SECTMB

I love the companion story in LoHud where they just exhumed and moved to another plot, away from the Kennedy plots, Mary Richardson Kennedy, recently driven to suicide by the abusive bullying of the Kennedy clan.
What a sorry legacy of death and destruction within and in the wake of this 'family'. This was America's 'royalty'? I can't think of any other old, wealthy, storied American family with such a specious history.
Certainly connecting your status to a political dynasty is no measure of greatness. As we readily see today, any moron can be a Member of Congress, or, even President.

I have been unable to get any feeds out of Scan 60 for about a week.
You can go to www.scanct.com and they have a Westchester 60 control feed, among others.

So, as despicable as the 'youths' are and as deserving of as much condemnation as possible, how about a shoutout to their parents? Nice job raising some future participants in our legal system. If this is how they interact with a 68 y.o. woman while in Middle School, wait a few years, I'm sure we'll hear from them again.

So, as despicable as the 'youths' are and as deserving of as much condemnation as possible, how about a shoutout to their parents? Nice job raising some future participants in our legal system. If this is how they interact with a 68 y.o. woman while in Middle School, wait a few years, I'm sure we'll hear from them again.

While it is easy to appreciate the 'lessor of two evils' and 'none of the above' not voting may get you the greater of two evils and I'd rather have the lessor of the two evils
than the greater.
I could rant for thousands of words but, bottom line, I intend to vote for Romney. He has held high public office but he has not spent his life as a career politician feeding from the public trough. I find him to be more decent, honest, genuine and competent than our current President and if he is elected along with another large turnover of older politcians in both houses of Congress, we may be able to get some solutions and actions to correct some of what has gone awry in our country.
Regardless of party, the entrenched occupants of Congress fail year after year to address and fix anything. They just keep rolling along, rolling over the populace.

While it is easy to appreciate the 'lessor of two evils' and 'none of the above' not voting may get you the greater of two evils and I'd rather have the lessor of the two evils
than the greater.
I could rant for thousands of words but, bottom line, I intend to vote for Romney. He has held high public office but he has not spent his life as a career politician feeding from the public trough. I find him to be more decent, honest, genuine and competent than our current President and if he is elected along with another large turnover of older politcians in both houses of Congress, we may be able to get some solutions and actions to correct some of what has gone awry in our country.
Regardless of party, the entrenched occupants of Congress fail year after year to address and fix anything. They just keep rolling along, rolling over the populace.

While it is easy to appreciate the 'lessor of two evils' and 'none of the above' not voting may get you the greater of two evils and I'd rather have the lessor of the two evils
than the greater.
I could rant for thousands of words but, bottom line, I intend to vote for Romney. He has held high public office but he has not spent his life as a career politician feeding from the public trough. I find him to be more decent, honest, genuine and competent than our current President and if he is elected along with another large turnover of older politcians in both houses of Congress, we may be able to get some solutions and actions to correct some of what has gone awry in our country.
Regardless of party, the entrenched occupants of Congress fail year after year to address and fix anything. They just keep rolling along, rolling over the populace.

So, you didn't get hired ten years ago when you failed the written test. So you are now entitled to back pay for those 10 years? If so do they reduce the amount of back pay by what you have been making at another job vs what you would have made as a firefighter?
And if your African American, you are also entitled to compensatory damages for not being able to enjoy being a firefighter?
Bnechis can you sort this out please, it's a little mind boggling.

How about just calling it Beacon Engine 933. Isn't that really plain enough? That's why I do like Westchester's apparatus id over Rockland, Putnam etc. It's much more in line with plain speak.

