ffp20

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Everything posted by ffp20

  1. i've seen the bottoms of steel studs and their bottom plate rotted through. They were in a moist environment. The bottom plate was attached to a concrete floor.
  2. Why should the taxpayers in Newburghs surrounding districts pay their taxes to be used to subsidize fire protection in the city?
  3. How are the local volunteer depts handling this since they'll be called on more often to work in Newburgh? Enthusiastically or with reservations?
  4. here another bitter pill: they'd also save a boat load of cash by cutting the number of cops and bring in unpaid or low paid reserve or auxiliary cops. Or better yet bring in the county sheriffs office and state police. (said with a hint of sarcasm)
  5. Look, in many cities (probably most), most media outlets have various political philosophy's. Many of them are not likely to say any good about what union firefighters do if they are an anti-union slant paper. Others may not want to do a positive story about an event that may make a mayor or other political figure of another cloth appear in a good light. Others are just plain lazy and wont, or cant due to budgetary restraints, go out and do old fashioned reporting. How many media outlets use and reuse canned stories from other media outlets. Many events on a weekend go unreported due to news rooms being understaffed.Some just listen to scanners and write a short based on radio transmissions instead hit pounding the dirt. Most stories just get repeated and repeated to fill time and make it look like they're busy and out there walkin' the beat. Many, if not most, seek out the "sensational" stories to stir viewers/readers and affect ratings. The management wants ratings because advertising rates are based on them. If we want our stories told, many times we have to do it ourselves. Every dept should make friends with certain media players and court them and fill them in when things happen. Those who want the stories get them, those who are lazy wont.
  6. I always chuckle when i hear politicians encouraging people to become volunteer firefighters and ems providers, especially in cities. If they had any B***s, they'd do it themselves. They always say people should do it to save money. Is that how they see volunteers? Simply as a means to save money and not as a way to provide service?
  7. why isnt the councilman himself a volunteer ff ?????????
  8. It was found last night at the bus station in albany. reportedly, nothing was missing from it. http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Stolen-Vermont-fire-truck-found-in-Albany-717695.php
  9. it seems they'll call for MA more often, and, the neighboring FD's would be more than happy to do it. The taxpayers of those districts would be "subsidizing" fire protection in the city.
  10. people are incredible arent they? Fire houses are closed and people think response times are gonna be the same????????????
  11. (Here is how it was explained. You would have to pay minimum wage, thus you bewcm an emplyee. GML 209-w also states"and every person who is appointed on a temporary basis or for a probationary term or on other than a permanent basis as a fire fighter of any county, city, town, village or fire district shall forfeit his position as such unless he previously has satisfactorily completed, or within the time prescribed by regulations promulgated by the governor pursuant to section one hundred fifty-nine-d of the executive law, satisfactorily completes, a fire basic training program for temporary or probationary fire fighters and is awarded a certificate by the state fire administrator attesting thereto." which covers all but permenant appointed FF's. thus this covers the 229 and CPAT as per the R@R of NYS.) Heres what we were told from GML 209-W section 6 and interpreted as 5 full time firefighters: 6. The provisions of this section shall not apply to appointments made by any county, city, town, village or fire district which employs five or fewer fire fighters
  12. (One thing that was clear during that meeting once you mentioned paid-call or part time staff, the gentlemen representing FASNY were adamantly against it because it would ruin the image of the volunteer fireman.) Thats great to hear a person from FASNY is all for enhancing protection of a community, not protecting their kingdom (sarcasm). They're not unlike other fifedom special interest groups defending their turf at all costs (iafc, iaff, nvfc, and a host of others). IMO FASNY does some good things, but is not in touch with the realities of todays volunteer fire service. The year is 2010, not 1965. The notion of spending more money on recruitment drives and other "enticements" is laughable in todays society. Our experiences told us they largely dont work. We did all kinds of stuff as "recruitment tools", but in the end it didnt do squat. Yes, we got people in the door, and yes a few of them lasted long enough to get training and experience under their belts. But again, in the end, five years later, they're gone. Most simply dont stay around long enough to get the training and experience to be good, competent interior firefighters. It was nice getting some fire police members and exterior people, but what we need are those who can do firefighting. LOSAP for us anyway, did nothing to bolster the numbers of those who can fight fire. What is did was to keep our older fire police guys around. While thats helpful, that doesnt put out fire our disentangle victims from wrecks. The LOSAP is now costing our district big bucks and we still cant rigs off the floor.
  13. "A paid on call would have to get minimum wage and do 229hours /CPAT entry training and 100 hours yearly training. This would include part time people as well. " The 229, 100 hrs, and CPAT comes when the dept has 6 or more full time firefighters. We were quote the appropriate gml and such and it was pretty clear.
  14. (I should be interesting to see how this turns out. It is not legal in NY currently and the way the LOSAP laws are written someone cannot be receiving pay and credit towards LOSAP.) I beleive you are correct, you cant be pay per call AND receive credits for losap. That just means you cant get both. that doesnt mean you cant have a pay per call system.
  15. (I should be interesting to see how this turns out. It is not legal in NY currently and the way the LOSAP laws are written someone cannot be receiving pay and credit towards LOSAP.) I beleive you are correct, you cant be pay per call AND receive credits for losap. That just means you cant get both. that doesnt mean you cant have a pay per call system.
  16. From what I have heard from the most dedicated volunteers is LOSAP is the worst thing they could have ever done in there depts. If your dept has LOSAP: 1) has it improved the numbers? 2) increased the number of people that show up to the fire house, but really do not participate? 3) made no difference (the numbers of members is the same or less)? GREAT QUESTION !!! answers: 1) NO 2) NO 3) YES, we have lots of fire policemen sticking around to build up their years of service. The numbers of actual FIREFIGHTERS, has been dwindling for years. LOSAP here does nothing to recruit new members, or to keep the working age firefighters around. We've had it for 15 years.
  17. i couldn't find it in the city record. would it not show up this soon?
  18. jfire: theres a current list in effect. rumor has it they're hiring 9 pretty soon.
  19. the weight of the water way is not the reason. The reason is so the unit can comply with the low weight restrictions out there. the same rig here can be single axle.
  20. ok..."not funded" by taxpayer money. Paid with 2% then. Who da hell do you think pays that? fire insurance premiums paid by property owners ie TAXPAYERS.
  21. there you go, usu getting head starts. lets not have them out there doing cop work, lets have them out there doing everything else. Those are the things that will happen when you have police oriented fire dispatching and call taking.
  22. The changes the FDNY brothers will face are gonna suck. I work in a city where pd handles call taking AND dispatch. The operators are PD employees, the people running communications are cops. They take NO input from FD and city always backs up the cops viewpoint. They dont give a rats a** about ems/fire communications/operations. The dispatching is police oriented through and through. turnover is huge, many "dispatchers" dont know the difference between engine and truck or the diff between als/bls. EMD???? its there but most often not done. I hope it doesnt get to that point in NYC.
  23. (If you look closely at the second photo, you will notice the set of wheels furthest from the building are dual wheels. Spartan Chassis is based out of Charlotte, MI and is part of Crimson Fire and Road Rescue Ambulances, as well as providing Chassis for RVs.) Actually, Crimson is a subsidiary of Spartan Motors.