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Morning Lineup – December 3

4 comments

Apparently the good citizens of North Andover got pretty well fed up with their dopey Selectmen who had decided to pitch the menorah off of  the village green and then ordered the fire department to take down their Merry Christmas sign.  After two days of flooding the town hall with withering phone calls, emails and irate visitors, the Selectmen relented and changed their policy to allow the displays.  (If you didn’t see yesterday’s Lineup where we first addressed this event, CLICK HERE for the background on the story.)

Late Wednesday, the town manager said the North Andover firefighters would be allowed to display the sign on the Main Street Fire Station.  “The townspeople have spoken and they have been heard. They have clearly indicated which direction they would like the town to proceed in,” officials said in a statement.

noandover2 a WBZT

WBZT image

The Board of Selectman plans to meet on Friday, where the chairman will recommend that they “amend the Town Common use policy to allow holiday displays, such as the currently pending application for the display of the menorah for eight days.”

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Meanwhile, not far away in North Providence, Rhode Island, where the fiscally-strapped mayor wants to shut down 25% of the fire department to save his butt, (see Firegeezer story HERE) the Local has obtained a temporary court injunction to halt the closure until their complaint can be heard.  STATter911 has the latest on this flap including a good video report HERE.

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I’ve mentioned several times before about this propensity of some elected officials to continually put their own agendas (usually to ensure their re-election) ahead of the public safety needs of their community.  This political rot is seeping into all levels of government lately and I’m glad to see the No. Providence Local seizing the issue and fighting back against their misguided mayor.  If you watched the video that Dave Statter posted, you saw the mayor slip up and expose his agenda when he made the statement that “I want to turn that property [the fire station] into income-producing property…”

The fact is, though, that governments don’t earn money…. they spend it.  They take it from their citizens and spend it on various activities, supposedly those that are necessary for the health, safety and welfare of the citizens.  It will be interesting to see if the Local’s attorney uses that statement against the mayor at the upcoming hearing.  I would love to hear hizzoner explain how and why it’s more important to “produce income” than it is to provide vital life-safety for his city.  Maybe he should re-read the city charter.

It’s also vital that we get this equipment checked out.  And I need to get some more coffee started.  See you back in the day room in a little while.

Posted by on December 3, 2009 • Filed under: morning lineup • Tagged: ,
  • Dal90

    From what I've read in the papers, Lombardi is a dink who seems to hold a grudge dating back to when he was a volunteer and/or call man as the department transitioned during the 70s and 80s from all volunteer to all career.

    That said, many of us also will whine and moan about the needs to regionalize and why do some places have a fire station every mile. North Providence has four fire stations in 5 square miles mainly due to the stations having been located when they were volunteer stations and home response dictated a lot of stations.

    We have various national standards — some older like ISO that look at mileage, and some newer like NFPA 1710 that look at time. Under both those models, North Providence can be served adequately to our national standards by only two of their existing four stations. Live by the standard, die by the standard.

    I understand in an adversial situation why NP's firefighters would fight such a move. It makes more sense to have fewer stations and re-allocate their firefighters to have better staffed companies — better 3 — 4 man companies then 4 — 3 man companies. The Union, no doubt, sees it as removing a few promotional opportunities for a Captain and 3 Lieutenants that would be on an Engine Company, but more importantly a fear once a company is eliminated, in the future the town will go “Well, you used to run three man engines, so we're going to layoff the fourth man and go back to three.” Worcester, just an hour north, in fact did that over the last few years as they closed a couple three man engines in FY2007(?) and used the personnel to boost their outlying six engine companies to four men — and then in FY2009 the next budget year cut those fourth man positions by attrition.

    The challenge becomes rather then have some irrational battle over 15 seconds and preserving four career fire stations in 5-1/2 square mile area, is how do we rationally and with mutual trust deploy the resources most effectively?

    (I lost the link, but google North Providence and the city's home page has a link to the study with the station location data)

  • Dal90

    From what I've read in the papers, Lombardi is a dink who seems to hold a grudge dating back to when he was a volunteer and/or call man as the department transitioned during the 70s and 80s from all volunteer to all career.

    That said, many of us also will whine and moan about the needs to regionalize and why do some places have a fire station every mile. North Providence has four fire stations in 5 square miles mainly due to the stations having been located when they were volunteer stations and home response dictated a lot of stations.