Over the years, the populace has become dumbed down and complacent. Look at any of those man in the street interviews and you can't but agree that we have become a country with an enormous amount of morons, no thanks to our educational system, but that's a rant for another time.
The old saying is that 'you can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time'. Today's problem is that the 'some of the people' you can fool some, and all of the time, is now a majority.
Most of our elected officials serve without the proper foundation and knowledge for the job which they been elected to do. When that lack of knowledge is recognized, there is no accountability, just re-election over and over again. Do you know how many members of Congress thought the Electoral College was where you went to learn how to be elected and serve as a member of Congress? Pathetic.
This is why I have always been in favor of term limits. Those opposed to term limits say the voters can enact term limits each election day by voting in another candidate. Well, fine for a local or statewide election, but what about the politicians from other states who's actions impact our lives and for which we have no recourse but to stand by as their local constituents send them back to office year after year. Then when term limits are enacted, like in NYC, the first order of business for the new session is how to overturn them.
Money has corrupted the process. I thought it was one person, one vote. So I'm in favor of absolutely no corporate money, no PAC money in elections. If a company or organization has an issue it wants to support or oppose, impress that upon it's employees or members and they can take that to the ballot box with them. Only individual, limited personal contributions we make it a level playing field. Elected officials were meant to represent the people, not corporations or organizations.
Outside of overt illegality such as corruption, elected officials are immune from accountability for the consequences of their decisions and actions. Our system of governance and justice may be the best in the world, but it could sure use a good cleaning right about now.
The buck doesn't stop anywhere anymore, it just keeps bouncing off everyone and its not going to change until the populace wises up and rises up to force our representatives and our news medias to do their jobs, tell the truth and remember that this country started with "We The People".

Over the years, the populace has become dumbed down and complacent. Look at any of those man in the street interviews and you can't but agree that we have become a country with an enormous amount of morons, no thanks to our educational system, but that's a rant for another time.
The old saying is that 'you can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time'. Today's problem is that the 'some of the people' you can fool some, and all of the time, is now a majority.
Most of our elected officials serve without the proper foundation and knowledge for the job which they been elected to do. When that lack of knowledge is recognized, there is no accountability, just re-election over and over again. Do you know how many members of Congress thought the Electoral College was where you went to learn how to be elected and serve as a member of Congress? Pathetic.
This is why I have always been in favor of term limits. Those opposed to term limits say the voters can enact term limits each election day by voting in another candidate. Well, fine for a local or statewide election, but what about the politicians from other states who's actions impact our lives and for which we have no recourse but to stand by as their local constituents send them back to office year after year. Then when term limits are enacted, like in NYC, the first order of business for the new session is how to overturn them.
Money has corrupted the process. I thought it was one person, one vote. So I'm in favor of absolutely no corporate money, no PAC money in elections. If a company or organization has an issue it wants to support or oppose, impress that upon it's employees or members and they can take that to the ballot box with them. Only individual, limited personal contributions we make it a level playing field. Elected officials were meant to represent the people, not corporations or organizations.
Outside of overt illegality such as corruption, elected officials are immune from accountability for the consequences of their decisions and actions. Our system of governance and justice may be the best in the world, but it could sure use a good cleaning right about now.
The buck doesn't stop anywhere anymore, it just keeps bouncing off everyone and its not going to change until the populace wises up and rises up to force our representatives and our news medias to do their jobs, tell the truth and remember that this country started with "We The People".

