If he said so...then he must be right
It is sad to hear of what the Roanoke Firefighters think now that the budget cuts have been confirmed.
Mostly, the firefighters believe they have lost the backing of their Fire Chief. I think it is obvious, others needed a little more time to come around to the realization.
It is funny though, you hear Council Members and others say things like...well that is what he is paid to do...and he is just doing his job...and his hands are tied.
I am calling shenanigans. That is right. I think it is just the opposite. He is the Fire Chief. His job is to manage the Fire-EMS Department. His job is to make sure that Myself and my Brother and Sister Firefighters get to go home to our families after every shift. His job is to ensure the Publics Safety related to Fire and EMS Services.
I do not know any other way of explaining it other than to say that EVERY firefighter thinks this is a terrible idea and no good can come of it.
I have heard what some of the Council Members have to say and they are standing behind the notion that "well the Fire Chief said so". That can mean only one thing, that they will remember when we cry foul...and they have their scapegoat.
Hopefully, in the future I will be able to getting some entertaining things on here again to brighten your day. However, today is not one of them.
Watch Channel 10 and 13 tonight, they both covered the events of today.
Mostly, the firefighters believe they have lost the backing of their Fire Chief. I think it is obvious, others needed a little more time to come around to the realization.
It is funny though, you hear Council Members and others say things like...well that is what he is paid to do...and he is just doing his job...and his hands are tied.
I am calling shenanigans. That is right. I think it is just the opposite. He is the Fire Chief. His job is to manage the Fire-EMS Department. His job is to make sure that Myself and my Brother and Sister Firefighters get to go home to our families after every shift. His job is to ensure the Publics Safety related to Fire and EMS Services.
I do not know any other way of explaining it other than to say that EVERY firefighter thinks this is a terrible idea and no good can come of it.
I have heard what some of the Council Members have to say and they are standing behind the notion that "well the Fire Chief said so". That can mean only one thing, that they will remember when we cry foul...and they have their scapegoat.
Hopefully, in the future I will be able to getting some entertaining things on here again to brighten your day. However, today is not one of them.
Watch Channel 10 and 13 tonight, they both covered the events of today.
15 comments:
Quess Jimbo and Red think Halloween is a year long event. Time for those in admin to take of their costumes for the joke is over. Ever wonder why they have lost epressions on their faces at fires? No confidence vote by the local might raise some eyebrows.
The Fire Chief in Charleston SC killed 9 of his own men, but it don't mean it was right.
Rhett;
I unfortunately was not able to make today’s council meeting, but I must say I am very proud of the efforts of the union.
It is too bad people have forgotten why fire departments were organized in the first place. Conflagrations of yesteryear are a thing of the past and unfortunately until something like that happens again, people will not care if the fire department exists or not.
It is too bad we are on the loosing side of this argument. I must say I am very disappointed in Channel 10s story about the meeting that was published on the Internet. They made us out to be only a bunch of disgruntled employees. Until we can convince the public that we really do care for their safety as well as our own that is all they will think of us.
Channel 10 made the story sound as though we should be happy they are going to build the Melrose station.
As I understand the plan to be for that station there will be a ladder truck and 1 engine housed there. I suppose engine 13 will be replaced by Engine 9, however once something has been taken away, it never finds its way back. I look for this to be no different. I dare administration to prove me wrong.
I cannot figure why the overall city budget was increased by 3% and ours was cut by 10. Where is the money going? More consultants?
The politicians want to rely on consultants’ numbers and stats to make their decisions. That sounds all official and proper to the public, but they do not realize that consultants are hired to produce a document that says whatever their employer wants it to say, and for a fee, they become the hired fall guys when things do not go as planned. They don’t care they got paid. It’s just like accreditation for our department. We pay the fee; we get the decals. What else do we get from this? Do we receive more grant money? Do we receive enough grant money to cover the cost of the decals? No one will answer this question.
Another thing that is against us is the fact that city administration does not care about the citizens. They believe that everyone has insurance to pay for their loss. If you do not believe this go to channel 10s web site and read the story. Pay particular attention to the part about increased EMS fees. They state that these will not be an additional burden to the citizens because insurance will cover the expense. I am sorry but I know who pays the increase in premiums. They would do well to realize that the citizens do. They would also do well to realize that not everyone has or can afford insurance. On the other hand, if we get hurt on the job, they put us back to work on light duty as soon as possible because their workers comp. premiums will increase, GO FIGURE.
On our behalf, we will never win an argument with city government because they have the ace in the hole and are not afraid to play it. Every time they can not find the funding for something they do not want to fund, all they do is tell the public they will have to raise taxes and that is the end of the argument.
We need to produce the real numbers concerning increased response times, increased time before action while we are waiting on help to arrive from the other side of town, increased firefighter injuries, increased dollar loss (yes vacant structures count), increased maintenance costs of a quint verses an engine, decrease of number of business that locate in the city due to lack of fire protection,(yes there are some out there that will not locate in an area because of this). Until they realize that is the reason we have some of the businesses we have nothing will change.
