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Elections
& Concerns
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In an apparent act of attrition the Board of Fire Commissioners has not replaced the career Lieutenant who retired in 2003. This Lieutenant was also our training officer. The District chose to assign his duties to the one remaining Lieutenant over loading his responsibilities. At the risk of sounding redundant, this is not the time or the place for regression in the fire service, i.e. the busiest fire district in the county, a decline in capable volunteers, congested streets in a forty square mile district impeding response time, increasing number of emergencies, one of the volunteer officer positions vacant due to resignation and increased responsibilities and specialties requiring continuous training. This has eliminated our training officer. The district has sought outside contractors yet to date many of us have not seen them. Although most calls of fire nature do have an officer arrive on scene, there are many that don’t. During the days when a career officer is on we can be assured if no officer arrives we can call back to HQ for his response. At night and on some weekend days we can not even be assured of that. Keep in mind the concept of officers at emergency scenes is not to struggle to make sure that one arrives at the call. It is to have multiple officers arrive to form a command structure. (One officer in charge delegating to officers of other units to lead their units in specific tasks pertinent to a given emergency.) We are taught one man should command three to seven men, five being the ideal.
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hot topics and events.
All registered voters residing in the Lake
Mohegan Fire District are entitled to vote. (Cortlandt Manor, Crompond,
Jefferson Valley, Mohegan Lake, Shrub Oak, and portions of Yorktown, Peekskill,
and Lake Peekskill)
Please continue reading below to read our concerns affecting our choice for Commissioner. Please visit "Composition and Operations" section off of main page to understand needed background information pertaining to these concerns.
Our Concerns
In
our Department we have the following officers positions in order of command: one
volunteer Chief, two volunteer Assistant Chiefs, one volunteer Captain, four
volunteer Lieutenants, one career Captain, and one career Lieutenant.
The chain of command is very controversial. The minimum training levels and the
method of promotion is quite different between career personnel and volunteers. In addition the career officers have been held to a different standard of
accountability than the volunteer officers have, as it is the career officers
profession and the volunteer officers "good deeds to the community". Yet in our
Fire Department all volunteer officers outrank all career officers.
Ironically, all career officers on our job have over 30 years on the job. That
is about the age of some of our volunteer officers.
In addition, only the three volunteer chiefs and the career officers are
District officers, meaning the Board of Fire Commissioners approve their
status. The volunteer captain and lieutenants are only company officers ( see
one District, four organizations, who’s who). These officers are not approved
of by the Commissioners, yet still have higher command status than the
District’s career officers.
Every two years these volunteer officers move up to the next position. The
Chief of the Department then is granted deputy chief status. They remain in the
chain of command equal to our career officers and still above all career fire fighters. They are allowed to respond to alarms with red lights on their
personal vehicles.
Only one officer sits at the Board of Commissioners table during official
meetings; the career Captain.
Given the qualifications of such personnel who’s order should we follow if given
conflicting orders? Who’s would you follow? Bottom line is we have to follow
the chain of command, but you can see where the problem lies.
This issue needs to be reopened and revamped.
An additional polling location for Commissioner Elections
With well over 40,000 residents in a District covering
over 40 square miles, it makes no sense to have one polling station on one side
of the District for Fire District Commissioner elections. Previous years
elections will be remembered for its clogged parking lot and cars parked along
each side of a very dark Lee Blvd during holiday traffic season to the Jefferson
Valley Mall. Cars were witnessed driving to the polling station, slowing down,
and then driving away after finding no parking and seeing lines out the door in
the cold weather. The polls were only open for three hours during these
elections. There is no way with this limited time, one polling station could
sustain all registered voters in the District. In addition, it is simply
unfair to ask Cortlandt residents to drive, what could easily take 20 minutes,
across their town and into Yorktown to exercise their right to vote. Maybe this
is why only 350-400 out of
over 40,000 people voted last year.
After continuously butting heads with the District, they now have chose allow
six hours for this special election. It should help make it safer but it still is a major
inconvenience to Cortlandt voters.
We have also been given many complaints from senior citizens that there are
limited day light hours, and that they cannot venture out on their own after
dark. The three o’clock start time will provide little day light time during the winter
season.
Broader voting locations and hours are desired.
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Westchester County
Special Operations Task Force
There has been a special operations task force
proposed for Westchester
County by the Career Fire Chiefs Association. The purpose of this team would be
to respond on all serious life threatening emergencies involving hazardous
materials, weapons of mass destruction, and technical rescue ( building
collapse, trench rescue, etc. ) through out Westchester County.
Our current response level through out the county to acts of terrorism and major
catastrophic events is rather weak. The training, the manpower and the
specialized equipment is not present.
Due to the desire for on duty personnel to respond on a moments notice and a
need for rapid response in the northern Westchester area, our department has
been named as the Northern Task Force in this plan. The concept would be to
have several task force teams through out the county that can handle smaller
incidents in their surrounding area on their own, and come together and act as
one for major events.Their training and equipment would far exceed what most
fire departments have today.
If the policy were implemented it would almost double the size of this
department’s career staff. The plan would have the federal government fund the
initial start up fees. Different options are being explored to fund ongoing
fees for the years to follow. Some options are ongoing county, state, and
federal funds ( homeland security accounts, etc. ) or some sort of a county tax
such as the 911 surcharge fee we now pay.
The team would respond to specialized calls and hazardous material situations
throughout the county, and could be called elsewhere if the situation warrants
it. When there is no such specialized calls these fire fighters would be free
to operate on an every day basis as best seen fit by the host department. It is
when an emergency of a specialized nature arises in the county (and nearby
counties) that these fire fighters would assemble as the task force and
respond. The volunteers are not excluded from providing this protection, and
would be expected to play an intrinsic part of this operation.
In other words, the residents of the District would highly benefit at no
additional District tax if the Task Force did indeed come to Lake Mohegan. Our
community would have better-trained, better equipped ( a trailer full of
specialized equipment would be stored in our fire house ), and much better
staffed fire fighters to respond to their emergencies during a normal day. When
an emergency does arise that requires our on duty task force members to assemble
and possibly leave the area, our staffing for our communities normal fire needs
would be reduced to what we currently respond with. The cost of the taxpayers
to the Fire District would not increase. If this Task Force is initiated and
county tax dollars were to be used, all residents of the county will pay the
same county tax regardless of who the host departments are. Ultimately all
communities will benefit from this Task Force, but none more than the citizens
residing within the districts of the host departments. Work is well underway to
make this plan a reality.
Our Board of Commissioners voted to deny hosting the Task Force team even though
they admitted that their was confusion over many parts of it. We believe this
serious matter should be further looked into.
A synopsis of this proposed plan was published in the magazine Fire
Engineering, sold all over the United States with Lake Mohegan named as a task
force. On a northeastern regional agenda, this plan is being shown by the
Career Fire Chiefs to fire officials in the northeast states and is gaining wide
support.
Congresswoman Nita Lowey has already secured $500,000 for this plan. Senator
Hillary Clinton has promised to obtain funds to help implement it. Congresswoman Sue Kelly is also working to obtain funds for northern
Westchester.
As time goes on, it is becoming more and more difficult to get an effective fire
fighting team to an emergency within the first few minutes of a call. It is
therefore a short matter of time before we will need additional manpower in the
Lake Mohegan Fire District anyway. At that point the burden will fall back on
local tax dollars rather than the federal, state or county tax dollars that you
will be paying regardless of which fire departments get these funds.
This plan is just that, a plan. If the money is not obtained the plan does
not happen. Why give up the chance to benefit so greatly with out being sure of
all the facts.
The Commissioners should reopen the issue and find out the exact answers to their questions, and then vote.
Accuracy in reporting fire fighters on scene
We have asked for an
accounting system to be put into place that accurately records who is on scene. Currently, at the end of a call all volunteers on the scene of the emergency
have their names circled on the back of the report sheet. Volunteers at the
fire house rather than at the scene also fill out a supplemental form to receive
credit for the call. From time to time some names may accidentally get circled
when not actually on scene. In addition, a volunteer shown as present on the
scene may not have gotten there until say 30 minutes later. Some emergencies
may have 50 volunteers show up and others zero.
Our issue is that when we bring to the Commissioners a concern, for our and
your safety, that dangers exist due to low manpower, especially in the first few
minutes, we are told there are an average of 11 volunteers on scene of every
call. This does not give an accurate accounting of when or where they showed
up. Showing up 15 minutes later in a severe incident, although no fault to the
volunteer and surely well intentioned, may be needless then, although critical
five minutes sooner.
What we would like to see is a system used in other departments where a
scan-tron system is used. There would be no falsifications accidentally
occurring and more importantly there would be accurate accountability of fire
fighters on scene ( crucial for on scene operations and safety too ) and their
time of arrival.
These are vital statistics for analyzing the service provided.
Too many ambulance calls are sent to mutual
aid. On top of which average response times are too slow. We believe there is
a solution to these problems that can be reached if the ambulance corps and the
District work to combine forces.
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