Viper

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!!!!

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 .

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.
 
 

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.

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.

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.

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/

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. 

#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."

Rumor going around Facebook that Port Chester Village Board just disbanded the career FD?

It is not a rumor. It is very true. 

It is true and has been coming about for some time . Do any of you guys remember the time when North White Plains had there trouble  with there chief , well guess who's chief in Port Chester . Said day for my brothers in local 1971. We are a busy dept with no room for this and if anyone has driven in Port Chester lately you can see the village is booming with new housing

I sincerely hope this is not true I hate to see people lose their jobs 

There are NYS laws that require Police and Fire. But they do not define it. So if you have 2 volunteers and an Indian tank you can call it fire protection and you are covered.

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

What? There's no such federal law.
 
each state sets its fire laws up, and in NY a village is required to provide (either by direct supervision, Croton-onhudson, or contract, Mt. kisco) fire protection. Cities, and villages are required, towns are not allowed to set up fire protection. 
 
Port Chester is a village that directly oversees their fire department (it's a department of the village), so they have absolute rule over budgeting and such and staffing.

I agree with a voting block but action also needs to be taken now. I have no idea when these board members terms are up. At best its probably Jan 2017 . 8 months is a long time to be out of a job. These members have mortages and families to support. Very sad. 

Isn't it a federal law to have fire protection for the community? So if the volunteers were to not volunteer wouldn't they be forced to hire firefighter's ???

Any official info been released to the public yet? News 12 on the scene? Seems like something that they should be covering. Shutting down a career department seems like a very drastic step to take. Were the vols spared? If your gonna do something dumb and get rid of firemen then shouldn't they have cut everyone, career and vol?

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!

Can anyone provide information (facts) as to why  the board made this decision, and what, if any, plan they have for fire coverage moving forward. 

This is despicable and disgusting. They should be ashamed of themselves for penny pinching at the risk of the resident's lives. Unbelievable. 
 
Brothers in Local 1971 Stay Strong! 

 
The 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. 

The village board of trustees are playing games with the residents lives. The career dept has been horribly understaffed for years and under threat of disbanding.  They should be ashamed of themselves and should be held responsible for their actions which are both unethical if not illegal

What good would that serve? 
 
Why did the border come to this decision?