NEW YORK CITY FIRE COMMISSIONER Salvatore Cassano told the City Council at a budget hearing on Wednesday that he plans to seek approval to remove the approximately 15,000 street alarm boxes from service. He believes that it will result in a monetary savings of $6 million in the first year. The Claims Journal reports:
Of the 12,931 calls from alarm boxes in 2009, 85 percent — or 10,997 — were false alarms, the fire department said. And of the fire department’s 26,666 calls reporting structural fires in 2009, less than one percent — or 140 — came from an alarm box.
The city tried to do this 15 years ago, but an activist group filed a court injunction claiming that to remove them would severely impact deaf people. The court then prohibited the city from deactivating the system, but they also said the fire department could later apply to lift the injunction if it showed that deaf and hearing-impaired people had another adequate way of reporting fires.
Cassano told the City Council that he believes that gains in technology, such as mobile phones, means that the city can finally get rid of the system. “We are confident that call boxes can be deactivated without jeopardizing public safety,” he said. In addition to getting approval from the federal court, the City Council would have to repeal a law that requires a street box to be placed every four blocks.
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