velcroMedic1987

I suspect this had very little to do with it. They had been around for 40 years, long before homeland security. Their biggest sales were for chiefs cars and EMS fly cars, which were rarely funded thru HS.
This is a sector that has huge cash flow issues, they have to layout the cash for the vehicle, all of the components and the labor and then they don't get paid until 30 days after delivery (most governmental contracts). And the margins are not high.

I think you're underestimating the power of the elected sheriff, especially in Putnam County. I don't think a lot of people are going to want to just cede control to the county executive or whomever would appoint a Police Commissioner.
The Sheriff's Office will certainly not want to be relegated to jail and civil duties alone and give up road patrol. Look at the battles raging in Rockland County about the Sheriff's road patrol. Westchester's "Sheriff" is the commissioner of public safety. The Public Safety Emergency Force is their "auxiliary" unit. And call it like it is, the County PD doesn't take almost everything anywhere. They're even second fiddle to the state police in Cortlandt where they're contracted for police service. County PD is only primary on parkways, parks and the airport. Hardly like Nassau or Suffolk.
It is true that "everyone in the state" pays for the state police but are their services equitably distributed? Is it fair to say that they "always provide patrol services"? They don't in NYC so half the population of the state is paying for something they don't receive. Do they do anything besides parkway patrol on Long Island?
Be careful saying always and never. It is definitely not a clear-cut process or decision. I'm also willing to bet that the residents of Carmel and Kent will fight against seeing their taxes being used to send their cops to other towns. I believe a study recently showed that Carmel PD was substantially understaffed based on calls for service, arrests, etc.

Exactly right. A "source" at this stage is just guessing, nothing more. Given the enthusiasm outlined in that article, this sound FAR from a done deal, let alone what the logistics are.

So does this mean Philipstown and Putnam Valley (who incidentally disbanded their local PD due to the expense [and politics]) will now have to subsidize the police services in Carmel and Kent?

Will the distribution of resources be equitable or will it just mean that the west side of the county continues to pay for services they don't receive because they're all focused on the east side of the county?

PD's and FD's are pricing themselves right out of existence. The article says that the Carmel PD is about 33% of the town's entire budget. That's a huge expense for one department.

Facscinating that there are sources before the study actually starts to decide what would be consolidated and how.
I'm pretty sure that the sheriff will have something to say about his jurisdiction being curtailed to make room for this "new" agency.

If the lawyers and insurance agents who try daily to handcuff public safety actually had to ride a few shifts in any related field, I think their heads would explode.

After that fatal fire in 1987,at the Schomberg Plaza towers in east Harlem,there was a heavy-duty investigation done. Soon after the fire was under control, the FDNY fire marshals went to the quarters of the administrative fire company whose district the building was in (Engine company 91). They went right to the building inspection folder to see if there were any outstanding fire violations or recent issues with inspections. Luckily the company commander (who was my first lieutenant as a probie) was a very smart and diligent officer.He had documented all the issues with the building, and had sent reports "downtown" and to the NYC Building dept.,concerning problems with the compactor chute.
BOTTOM LINE: When you do a fire prevention inspection on a building,and sign your name on the form, do it right. Cover your butt! You never know when there will be a fire or collapse or other emergency in that building in the future.

This building had a sad history, in 1987 a fire occurred in the compactor chute killing seven people, some jumped from as high as the 23rd floor into the street. This fire resulted in changes in high rise procedures, where the dispatchers radios or MDT"s to responding or .on scene units the apartments number that called requesting assistance and that unit must be checked out. . At this fire folks in distress where assured that the FD was on scene not knowing the fire had jumped 20 floors over them, Heavy fire load in the compactor ,coupled with a missing chute door and inadequate fireproofing around the chute.too skimpy to prevent the fire .from extending to combustibles in dwelling units abutting the wall covering the chute.
The Schomberg Plaza fire in 1987 was one of the most important high rise incidents and produced many lessons learned and also a big lesson in Mitchell Llama construction

Too true. I work in an area where there are some highrises, mostly NYCHA buildings. You do end up with some wild scenarios and you need A LOT of manpower. I was at a fire a few years ago where the fire was in one unit on the 5th floor with minor auto exposure on the 6th.....there was a fatality on the 21st fl. Smoke permeated throughout due to some odd ball Federal building standards and what not.....crazy stuff.

Here is a pretty important piece of information needed for a pre plan in the winter. Piles of snow on the side of the road which most likely made this a one lane road would tell me as an IC that I don't need 31 pieces of equipment on scene. ( that's what the assignment shows in the first post ) If you had a down FF how far away was EMS? Were they blocked in or out by all the equipment? Once again it always ends up that people don't want to learn from others and they really do get their panties all in a bunch. I'm sure this was a downright snotty job and fire was everywhere and all companies made that push in as we all talk about after the fire. I know in the 20 years i'm doing this all my fires were described as down right nasty, snotty old school jobs!! Get Real, the house was lost before you arrived. We have all pulled up to a losing battle!!!!

Yeah I think we're confusing "alarm assignments" with "pre-plans." Those are not the same thing.

