FD828

Charlie, then how come before Rual Metro came along, when the Village of Rye Brook asked to have an engine placed into the village of Rye Brook the Port Chester FD/village refused even though Rye Brook was paying for a HUGE portion of the fire protection costs? And seeing how PC operates first hand with my own eyes there are several "problems" that are very evident at EVERY fire. And nobody was trying to bash any department, it was a discussion about how things could/should be IMPROVED. Just because "We have been doing things this way for 100 years kid" doesn't mean it is still the best way to do things. Sometimes you need to change with the times.

I wasn't trying to start a battle over your department, I was responding to Stopgoblue's comments that nobody knows the facts and should stay out of it. The fact is PC does cover Rye Brook, but is it run the way it should be? Operations issues are what is being discussed. If you can't take critisism about your department that you and others can learn from and maybe take some positive things away from a constructive and adult conversation then you are in the wrong field. I have been to many fires in Port Chester, if you truely don't think that there is room for improvement in your department (just like any other), then I am sorry. That is niaive at best.
And for the record I feel Rye Brook should exist, needs more fire fighters, officers and a chief of their own.

Charlie, then how come before Rual Metro came along, when the Village of Rye Brook asked to have an engine placed into the village of Rye Brook the Port Chester FD/village refused even though Rye Brook was paying for a HUGE portion of the fire protection costs? And seeing how PC operates first hand with my own eyes there are several "problems" that are very evident at EVERY fire. And nobody was trying to bash any department, it was a discussion about how things could/should be IMPROVED. Just because "We have been doing things this way for 100 years kid" doesn't mean it is still the best way to do things. Sometimes you need to change with the times.

Charlie, then how come before Rual Metro came along, when the Village of Rye Brook asked to have an engine placed into the village of Rye Brook the Port Chester FD/village refused even though Rye Brook was paying for a HUGE portion of the fire protection costs? And seeing how PC operates first hand with my own eyes there are several "problems" that are very evident at EVERY fire. And nobody was trying to bash any department, it was a discussion about how things could/should be IMPROVED. Just because "We have been doing things this way for 100 years kid" doesn't mean it is still the best way to do things. Sometimes you need to change with the times.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

Well put and couldn't agree with you more brother. The guys at RBFD are some the greatest colleagues and guys I know. Portchester has their own issues within the FD they need to get sorted out and improved upon...take care of home first...that's what I say.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

You are correct, the Rye Brook FD ff's work 7a-7p 7 days a week. They have no officers and they have no chiefs of their own. The Port Chester FD is always dispatched along with Rye Brook to all of their calls. (The Port Chester chiefs are in charge of the RBFD) They have a 2 man minumum for staffing, with I believe 4 men assigned to each (2) group. They have tried to get the Village of Rye Brook to hire more ff's so they may staff their station 24/7 without success. At 7pm 1 of the career Port Chester ff's drives his engine (59) and stays at the RBFD till the Rye Brook ff's return in the morning. Makes absolutely no sense, Rye Brook is mostly a bedroom community. Why would you want to reduce the amount of firefighters in your town during the hours when the most harm can come to the most people? Politicians can screw up anything.

Especially if you're from the Boston area... no offense to your horrendous accent guys

Ummm..actually....once you start having supplemental paid personell...you go from being volunteer to combo...and who the hell wants CAC on the side of their buses!?
Change it to EMS and move on to what matters - people.

It's only a name. Can a fire department call themselves volunteer if they hire services like EMT's, or drivers? Heavens, we've been paying for services for years. We pay someone to clean the buildings, to service the rigs-- and a working rig is just as important to EMS as the EMT-- we pay someone to bill.... I think my home corps was even getting the rigs professionally detailed for parades for a while.
Does billing or staffing define volunteer? Perhaps it is time to call ourselves 'profits' or 'not for profits', though that said, I think most 'profits' aren't making much and most 'not for profits' are raking it in.
Whatever they call themselves, Brewster made a decision that puts patient care ahead of ego or tradition and for this they should be applauded. I am with those who wonder how this will affect mutual aid, however.

I know that where I am in Putnam county, if mutual aid is requested it is usually specific. For example,1 tanker from department A, FAST from department B, Ladder from dept. C this way they are not stripping 1 particular department of all their resources. Where I work EMS in Westchester, if we only have 1 ambulance left because the other 2 or 3 are on calls and a mutual aid request comes in from 60 control, we still send out our last unit.