Over the years, the populace has become dumbed down and complacent. Look at any of those man in the street interviews and you can't but agree that we have become a country with an enormous amount of morons, no thanks to our educational system, but that's a rant for another time.
The old saying is that 'you can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time'. Today's problem is that the 'some of the people' you can fool some, and all of the time, is now a majority.
Most of our elected officials serve without the proper foundation and knowledge for the job which they been elected to do. When that lack of knowledge is recognized, there is no accountability, just re-election over and over again. Do you know how many members of Congress thought the Electoral College was where you went to learn how to be elected and serve as a member of Congress? Pathetic.
This is why I have always been in favor of term limits. Those opposed to term limits say the voters can enact term limits each election day by voting in another candidate. Well, fine for a local or statewide election, but what about the politicians from other states who's actions impact our lives and for which we have no recourse but to stand by as their local constituents send them back to office year after year. Then when term limits are enacted, like in NYC, the first order of business for the new session is how to overturn them.
Money has corrupted the process. I thought it was one person, one vote. So I'm in favor of absolutely no corporate money, no PAC money in elections. If a company or organization has an issue it wants to support or oppose, impress that upon it's employees or members and they can take that to the ballot box with them. Only individual, limited personal contributions we make it a level playing field. Elected officials were meant to represent the people, not corporations or organizations.
Outside of overt illegality such as corruption, elected officials are immune from accountability for the consequences of their decisions and actions. Our system of governance and justice may be the best in the world, but it could sure use a good cleaning right about now.
The buck doesn't stop anywhere anymore, it just keeps bouncing off everyone and its not going to change until the populace wises up and rises up to force our representatives and our news medias to do their jobs, tell the truth and remember that this country started with "We The People".

As members of the FD or EMS we are sometimes privy to incidents in our Villages that sometimes do not receive much public notice. I think the general public would be very surprised about some of the things that occur in their neighborhoods.
With regard to crimes, you and your neighbors need to be alert and aware of out of the ordinary activities and make the appropriate notifications to the authorities. Complacency and indifference are a big help to the bad guys. Watching out for each other is still a great deterrent to crime.

And while you're at it, bring back Jon and Ponch, maybe move station 51 to the beach, house it with a lifeguard station and satellite CHP station. That's a show.

Also this week it was reported that just with the four uniformed unions, annual pension costs will exceed annual salary costs. Then there was the highly reported case of the rubber room teacher who after ten years out of the classroom continues to collect 100K in salary on his way to an 85K a year pension for life.
There are 8 million people in NYC alone and only a couple of hundred thousand city, state workers. As long as the public continues to read stories of ex uniformed services employees collecting pensions twice the average annual income of private sector persons, some on disability pensions while competing in marathons, etc. and
stories that 3/4 of all train conductors get disability pensions, and rubber room stories galore, the public will not rally to the defense of the unions issues.
The public's attitude is going to be do more with less, just like we have to do. A four man engine crew will just have to do the same work as a five man crew, and so on. etc, etc.
The unions have been their own best and worst enemy. Particularly the teachers. We have continued to spend more and more every year on the schools and yet we produce more morons than ever before with lower graduation and test scores. With the schools in particular there is no correlation between more spending and better results.
In the case of the City, you can't blame Bloomberg. You need to go back to, at least, Lindsay and everyone, Mayors and Council members since and every head of every union that 'punted', 'kicked the can', etc. and failed to act responsibly. Same on all the other levels of Govt.
They didn't act responsibly so we've already reached the tipping point, we're on the downside now and there isn't anybody within these groups that has the knowledge, ability and leadership to change the direction of the slide. There are just too many selfish interests to accommodate and not enough public money left to do it.

