THE CLINTON, ILLINOIS, FIRE DEPARTMENT has been in turmoil for the past three months.

Prior to then, there were apparently two factions within the department that had disagreements on how the largely-volunteer organization would operate.  But it had never affected the operations of the department at emergency scenes.  The small department has three full-time drivers and is authorized for up to 42 paid-on-call volunteers.

When the fire chief’s position came open in November, the city council, which appoints the chief, advertised for the position and narrowed the search down to 10 applicants.  Meanwhile the council appointed two members to the position of assistant chief to provide a leadership position.  They were Shaun Milton and his brother-in-law Brian Armstrong.

The fire chief position comes under the control of the Public Health and Safety Commission headed by Councilman Jerry Milton, Shaun’s father.  In the third week of August the city council awarded the chief’s office to Shaun Milton.  Immediately his brother-in-law resigned from the department and several of the other members did, too.  Their concern was over the fire chief being directly responsible to his father for the operation of the department.

To amplify the split, the council swore in the new chief within hours after the appointment in a secret meeting.  Their only explanation was that they needed a chief right away “in case we get a big fire.”

Within days, members have started dropping out of the department over the contentious issue.  This past Tuesday one of the Captain’s resigned and now the membership is down to 23, dangerously  low for the department’s needs.  There is no indication that the situation is about to get any better soon.

Read yesterday’s article in the Bloomington Pantagraph HERE.

THE OAKLAND (MICHIGAN) COMMUNITY COLLEGE OPERATES A FIRE TRAINING CENTER that is used by many of the Detroit area FD’s to train their firefighters.

Oakland Community College photo

They were scheduled to begin a 10-week class Tuesday but 17 of the 20 instructors tendered their resignations at the last minute.  The college is now scrambling to find enough replacements so that they can begin the class that has 39 students enrolled.  The problem began when the small city of Harper Woods (pop. 14,200) decided to implement a dubious scheme of cross-training all of its firefighters and police officers to do each other’s jobs with the ultimate goal of using fewer people to carry the same work load.

All of the instructors that walked out are IAFF members and they say they are doing this as a measure of solidarity and support for the Harper Woods FF’s.

The Detroit Free Press reports:

Many of the state-certified instructors are firefighters and members of the International Association of Fire Fighters, the union that represents full-time Harper Woods firefighters. Four city officers are among the 39 students who were to begin training. City officials are trying to form a public safety department to save money and have more cops.

Harper Woods offered the seven most-tenured firefighters the opportunity to remain in their posts. The other six firefighters would have three years to attend the police academy.

The IAFF area representative says that the voters have already rejected the scheme and it also violates the city charter.  The police chief, meanwhile, says that if the college can’t make it go, then he has a secret plan to get the police officers their fire training.

Read the full story HERE.
Oakland Community College Fire Training Center WEBSITE.
Harper Woods FD WEBPAGE.

ON TUESDAY WE REPORTED (HERE) ON THE ANTICS going on in the Gary, Indiana, city hall.  The mayor and city council have so mismanaged the treasury that the city is running out of money.  Remember, this is the outfit that recently started charging all the property owners a monthly fee for “fire hydrant rental” (Firegeezer report HERE).

Last week the arrogant city attorney arbitrarily ruled that the labor contracts with the police and fire unions were “void” and “outdated.”  The city slashed the police wages by 20% and ordered the fire chief to reduce minimum staffing of all engines and trucks from 4 to 3.

That didn’t set too well with the judge who had ordered the city back in January to maintain the minimum staffing while contract negotiations continue.  (Note:  They are still continuing as the city tries to negotiate substantial pay cuts for public safety personnel.)

The Superior Court judge John Pera warned the mayor about ignoring his orders.  “This court expects those orders to be followed,” he said.  The Gary Post-Tribune reports:

A clause in the firefighters’ contract requires the city to abide by its conditions until another contract is agreed upon.

An attorney representing Gary said city ordinances put time limits on such situations, overruling the contract.

Attorneys never mentioned the ordinance to Pera before he issued his original ruling, and firefighters attorney David Buls took exception to its mention.

“It seems any time the city needs an ordinance, it pops out of nowhere,” Buls said. 

So the engines and trucks are back to 4 for now.  Everybody comes back to Judge Pera’s court on Sept. 2 to talk about it some more.

Read the complete story in the Post-Tribune HERE.

WELL, THEIR BLOG IS, ANYWAY.

The Roanoke city firefighters have a members’ blog http://www.roanokefirefighters.blogspot.com/ administered by one of their Lieutenants, Rhett Fleitz.  You may recognize Rhett as the publisher of VAFireNews.com, an online fire news report that covers the state of Virginia.