Well this is truly amazing. According to lohud, over 60 police units had to respond from as far south as Tuckahoe to deal with this unreasonable and unruly crowd. Why? Because their "muslim sensibilities" were insulted? Give me a freakin' break. The rules are posted and for certain rides, there is to be NO WEARING OF ANY TYPE OF HEADGEAR period.
Why do these people think they are exempt from the rules, the laws? I know what they would like; Sharia Law. Their own version of a justice system implemented in the countries they emigrate to. I think that is a disgusting disgrace, as were the actions of these supposedly "religious" people at the Playland park.
Look, you people want to assimilate in this country, fine. I guess we have to let some of you in. But if you don't like the system, the rules in place... TOO F'IN BAD, go back to the place you came from.
The difference between these people and the ancestors of many of us here in this forum is our great-grandparents had a huge desire to assimilate into the American culture. That's why on my mother's side, they came from Italy, moved into the south Bronx and gave up teaching their native language to their children, my mother, and therefore I don't know Italian today as a result. I wish that part were different, but the point being these people were so anxious to "fit in" they even gave up their language. Italian was forbidden to be spoken in the house by my great-grandparents, as a result their great-grandchildren only speak English.
Now these muslims with their headgear, the hijab, they can't even get on the Dragon Coaster without starting a ruckus? Like Playland OWES them something, like WE owe them anything? They should kiss the ground of freedom they walk upon, shut their damn mouths, follow the rules, or else.
What a waste of PD resources to have to direct half the cars on patrol up to Playland because these freaking people were "insulted"! Enough! Fit in or GET OUT!
http://www.lohud.com/article/20110830/NEWS02/110830004/Police-arrest-15-Playland-dispute-over-Muslim-headwear?odyssey=nav|head

Just a couple of interesting points in the proposal:
1) They have already calculated that Springdale is onboard even thought they have not signed the agreement. Even if they think thats a done deal, it is premature to put it out there.
2) The total staffing is 6 positions short of what is needed to meet the staffing levels listed.
3) The performance standard includes time, but not personnel. so as long as 1 FF arrives in the time, then they meet the standard.
4) Station Staffing. This is bad policy to list in this contract what the staffing needs to be. having equal staffing sounds nice, but does not give the PAID chief of the volunteer FD enough flexability. If you have 3ff's in a station do they ride on 1, 2 or 3 rigs? It may make more sense to have a 2 man engine in each then group the other 3) two man teams could be assigned to tankers, ladders &/or rescues.
Note: I'm not suggesting that 2 or 3 man rigs are acceptable, just basing it on whats listed.
Whats most interesting is other than they call it a volunteer dept., there is very little mention of volunteers in it (other than the minimum training standard).

Tons of OT are built into this proposal. There are 54 career personnel (plus Chief, & marshalls).
18 daytime and 12 nightime shifts averages to 15 firefighters 24 per day.
There are 168 hours in a week, meaning if divided by 4 shifts eguals 42 hours each. If each is scheduled to work 42 hours (thats 2 hours per week OT x 54 workers).
To cover the average 15 shift positions requires 60 personnel, but they are only hiring 54 (who figured the staffing #'s needed). So thats an additional 240 hrs per week of OT.
Now add the approximate 20% contractual time off (vacation, sick, etc.)that needs to be covered or 33 hours per week.
Thats 381 OT hours per week or 19,812 Overtime Hours per year for basic shift staffing.
If an average employee costs $75,000/yr then the OT costs for the planned shortfall is $1,071,563 or 12.6% of the budget.

I think the main point of Seth's response was first the community service aspect as in a "punishment" for his crime, being that he is 12 years old. For God's sake we are letting murders off with less punishment in this country! I also think Seth was looking at helping change the direction of this kids life. Obviously he is troubled and everyone must be giving up on him. I commend you Seth for the willingness to help and possibly mold this kid into a productive member of society. If it doesn't work out what happens? He goes back to where he was. What if it does work? What if because Seth took a chance and helped this kid, he joins a FD and saves a bunch of lives? You never know...... (and yes I realize that Seth is not actually here doing this, but it's the thought that counts)
P.S. - there are plenty of examples of firefighters starting fires so judging him that way isn't exactly fair