Its been an interesting forum topic. But, in the end, with regard to the driving, does it really matter whether an accident occurs with a volunteer driving a POV or a volunteer or career member driving a dept. apparatus or command vehicle? Not to the person who gets injured. Everyone is subject to the rules of the road and if
you drive like a jerk, well paid or not, you're still a jerk and you shouldn't be allowed the responsibility.
With all the other stuff, no one, not even myself, is ever going to successfully argue that someone whose full time career affords them the time and opportunity to achieve experience and skills that others can only attempt on a part time basis will not perform the job to a potentially higher level, standard if you like. I also have no problem accepting that eventually, due to lots of factors, most Westchester villages will have to transition to career departments.
I was a member of three different village volunteer departments and I am well aware of all the pros and cons that have ever been posted on these forums. I now live in a village with a career department and I take some reassurance in knowing that two miles to my North, Station 20 is staffed with three firefighters and two paramedics, as is Station 27 two miles to my East.
I will again state, however, that I believe our career brethren do not truly appreciate how difficult it is to be a volunteer these days. Despite the 'different' standards, the training requirements, per OSHA, have increased over the years, and changes in technology with regard to fire load and extrication practices, have changed and keeping up with all this takes much more time than it did previously. Call volume, particularly EMS and AFA responses have increased exponentially over the years. And EMS calls take longer due to the amount of paperwork required. We don't have the 'luxury' of setting aside time for a specific shift. 24/7 we have to drop whatever else we were doing and respond. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, bathing the kids, mowing the lawn, washing the car, work, study, sleeping, whatever. And, that brush fire, car fire, structure fire, MVA or whatever isn't going to be any different just because we're volunteers.
One of the big issues on the forums these days is response, or lack of. I believe the principal reason behind the lack of response, in many instances, is precisely because the demands of your professional and private lives does not allow enough time to adequately volunteer your time to the FD. This is why I feel that there will continue to be a decline in volunteerism and a move toward career staffing, starting, as it has with EMS, by having minimum paid staffing during the weekdays.
This is the basis for my rub with all the volunteer firehouses being built or renovated and not making accommodations for crew quarters.
When my nephews joined up, I told them I thought that they would be the last generation (five in our family) to be volunteers in our area. I still think that will be the case.
The changes will come, over time, in some places sooner than later, in some easily in others kicking and screaming. But they will come.

I'm not surprised that accidents involving volunteers greatly outnumber paid.
Volunteer firefighters greatly outnumber paid so of course the incidences would be correspondingly higher.
This was just another lame attempt to create animosity between the the vols and paid. Poor judgement behind the wheel is a reflection of the
individual regardless of compensation.

I'm not surprised that accidents involving volunteers greatly outnumber paid.
Volunteer firefighters greatly outnumber paid so of course the incidences would be correspondingly higher.
This was just another lame attempt to create animosity between the the vols and paid. Poor judgement behind the wheel is a reflection of the
individual regardless of compensation.

I'm not surprised that accidents involving volunteers greatly outnumber paid.
Volunteer firefighters greatly outnumber paid so of course the incidences would be correspondingly higher.
This was just another lame attempt to create animosity between the the vols and paid. Poor judgement behind the wheel is a reflection of the
individual regardless of compensation.

I'm not surprised that accidents involving volunteers greatly outnumber paid.
Volunteer firefighters greatly outnumber paid so of course the incidences would be correspondingly higher.
This was just another lame attempt to create animosity between the the vols and paid. Poor judgement behind the wheel is a reflection of the
individual regardless of compensation.

I was simply re-stating what one of my local outlets reported in a quicky TV news story. And a 'Paramedic Rescue' down here is the equivalent of a 'Paramedic Ambulance' up there, not to be confused with something like FDNY Rescue 3. And why are you getting so worked up about it? I made the post as to the relevance of how municipal budgets are affecting the emergency services everywhere and I did not think that much more in depth reporting and fact checking was necessary to establish that municipal services continue to be affected by budget shortfalls.
So when somebody tells you how the economy is recovering, think about these recent incidents of cut backs, lay-offs and re-assignments that are continuing to be implemented due to our local, regional and national economy.
On tonights news, the Vero Beach Police are eliminating a vacant Assistant Chief's position and demoting three Lieuts to Sergeants, three Sergeants to Corporal and
the three Corporals to patrol officers, all with corresponding pay adjustments and all to save...............$190,000.00 per year. That's how bad some of the municipal budgets are down here that they would go to such measures to save $190K. St. Lucie made similar adjustments previously.
This move is not without resistance and the point has been made that anticipated OT will offset the savings. But perhaps someone with more time can fact check this as I don't have the time to conduct in person interviews with all the parties that have made statement through the public media outlets.