The Roanoke firefighters blog is a city-wide coffee table where all things RFD are discussed.  Such things as recent fires, recreational activities, members’ welfare and scuttlebutt.  You get the idea.  Lately there has been a lot of chatter about some administrative decisions that affect the firefighters and some unpopular moves by the city higher-ups that have an impact on the fire department as a whole.

Apparently, allowing the firefighters to think and express themselves is embarrassing to the fire chief and the city council.  So in a fit of petulance, the chief has banned the blogsite from the city computers, including the ones in the firehouses.

Fire Chief David Hoback

Taking this small-minded measure will certainly not improve labor relations within the department.  Nor will it make life any easier for a beleaguered city administration that is trying to keep its own employees from freely sharing their thoughts with one another.  It won’t work, I am sure of that.

If you’d like to express your opinion, you can go to the FF’s blog HERE and show your support.  Or you may wish to write to Fire Chief David Hoback and tell him directly.  His email address is:  David.Hoback@roanokeva.gov

This commentary represents the editorial opinion of the Firegeezer.

GARY, INDIANA, IS ONE OF THOSE CITIES that has run out of money while keeping the city council well-fed.  They have tried every trick imaginable to squeeze still more cash out of the citizens while continuing to decimate the city services.

Four months ago we reported HERE on their innovative move to charge all the homeowners nearly $3 a month for fire hydrant rental.  Last week the police officers’ union filed a lawsuit against the city for contract violations related to reduced working hours.

Now the city is facing the threat of a similar suit from the firefighters after slashing the on-duty force by more than 50% this past weekend.  The Munster Times reports:

An attorney for the firefighters union is considering filing a lawsuit similar to the police suit, union President Capt. Raynard Robinson said.

Starting Sunday, city officials began calling firefighters, up to 10 at a time, telling them not to come to work, Robinson said. The department usually staffs 71 people a day. On Monday, it was down to 32.

“It’s crazy,” Robinson said. “We were already 40 men short before this happened.”

Back in January a court decision ordered the city to staff its  firetrucks with a minimum of four per unit.  But the city attorney, Hamilton Carmouche sent a memo to Fire Chief Jeffrey Ward calling the union’s contract void and saying: “Therefore, you are ordered to operate the fire engines and firetrucks with a minimum of three firefighters.”

This flagrant flaunting of the court’s decision has become typical of the city attorney.  Last month he proclaimed the police contract “outdated” while cutting the working hours of the officers along with a 20% pay cut.

Gary Fire Dept. WEBSITE.
 

THIS IS NOT FROM ONE OF THOSE WEBSITES.  Yesterday there was protest by Unite Here Local 681 that represents 2,300 maids, bell hops, cooks and dishwashers at three Disney-owned hotels: the Paradise Pier, the Grand Californian and the Disneyland Hotel.

The arrest of the 32 protesters, many of whom wore costumes representing famous Disney characters, came at the end of an hour-long march to Disneyland’s gates from one of three Disney-owned hotels at the center of a labor dispute.

Working without a labor contract since February, the protest was in response to a Disney offer that, according to Local 681, would make healthcare coverage unaffordable and creates a two-tier pay system. Disney proposes to eliminate the free health care to new hires.

Disney spokeswoman Lisa Haines said Disney and the union are in negotiations and nothing has been finalized. She said workers have protested 14 times but sat down to negotiate only 11 times in the past six months.

Link from the AP news article HERE

*  THE WILKES-BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA FIRE CHIEF Jacob Lisman tendered his retirement notice yesterday, to be effective this Friday, Aug. 15.  Chief Lisman served the department for 30 years, rising through the ranks. 

He is credited by the W-B Local for having a good relationship with the FF’s and having to endure crippling staffing cuts imposed by the city council over the past few years.  The FD’s minimum on-duty staffing is 17, but they have been operating with only 14 min. since the last attrition.  The city has refused to hire any new firefighters for the past eight years, choosing to let the uniformed contingent dwindle to unsafe levels.

The Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice has the STORY.
The Times-Leader has MORE.

*  Fire Chief Kenny Jacobs of the Melrose VFD in New Mexico is under a verbal attack by the small town’s mayor and the police chief.  It seems that a probationary firefighter was arrested on a drug charge and the VFD didn’t immediately suspended him.  The fire chief says that you can’t fire volunteers. 

But there’s something deeper behind what’s really going on here.  Read this STORY in the Clovis News Journal and then read the citizens’ comments at the end of the posting.

*  In another promotional opportunity, the fire chief of Park Ridge, Illinois announced his retirement effective Sept. 2.  Ed Dubowski has been on the department for 30 years, serving the past 10 years as Fire Chief. 

The Journal has a nice write-up on his career HERE.

SOMETIMES WE FORGET THAT IN THIS AGE of technology all of our words and deeds just might be recorded.