They base their changes on calculated risks and chances, just like casinos and bookies. Casinos and bookies don’t always win.
Mostly they don’t care. They weren’t here for the Singer Furniture fire where 3 people lost their lives. They weren’t here for the Martin Brothers Produce fire that took a downtown business. They weren’t here for the Probst Childress fire that took another down town business. They weren’t here for the Commonwealth Building fire. I am not sure about the Earle Hotel fire and the American Chemical fire. They weren’t here for the TAP fire and the Bonview Hotel fire. They weren’t here for the devastation and life loss of the flood of 1985. And they definitely weren’t here for the loss of 2 firefighters lives prior to the flood of 1985.
Until we find someone who is willing to listen to the people in the field that actually know what is going on, and actually cares we will have to keep fighting the good fight and not give up.
I am proud to say I am a member of local 1132 !
Thanks for reading and allowing my rant.
I want to say thanks to Brian Wishneff for his continued support and willingness to go on the record with the only dissenting vote again.
Oh wait, He didnt show up for the vote or to the budget workshop. No wonder we like him so much. Well at least this time he didn,t vote against us.
To the above, we did produce numbers of all of those facts you spoke of. However, when you have a Chief that knows nothing about firefighting stroking a bunch of dumbass council members along with the city manager and assistant city manager then what can you do. Unfortunately we knew the outcome before going in. 2 of the dumbass council members were to chicken s#@t to even show up and the rest never looked at us. That goes to show what kind of government we have in this city. Let's just hope that after July that bid red and jimbo is looking for new jobs..
After watching the news, I have a few questions:
Do we really need to spend $200,000 on a new YMCA for a minority of citizens to use?
What the hell is an enterprise zone and why are we allocating $325,000 for that?
Third...
Why doesn't the city collect the business license fees that they are owed?
Who the hell is running this city?????????
Hey Gywnn, just saw your comments on the news tonight. How uninformed and gullible you are. Lets see the rank and file from ff(firefighter) to BC (Battalion Chief) were in the audience upset about these cuts and you believed Darlene/Grigsbys' puppet Hoback. Funny the rank and file disagree with your vote and Admin says nothing to dissuade you. Don't come pandering for L1132 support again. Hope that 10% doesn't affect you or your family.
Gywnn Mason, medic hoback said it, so it must be true hum, George Bush says the economy is good and the war in iraq is needed, i guess you support him to because he couldn,t possible be wrong hell he is the president of the united states. try using that brain for more than figuring out how to rid the world of cigaretts butts.
Take a class on how to spell and type, this is one reason they think were DUMB.
If all you got out of that post is the grammer then you need to stick to english teaching ,and leave the firefighting to the dumb. All by the way dumb is not spelled with all capital letters. DEFFENDER OF THE DUMB (come on just a little humor nobody is perfect)
Much like stereotypes, old saying exist for a reason. THEY ARE TRUE.. I learned this one long ago when I first opened a business.
---"All of us are smarter than one of us"--
what does that mean?
it means that every one of us that does this job every day knows more than the 1 individual that in this case is "chief". everyone has said it over again, you're were no fireman, LT, Capt. etc. No one will follow you anymore. even your suckups are starting to scramble. It's like watching survivor actually.
hae faith my brothers, one day that statement will be proven correct. eventually something will go wrong. NOT by our doing as it is not our nature to allow someone to get hurt out of spite. HOWEVER, one day, it will occur. there wont be enough of us & something will go wrong because of that. Then, there we will be saying I told you so. the most important part of that dear "chief" is that you are not our leader. & with this action, you have hung yourself. for you see, you have followed a cutthroat in Grigsby, & when this does go wrong & you were the one saying nothing is gonna change & it comes about that it has, who's gonna cover your ass then? no one here is willing to defend you as you weren't willing to defend us....because we will have the news coverage saying this shouldnt occur. after 5/9 merge into 1 that will be 3 engines removed from NW. eventually it IS going to occur. the removal of nearly 25% of the fire engines in the city means something will happen. & when that day comes who is going to back you. no one, you will be the scapegoat. even the leaders of the sheriff's dept & the commonwealths attorney's office fought for theirdept. but not you, you offered ways to cut us.
here's another old saying my brothers....
"what comes around, goes around"
have faith. it always does!!!
Just having fun. It's all good.
Just released, the Charleston SC Fire Chief just retired. Maybe Hoback can move down there and fix their department.
Yeah, if Big Red, Jim Griswald, and BackHo would have been in charge in Charleston SC, they would not have had 9 firefighters fall in the line of duty. Of course, that is because they would have reduced manpower so much that there wouldn't have been 9 firefighters there to fight the fire.
We are a better group of Firefighters than to bring the Chareston 9 into our problems. I understand that eveyong is upset right now, but let those men Rest In Peace.
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