A Warm Send-off From the Folks in Hanover, Pennsylvania
Guest columnist Steve Roth describes the "Commish's" ride into retirement:
Forty-three years after he first hopped into an open-cab fire truck and rushed out in a bell-ringing blur to help the people of Hanover, the borough's fire commissioner stepped once more aboard an antique engine. On a gray Friday afternoon he paused there to look around, to smile for pictures. He took a deep breath of that sweet fresh air.
Many firefighters, family and friends came out to see the man known as Commissioner Roth leave the borough office for the last time. A 1935 Dodge open-cab fire engine awaited to take him on a farewell tour of Hanover and all the fire stations. "It's been a fun ride," he said, one arm around a grinning grandson in that idling truck. "Thank you, folks."
The visit from fellow firefighters and their escort around town in an old 1935 Dodge fire truck was a late-day surprise to Roth, who spent much of his final Friday on the job sharing stories with borough employees and friends. But the ride was a last treat, his firefighters said, for a man who's faithfully served the Hanover area for 43 years.
Roth grew up in Gettysburg and joined Hanover's fire department in 1968, driving a Mack fire engine out of Clearview Station on George Street. Over the years he rose through the ranks, making lieutenant in 1973. And in 1978 he became Hanover's third fire commissioner. Since that time, Roth said he's prided himself on a philosophy of teamwork, and never asked his men to do something at a fire scene he wouldn't do himself. He's proud of the firefighters he's watched grow up around him, he said, and more proud that under his watch those "youngsters" always came home safe. Roth was quote previously as saying, “Always wave to the people and always bring everyone home safe from a fire”. On Friday he did just that, he waved to many residents as they honked their horns and waved at the passing old fire engine.
On the last leg of the farewell ride, he even did something that hasn’t been done in over twenty five-years, he rode the tailboard back to his firehouse. Roth could be heard saying many times, “This is where real firemen rode.“ It's an attitude that's endeared him to a generation of Hanover-area firefighters, and one that made it all the more difficult late Friday afternoon for his men to tell him goodbye.
And for sure, a few said, they'd draw it out as long as possible. From the Hanover Borough building on Frederick Street, the small caravan of trucks was to head out for a tour around town, with stops at all the local fire stations in the borough and Penn Township.
The group would then make their way back to Wirt Park station for some fun, before taking the commissioner by his office at the borough again. And from there, those firefighters would make one more run. Because with smoke-gray clouds still billowing above, they said, it was only right to return the favor, and deliver Hanover's fire commissioner home to his family, safe.
It was truly an honor for 911 Photography photographers Steve Roth and BJ Felix to be a part of this event, both of us grew up in the fire service responding mutual aid calls with the Hanover Fire Department and the Commissioner. This day was a true testimonial to the love the fire service has for Commissioner James Roth. We wish him well in retirement, we hope and pray he collects his pension for decades to come, as he earned every penny of it.
……….Steve Roth – 911 Photography
* * * * * * *
to order one for your station.
On That Slimming Diet
Comments OffLAFD Chief Tries It Out
Millage Peaks, chief of the Los Angeles City Fire Department, announced his plan this week to deal with a $14M budget reduction, an amount larger than the entire budget of many American fire departments. The current LAFD budget is $495M and the 2011-12 request is $481M. $350M of the budget is for salaries.
Like many American cities, LA is in crisis. The city-wide budget struggles to close a $457M gap caused by declining or stagnant revenues, a trend with no end in sight. The LAFD budget spiked in 2009 at $561M and has been sliding ever since. Peaks is clearly right to forego stop-gap measures and to instead realign the department to operate with less funding for the foreseeable future. The fight, of course, will be over how this is done.
Chief Millage Peaks
The hype, encouraged by the chief himself, is to augment EMS capability by either closing some fire companies or increasing their EMS response level. It's hard to argue, except when it's your building on fire, that if 80% of the calls are EMS then that is where the growth should be. Their decisions are apparently based on a careful review of response data over a multi-year period. This continuing data review should allow for the current decisions to be evaluated for their efficacy.
Labor, in the form of Pat McOsker, current president of UFLAC and IAFF Local 112, is predictably up in arms. McOsker's comments are predictable too, railing against the company closings and taking special aim at the funding of a Professional Standards Division (PSD) within the department. Let's hope that McOsker, one of the IAFF's brightest leaders, is playing to his audience (see: members) for he surely knows that few other fire departments shed 318 sworn positions while avoiding layoffs. Peaks has engineered a soft landing out of what could easily have been a blood-bath and he should get substantial credit for that.
Of course, the PSD is the City's way to try to deal with the torrent of LAFD lawsuits related to hazing in the form of spaghetti spiked with dog food and other bizarre behavior exhibited by a fire department with an otherwise laudable reputation. McOsker can either spend a little political capital to at least make the Local appear as part of the solution or risk looking like the defender of conduct that is juvenile or worse. It's an admittedly tough call in an environment where your political enemies are always probing for weak spots.
It deserves to be pointed out that while some LAFD firefighters "suffer" through transfers, that civilian members of the department can expect to receive somewhere between 26 and 36 furlough days while the LAFD overtime budget climbs to $75M. Suffering is clearly in the eye of the beholder.
To end on a curious note, the Mayor, when defending his reductions in the LAFD, had this to say:
It’s not at all clear how an ambulance replaces a team accomplishing truck duties and someone, with a lofty pay grade, is apparently under the impression that truck companies exist solely for their aerial devices. Let's hope his initials aren't "MP".
* * * * * * *