The Village of Stanford, Illinois budgets for a police chief and two part-time officers who are supplemented by the McLean County Sheriff’s deputies.  Back in March, one of the town’s part-time officers - who had 13 yrs. on the job - stopped the Stanford mayor and wrote three traffic violations.

During this dashcam video you will hear the officer ( who is technically a sheriff’s deputy) telephone the police chief and gleefully tell him what’s going on.  The chief answers, ”That’s fantastic!”

Well, it’s not so fantastic after all.  In mid-May the Village Board put the police chief on administrative leave and suspended the deputy from performing any police work within the village.  The remaining part-time officer was let go because there was nobody left to supervise him. 

The officer involved with the traffic stop has been demoted to the county dispatch center on June 28.  Last week the Board voted unanimously to fire the chief.  Now the Village is without a police department and has to start over.

The Bloomington Pantagraph has the complete STORY.

CLINTON TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN WAS LAST COVERED BY FIREGEEZER on April 9 (HERE) when the fire chief and deputy chief were both demoted and fined.  They were punished for spending $15,000 without authorization on kitchen cabinets and granite countertops.

Yesterday (Monday) the Twp. announced that they have terminated the employment of the former deputy chief, Royal Russell for dereliction.  Russell, more recently a battalion chief, was unavailable to answer a fire call despite attempts to reach him by radio, telephone and cell phone.

After refusing to offer any explanation for his absence, the Board of Trustees voted to fire him on July 14.  With 22 years service, he will be allowed to collect his pension in three years, but his health insurance benefit has been taken away.

Headquarters Station #4  (CTFD photo)

Detroit Free Press has the STORY.
Clinton Twp. Fire Dept. WEBSITE.

AMBULANCE DRIVERS AND PARAMEDICS IN NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA  are beginning Tuesday with a job action program.

For months they have been complaining about what they perceive as serious mis-management of the statewide ambulance service.  There will be a mass-march on Parliament demanding the Government sack ambulance service CEO Greg Rochford and immediately fill a 300-person shortfall in staff.

They will also enforce work bans on collecting patients’ financial information, allowing everyone who uses an ambulance to ride for free.  The cash-strapped Government reaps more than $70 million a year in ambulance fees - almost $1.4 million a week.  For every day the drivers refuse to collect fees it will cost the Government about $200,000.

That will no doubt get the attention of the politicians.  The Health Services Union is describing a recent report by the government on the state of the ambulance service as misleading and superficial.

Because of the large staff shortage, the medics are overworked and exhausted.  When they are at home, they are refusing to answer the telephone in case it is a call back for extra duty.  This leads to more shortages and creates a safety problem for the patients.  They say they are being pushed to the point of exhaustion across the state. In city areas this could mean an extra two or more hours of overtime at the end of each shift. In country areas this could mean spending every waking hour either working or on call.

The full story is in the Daily Telegraph HERE.

THE TOWN OF BOXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS IS HAVING a problem finding people to go to their fires.

Fire Lieutenant Robert Corthell is a call-firefighter in the West Boxford station who recently told the Board of Selectmen that he is leaving after 26 years with the department.

He said that during the past two years he has been the only call firefighter to respond to daytime fire alarms.  During the period June 9 through June 19 he responded alone on 7 of the 8 fire calls in the station’s first-due.

West Boxford Fire Station  (BFD photo)

The Boxford FD website tells:

The West Fire Station at 585 Main Street is home location for our West Captain and two West Lieutenants. Both fire stations have twenty firefighters each. All fire supression personnel are emergency medical trained at the First Responder level with over half the department trained as EMT’s.

But the fire reports are telling a different story.  The West station is currently unmanned and relies entirely on 13 call FF’s for coverage.  But 12 of them have been cherry-picking the calls and only responding to selected alarms that sound interesting.  “It’s not a safe situation,” Corthell said, “It’s been getting worse.”

In giving the Board his resignation, he said “It’s time to move on.”

The Tri-Town Transcript has the full STORY.
Boxford Fire Department WEBSITE.

COL. THOMAS A. DAVIS, JR., LONGTIME HEAD OF THE TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, announced his retirement today after serving nearly 44 yrs. with the DPS.

Following heavy criticism from the department’s actions leading up to the devastating arson of the Governor’s Mansion last month, his departure is no suprise.  The agency had been under the gun for months because of lax standards and failures in achieving modern advances.

A recent state audit found that the agency suffered from inefficient management and operational problems that critics say have caused it to fall years behind the times.

His complete statement of resignation read:  “After 43 years and 9 months with the Texas Department of Public Safety, I am retiring on Aug. 31, 2008.” and was released at 11 am this morning.

TV station KVUE filed this video report: