn't mean your automatically a Professional FF! If the Public only knew how many knuckleheads were out there so called protecting them! The Fire Service in many places is no longer a "Calling" its just a paycheck now unfortunately! Gimme gimme gimme!!!! Another handout Profession!

There's bad apples in every profession or sector, doesn't mean all are bad. I believe the point being made is that the career members have the training and maintain the training standards. Residents will surely feel safer knowing that there is someone in quarters who is fully trained and ready to respond to an alarm vs hoping that someone who is properly trained and certified happens to be available and fit to respond from wherever they may be and there are a ton of PC vols who don't live in district. No disrespect to them but they cannot offer a sufficient response time. For the money these residents pay in taxes they should have a guaranteed quick response.

[frost025 94]

It's all B... S..., look a little into it.Rye Brook pays port Chester close to 1 Million dollars a year for night fire protection with at least 1career firefighter and 1 piece of apparatus which it states in their contract. The cost of the 8Professional P.C. firefighters which cover rye brook at night and the village during the day is roughly $ 650.000 per year . DO THE MATH, port Chester is making $ 350.000 per year it doesn't cost the taxpayers of p.c. 1 cent to have the professionals on duty. All it is is a personal attack towards the career firefighters, and had nothing to do with the almighty buck. The residents and business owners must come together to support these firefighters and demand that they get their jobs back.  STAY STRONG......

[FirNaTine 370]

How many Career PC guys are on around the clock and covering how many pieces of apparatus?

[fdalumnus 165]

right now, none.

 

back in the day, both engines, 58 and 59, were manned either with two, or they rode solo. hence the nickname LONELY EAGLES.

 

Beside the three chiefs, who else in the fire dept. knew this mass attack was going on ?

 

 

[vtach39680 23]

For the money being spent by Rye Brook they should just hire the 8 and staff 24 / 7 

[Chkpoint 131]

It would seem Rye Brook should look at legal options.  But Vtach is right why not just take that $1mil and hire the 8 on to the small exisiting career staff RB has now.  How many professional FF does RB have?  Unfortunately if they get a fire or something big they will need mutual aid, but hey in todays Westchester County Fire system everyone calls for MA.  I know its not a solution but RB can start to build a career staff  for a small town.  If they get the big one well they have options close by White Plains, Rye, Harrison.

 

Also Pete K is correct there are PC volleys who definitely don't live or work in PC but volunteer.  I have heard sometimes they struggle to get guys to some alarms and engine can't roll.  

[frost025 94]

Greenwich ct.

[Heatherd63 1]

On 03/05/2016 at 0:01 AM, dwcfireman said:

Are we sure this isn't a rumor?  This will have an adverse effect on a lot of things....Rye Brook would lose their night engine, the Village of Port Chester loses on the spot fire demand, never mind where else this will affect the county.  If this is true, my heart goes out to the residents of Port Chester and Rye Brook.  For Port Chester to disband their paid sector is only bad for the community and it's neighbors.  Where I really feel bad is for our brothers and sisters that just lost their jobs; they just lost their livelihoods!

Definitely not a joke! This is absolutely disgusting! Something horrible is going to hapoen and the "Board" will have blood on their hands...

[FireMedic049 597]

8 hours ago, FirNaTine said:

FF1/FF2: National Certification etc etc doesn't mean a dam thing! That's not exactly true. 

 

I know a shitload of Career guys who have Certificates up the yingyang and are dumber then a box of rocks actually putting their lives along with their fellow Career FFs lives and the Public who they swore an Oath to protect in further danger.  And I know a shitload of volunteers with (and without) certificates up the ying yang that possess those same qualities.  So what's your point?

 

This can be directly attributed to, Nepotism,  lowering the Standards, turning a blind eye etc..etc...  Sounds like some of the volunteer departments I'm familiar with.

 

Just because you sat in a class and passed a test doesn't mean your automatically a Professional FF!  Correct, sitting in a class and passing a test doesn't make you a Professional FF.  Getting a paycheck to fight fires makes one a Professional FF (just like getting a paycheck to play a sport makes one a professional athlete).

 

If the Public only knew how many knuckleheads were out there so called protecting them!  Yup and a lot of them don't collect a paycheck to do so.

 

The Fire Service in many places is no longer a "Calling" its just a paycheck now unfortunately! Gimme gimme gimme!!!! Another handout Profession!  I doubt it's as prevalent as you think it is, but the change has more to do with the dynamics of the new generation than the paycheck itself.

 

[Ladder44 73]

On 5/3/2016 at 5:00 PM, Jybehofd said:

 what if the tables were turned and they laid off cops?

Cause there are no volunteer cops, the town can get away with laying off these guys by having the "volunteer security blanket"