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Date Posted: 22:19:53 06/14/04 Mon
Author: HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Subject: HMMMMMMMMMM.............................................

It was not mentioned at the work session and it wasn't even listed on the agenda for last night's meeting. I knew an engine was probably going to be put out of service, but I didn't expect it to be handled the way it was. I expected better from the administration as well as our council. Which is not to say that the decision was incorrect. I would have preferred to see our top guns explaining the necessity of certain things before they were implemented rather than having them doing damage control after the votes have been cast.

Sneaky? That's the way it came across.

On a side note, Virginia's Nord End sidekicks have simply got to settle on a new name. Sorry, but they've got to keep the new name of their watchdog group under 2,000 letters.

Now let's cut the elected officials in this city a bit of slack. It's an interesting juggling act they are currently trying to pull off. They are trying to improve the city's appearance, it's finances, it's morale and it's future prospects, all the while doing it with a frayed purse filled mostly with McG's dated I.O.U.s. It's a daunting task for sure. And it has to be tough for a new mayor who had the support of the fire department during the election season to have to start scaling back on their operations. But he did promise all of us financial responsibility and now we're seeing it manifest itself. It sucks. Years and years of financial irresponsibility have led us to this sorry point, so remember that when assigning blame.

Sneaky or otherwise, the gavel has come down and we now have one less fire engine in service. What does that mean to us? Let's sort it all out.

North Station (Scott Street): Engine 9

Northeast station(Conyngham Avenue): Medic-5

Headquarters (Ross Street): Truck 6 and a pick-up truck

East Station (Northampton Street): Rescue 7 and "Quick Attack 4," a mini-pumper purchased because it can fit in our smallest alleys

South Station (High Street): Engine 3 and Medic-3.

The fact of the matter is, two engines have been put out of service with this move. Engine 5 at the Northeast station is now out of service, as well as Engine 4 from the East station in the Heights. Engine 4 will be relocated from the Heights to headquarters only to collect dust, while Rescue 7, previously stationed at headquarters will move to the Heights. Confused? Don't be. Just think of our fire department as being one threadbare enterprise.

Let's try a scenario. Ready? A call comes in for a working structure fire. There goes probably every engine except for one held in reserve. If the structure fire is of the nasty variety, there goes all available fire engines, Truck 6, Rescue 7, and a medic unit. That would leave us with a medic unit and nothing else until some off-duty firefighters are called in. Then the out-of-service vehicles will come on line again.

Since Rescue 7 responds to all motor vehicle accidents in this city, if an MVA occurs before the structure fire erupts, Rescue 7 will be spoken for and will not be responding to said structure fire.

If both of our ambulances (Remember, one automatically goes to a structure fire) are on calls and another ambulance call comes in, no engines would be available to babysit the sick or injured person, or persons, while waiting for an ambulance to "turn around" from a hospital. So...one of Kingston's, or Hanover's, or Plains' ambulances will just have to do. Do you see where we're going here?

The outstanding response times our fire department and paramedics have always been counted on to deliver are about to suffer greatly depending upon demand. Or in other words, public safety has been compromised in order to balance the budget in a city nearly overwhelmed with debt.

Scanner Land is sure to be much more interesting as a result of this latest move. Sadly, it might also prove to be much more frightening.

I know we're broke. I know about all of that. And I also know that we are training the average folks to call 9/11 if they stub their big toe. And while we're responding to the frivilous, the assinine calls, who the hell is going to be available to save the folks that really need saving?

Is this explanation enough?

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