Spot on.

You know the consolidation of volunteer departments without the addition of any paid personnel could be a significant improvement over the completely arcane system we have now. Everyone immediately assumes that consolidation implies paid but it doesn't! How about merging 4-5 districts that serve the same town? Or the countless villages that rely heavily on each other and are smaller than a postage stamp.
Imagine a River Towns or Sound Shore or North County Fire District with several former departments under one hierarchy. Economies of scale in purchasing, reduction of apparatus numbers (and the ability to have "spares", something virtually non-existent outside the big cities), higher personnel counts, standard training, administration and operations, to name a few.
A member department with strengths in one area can help one weak in that area and so on. Officers can be vetted from a larger pool of candidates improving the quality, competition, and ultimately performance. Chiefs will oversee a bigger department giving them more experience. Budgets can be consolidated perhaps reducing the overall cost to the taxpayer.
There's a lot to be said for consolidating and it doesn't mean adding ONE paid guy.

More legislating by the executive branch. Not a fan of these actions at all.

More legislating by the executive branch. Not a fan of these actions at all.

I know of a fire in Avon, NY (the CRC fire a few months ago) that used 28 tankers on 2 fill sites! It's amazing what you can do with tankers when you know what you're doing......practice, practice, practice!!
[i'll look for the pics from that scene in the morning. I have no idea where I stored them]

As the Operations officer at this incident I think I can shed some light on this situation. First, the property conditions that first due units encountered where deplorable. The entire property was covered in 18-20 inches of snow with one, 12 inch wide footpath barely shoveled to the front door. The initial stretch alone was extremely strenuous and taxing on the manpower.
Once interior, crews encountered extreme Colliers Mansion conditions, preventing them from making an expedient advance on the fire on the first floor. The basement, where the heaviest fire was encountered, was a whole different story. Upon making entry to the basement, crews dealt with floor to ceiling junk as well as a well seasoned pile of firewood and the contents of of a woodworking shop.
As far as the apparatus on scene; in that geographical location, due to the lack of hydrants, we were operating from our tanker district alarm assignments, which brings more tankers than manpower carrying apparatus. The time of day is tough on manpower regardless of conditions. Factor in the conditions, and your burning through fresh bodies faster than you can get them there.
In closing, I would like to personally thank all Mutual aid departments for their quick response and assistance.

That is just asinine. Using that logic EMS should have gotten 600 RMA's at the MNRR train accident a couple weeks ago. Did they? Or did they just seperate those claiming injury from everyone else?
That PD has issues and the EMS agency is nuts if they put up with it.

One fire a week is nothing like E82 in the hey-day when the "Bronx was burning".

The Westchester DES METU was involved in that and yes there are about 18 of them in NY/NJ. I don't know if they call it an EMS task force but they did do a drill a while back at Orchard Beach I think.

Much of what you wrote I agree with, but a few items....
1) "how well a major MCI can be handled." - Nothing against any of the responders because it sounds like they did a fine job, but there were about a dozen patients transported and that is not a "major" MCI. what if the train had derailed? what if it had tipped over? From an MCI stand point this was a very minor event that could have been catastrophic.
2) "where is there boundary?" (60 Control) - While I do not always agree with WHAT their boundaries are, the chiefs all know WHERE they are.
3) "It isn't realistic calling departments from literally miles away to go to the scene or standby when you have resources closer by." - Sometimes it is. Again stripping every resource in an area makes no sense, but also sometimes departments that are farther away can get there faster because, they get out quicker, or they can respond via highways vs back roads or because they are staffed.

I know of one town in NJ where EMS is sent on all reported MVA's regardless of reported injuries. The ambulance gets there and the police will say they want everyone checked out. From what I have heard this is some sore of perceived liability issue where the police want EMS to be the ones to say there are no injuries. So in this case even when people say they are not paients they seem to be patients none the less.

If the sole purpose of this unit is to evacuate nursing homes, then why wasn't it paid for by the nursing homes? Most of these are private facilities being operated for a profit. At what point does somethig become the government responsability?
Here in Stamford we have 2 matching command post units, 1 bought for the police and 1 for the fire department, under the same grant program. Now since most of these grants seem to require NIMS compliance (or at least the illusion of compliance) why would we need two units for a single unified command structure? I actually heard someone say we would have got a third one for EMS but our EMS service is not city run.

I'm going to focus on the waste part of the issue. Why do we pay for (again, the source of the money is irrelevant) a piece of apparatus that will sit and collect dust and rust for it to be used once in a blue moon? If the WCDES METU was granted for the sole purpose of evacuating nursing homes and similar facilities, does that mean that we actually have a problem evacuating said facilities? Do we have to evacuate these facilities that often that we need a vehicle SOLELY for that purpose?
We've reacted wildly after every terror attack and every natural disaster to get the best, shiniest equipment, yet a lot of this equipment ends up sitting idle. If we have a METU, why can't it be used in MCI situations, not just to be able to get the motor running every now and then, but to use that darn thing? And couldn't it be part of a larger, regional task force, where it and similar units from around the area can work as a team to respond to large scale MCI calls?