I was simply re-stating what one of my local outlets reported in a quicky TV news story. And a 'Paramedic Rescue' down here is the equivalent of a 'Paramedic Ambulance' up there, not to be confused with something like FDNY Rescue 3. And why are you getting so worked up about it? I made the post as to the relevance of how municipal budgets are affecting the emergency services everywhere and I did not think that much more in depth reporting and fact checking was necessary to establish that municipal services continue to be affected by budget shortfalls.
So when somebody tells you how the economy is recovering, think about these recent incidents of cut backs, lay-offs and re-assignments that are continuing to be implemented due to our local, regional and national economy.
On tonights news, the Vero Beach Police are eliminating a vacant Assistant Chief's position and demoting three Lieuts to Sergeants, three Sergeants to Corporal and
the three Corporals to patrol officers, all with corresponding pay adjustments and all to save...............$190,000.00 per year. That's how bad some of the municipal budgets are down here that they would go to such measures to save $190K. St. Lucie made similar adjustments previously.
This move is not without resistance and the point has been made that anticipated OT will offset the savings. But perhaps someone with more time can fact check this as I don't have the time to conduct in person interviews with all the parties that have made statement through the public media outlets.

I don't think Sullivan County has the density of Ladders as, say Westchester or the more urban/mixed counties. Given the distances they have to travel in the rural counties it may take a while to get aerial devices on location and in operation. That's my $0.02.

The entire public pension system, including social security, is one giant ponzi / pyramid scheme. We put Bernie Madoff in jail, but we keep re-electing the politicians that run this government sanctioned three card monty.
When social security was enacted it was a safety net. You worked and paid into the system till you retired at 65 and you were dead by 68. Today you pay into the system take early retirement at 62 and live to 82.
On the public pension side, you work for 20 or 25 years and collect for another 30 or 40. It takes increasingly more people at the base of the pyramid to pay for
those exiting at the top. Problem is that base is not expanding fast enough to fund those that want to leave.
In the case of social security, the money is all gone, just a file cabinet with IOU's. The politicians have long ago spent the money and only new contributions fund the current retirees. Unfortunately there just aren't enough new and current contributors to fund those retirees so the system will run out of money until they either take more money from the current workforce, change the distribution formula for the retirees or some of both.
On the State side, the money is actually there, though most funds are underfunded. Its great that Mr. DiNapoli has billions of dollars invested but that doesn't mean the plan is not underfunded to meet it stated goals. Its not really a problem for NYS retirees since their benefits are guaranteed by the State constitution. If there's not enough money, taxes are simply raised to make up any short fall. So when the plans guarantee a specific payout and the investment return is not sufficient to cover it, they simply raise taxes. Yes, you are paying higher taxes to fund your own plan, at least until you retire and move to a state that does not have a state income tax.
I don't have a horse in this race, I'll long be dust before it hits the fan and I leave no one behind. But it will one day implode itself unless changes are made and all the 'class warfare', 're-distribution of wealth' bull isn't going to change it. Only honest, well thought out changes will.
If we only had a few politicians with just a hint of the brain power that was in the founding fathers that got us this far before we screwed it all up.

Don't be so quick to make it an all or nothing approach. Here in Palm Beach County, and for that matter in much of Florida, the fire service is provided on a County wide basis although the larger cities maintain their own departments. Palm Beach, West Palm Beach among others have separate departments from the county. Some cities have recently meerged their independent departments into the County however. One was Lake Worth which merged both its Fire and Police into the County departments in order to save money.
My village is served by four Palm Beach County stations each of which house a paremedic 'rescue' (Ambulance), engine and brush truck. A neighboring station just outside my village maintains a 'tanker', they call them tenders down here, and other stations house ladder trucks and other specialized apparatus.
The County response area has everything from rural farms to urban high rises, factories, industrial, anything and everything to concern the fire service. And, while the County is a paid department, they also maintain a volunteer battalion as well.
There are examples of consolidation everywhere if you look for them and many include paid and volunteer companies working together. You just have to cut through the bull and maybe that can happen with the next generation of volunteers once the current old timers are replaced.