    We have various national standards — some older like ISO that look at mileage, and some newer like NFPA 1710 that look at time. Under both those models, North Providence can be served adequately to our national standards by only two of their existing four stations. Live by the standard, die by the standard.

    I understand in an adversial situation why NP's firefighters would fight such a move. It makes more sense to have fewer stations and re-allocate their firefighters to have better staffed companies — better 3 — 4 man companies then 4 — 3 man companies. The Union, no doubt, sees it as removing a few promotional opportunities for a Captain and 3 Lieutenants that would be on an Engine Company, but more importantly a fear once a company is eliminated, in the future the town will go “Well, you used to run three man engines, so we're going to layoff the fourth man and go back to three.” Worcester, just an hour north, in fact did that over the last few years as they closed a couple three man engines in FY2007(?) and used the personnel to boost their outlying six engine companies to four men — and then in FY2009 the next budget year cut those fourth man positions by attrition.

    The challenge becomes rather then have some irrational battle over 15 seconds and preserving four career fire stations in 5-1/2 square mile area, is how do we rationally and with mutual trust deploy the resources most effectively?

    (I lost the link, but google North Providence and the city's home page has a link to the study with the station location data)

  • Dal90

    From what I've read in the papers, Lombardi is a dink who seems to hold a grudge dating back to when he was a volunteer and/or call man as the department transitioned during the 70s and 80s from all volunteer to all career.

    That said, many of us also will whine and moan about the needs to regionalize and why do some places have a fire station every mile. North Providence has four fire stations in 5 square miles mainly due to the stations having been located when they were volunteer stations and home response dictated a lot of stations.

    We have various national standards — some older like ISO that look at mileage, and some newer like NFPA 1710 that look at time. Under both those models, North Providence can be served adequately to our national standards by only two of their existing four stations. Live by the standard, die by the standard.

    I understand in an adversial situation why NP's firefighters would fight such a move. It makes more sense to have fewer stations and re-allocate their firefighters to have better staffed companies — better 3 — 4 man companies then 4 — 3 man companies. The Union, no doubt, sees it as removing a few promotional opportunities for a Captain and 3 Lieutenants that would be on an Engine Company, but more importantly a fear once a company is eliminated, in the future the town will go “Well, you used to run three man engines, so we're going to layoff the fourth man and go back to three.” Worcester, just an hour north, in fact did that over the last few years as they closed a couple three man engines in FY2007(?) and used the personnel to boost their outlying six engine companies to four men — and then in FY2009 the next budget year cut those fourth man positions by attrition.

    The challenge becomes rather then have some irrational battle over 15 seconds and preserving four career fire stations in 5-1/2 square mile area, is how do we rationally and with mutual trust deploy the resources most effectively?

    (I lost the link, but google North Providence and the city's home page has a link to the study with the station location data)

  • Dal90

    From what I've read in the papers, Lombardi is a dink who seems to hold a grudge dating back to when he was a volunteer and/or call man as the department transitioned during the 70s and 80s from all volunteer to all career.

    That said, many of us also will whine and moan about the needs to regionalize and why do some places have a fire station every mile. North Providence has four fire stations in 5 square miles mainly due to the stations having been located when they were volunteer stations and home response dictated a lot of stations.

    We have various national standards — some older like ISO that look at mileage, and some newer like NFPA 1710 that look at time. Under both those models, North Providence can be served adequately to our national standards by only two of their existing four stations. Live by the standard, die by the standard.

    I understand in an adversial situation why NP's firefighters would fight such a move. It makes more sense to have fewer stations and re-allocate their firefighters to have better staffed companies — better 3 — 4 man companies then 4 — 3 man companies. The Union, no doubt, sees it as removing a few promotional opportunities for a Captain and 3 Lieutenants that would be on an Engine Company, but more importantly a fear once a company is eliminated, in the future the town will go “Well, you used to run three man engines, so we're going to layoff the fourth man and go back to three.” Worcester, just an hour north, in fact did that over the last few years as they closed a couple three man engines in FY2007(?) and used the personnel to boost their outlying six engine companies to four men — and then in FY2009 the next budget year cut those fourth man positions by attrition.

    The challenge becomes rather then have some irrational battle over 15 seconds and preserving four career fire stations in 5-1/2 square mile area, is how do we rationally and with mutual trust deploy the resources most effectively?

    (I lost the link, but google North Providence and the city's home page has a link to the study with the station location data)