On Wednesday there was a "work session" of the Ocean City Mayor and Town Council held at City Hall concerning among other issues the fire service in the Town of Ocean City. It has been long rumored that the Mayor and City Council as well as the City Manager and Director of Emergency Services have been putting together a plan to move the Volunteer Fire Company out of corporate town limits to be replaced by a costly paid fire service. When this rumor became more of a valid story the town government quickly backtracked to save face amongst extreme public outcry. Not only was the town attempting to destroy a fire company that has been protecting and serving Ocean City as well as Worcester County for over 100 years but also trying to replace an entirely volunteer force with one which would be paid to the roughly estimated tune of over 10 million dollars a year to operate after spending an unknown sum to purchase the volunteers portion of ownership of the fire hous es, fire apparatus and equipment.
Last year the Mayor and City Council set forth guidelines and goals that they wanted to see the fire company accomplish in a years time. Undisputed by the town council, mayor, and fire company the Volunteers meeted and exceeded those goals. Unfortunately, in December the council was once again rumored to put in place plans to purchase their own fire apparatus and pay additional personnel to staff them in the upcoming budget. The fire company responded by asking the council what their intentions were. The council once again backtracked and hid their intentions and gave a "vote of confidence" in the Fire Chief and attempted to quell the outcry. Yesterday at the council work session in Ocean City, Fire Chief Chris Larmore approached the Mayor and City Council with many questions that he wanted answered concerning where the Fire Company stood in the role of fire protection for the town. The bottom line is that the fire service in Ocean City curr ently has two seperate bosses; The Director of Emergency Management: Joe Theobald, and the Volunteer Fire Chief: Chris Larmore. At dismay with their boss Joe Theobald, the EMS division in Ocean City as well as the Paid Firefighters Union, and the Volunteer Fire Company all agreed to support Fire Chief Chris Larmore to be the Fire Administrator for the entire town, answering to the Mayor and City Council. This seemed to make all parties concerned happy and put in place one person to oversee fire service in the town. Naturally the Council wasn't happy that their beloved City Manager, Dennis Dare would have no control over the fire company and voted against making this deal happen. The Firefighters Union's only concern was working for a volunteer Fire Chief. To fix this, Chris Larmore offered to hold an "appointed city position" with no salary. In essense doing for free a job that when compared to other Ocean City salaries would probably pay approxi mately 125,000 a year.
The city has time and time again been dishonest with the tax payers of the town, as well as the Volunteer Fire Company. They lied when they said that there was no plan in place to replace the volunteer fire company and they lied when they voted to have confidence in the current fire chief. By a vote of 3-3 with 1 abstaining, the council voted to turn down the Fire Chief's motion to be the head of Fire Service in the town. This sent councilwoman Margaret Pillas into an outrage. Pillas, who among other council members was ordered by the Mayor two months ago to research the matter has spent her time talking to Emergency Services Personnel in the town, meeting with Firemen and Fire Chiefs, and touring fire houses. She chastised other members of Council who said they were not familiar enough with the issue and needed more time to educated themselves. Pillas said what many in attendance were thinking, esentially "You have had your time to educate yourselves, now is the meeting, now is the time to decide." Those voting to approve the measure were Margaret Pillas, James Hancock, and Jim Hall, those voting against it were Mary Knight, Joe Metricic and Nancy Howard. Lloyd Martin was too scared to make a decision.
Because of this vote the Ocean City Volunteer Fire Company held a special meeting at 7:00 PM Tuesday night. The fire company decided that they could not continue to operate for a Town Council that is deceitful, untruthful, and flat out devious. The fire company cannot guarantee service to it's citizens if it is not itself included in decisions regarding fire protection in the town. This has happened time and time again in closed door meetings without the presence of any representation from the fire company. The fire company voted almost unanimously that because of the council's refusal to fully disclose their hidden agendas, their lack of confidence in the volunteer fire company, and their extreme desire to allow their city manager to run the town with no regard to the thoughts and feelings of the general taxpayer, the Ocean City Volunteer Fire Company stated their intention to leave Ocean City corporate limits and change their primary jurisdiction to i nclude only the area known as "West Ocean City". Because of the fire company's dedication to the safety of the citizens of Ocean City they will be requesting a timeline from Ocean City as to when they will be able to staff their own paid fire company to protect the town.
This decision did not come lightly and it is not to be taken as a threat. The fire company is not asking for the town council to change their mind or to conduct another vote. Their vote yesterday signaled to the fire company that even if they rescinded their position there is an unhealthy town council in place that will continue to lie, deceive, and trick the fire company and general public. This is a town council that the Volunteer Fire Company cannot and will not work for.
You may form your own opinion but I truly believe that this is the final sign that the Mayor and Town Council of Ocean City is not speaking on behalf of the taxpayers, residents, and visitors of Ocean City but of their own true hidden agenda.
http://www.town.ocean-city.md.us/video/videofiles/data/021208a.html
42 comments:
Remember the blog posting about the vehicle accident last week in Parsonsburg? To the OC person who responded to that blog regarding volunteer vs. paid firefighters, all I can say is "I TOLD YOU SO."
Wow, good on 'em.
"meeted" ... from a grown man.
God I love to see firemen and their groupies blog! It's always like a steel cage death match with the English language.
What were these firehouse jokers doing in grade school when the rest of the kids were learning to write?
Joe, You're right, by all means. The only two people on the city council who cared about the public were Marge Pillas and Joe Hall.
The rest are scum bags, along with the mayor and that worthless piece of crap they call the city manager.
Ahh, Ocean City is just a 100 year huricane away from being a barrier Island. Also a good possibilty they it may be split into two islands or three.
It is a wise choice to move over the bridge anyway in the event we get a huricane like Katrina here. Being on higher ground and having all the equiptment safe in sound so that if they need it they don't have any flood conditions that could prevent them from getting anywhere.
Now I can see that Ocean City could use a good use a good fire rescue boat.
The plan has always been to move equipment out depending on the strength of the storm. I'm the sure the paid people will know to do the same.
Watch out Wicomico, paid fire and EMS is coming your way! 5 years or less.
It is funny that you are supporting a volunteer wanting to be fire chief in Ocean City but when Bill Gordy runs stuff in Salisbury you cry bitch and moan.
lets think about this..
Jay Jester is the President of the OCVFC also the former President of the Union in Salisbury
How can you fight for two different things? One day Career, the next three volunteers, then come back and bitch that your not getting paid enough? Explain that?
The problem is the Larmore wants to be GOD of Ocean City, the white hat got to his head!! So who cares if your not GOD, nothing has changed at all when they voted against it..it would have gotten shot down even harder if some of the OCVFC chiefs didn't have financial pull over the council members that voted for it..
Sorry money doesn't buy you everything...
BECAUSE BILL GORDY IS A SELF CENTERED POLE SMOKER . 16 VOLLEY
Wow...I don't know where the information came from, but as an ACTIVE OCVFC member, I can tell you that it is filled with misleading comments and half-truths. How much did the City of Salisbury pay the OCVFC President to contrive the information for this article while he was supposed to be supervising his crew at Station 2? PS...the true ACTIVE volunteers who live IN the first due response area want to STAY. We haven't forgotten our mission.
To the "ACTIVE OCVFC" member above, I do believe the vote to move to West Ocean City had only two members voting "Ney". Unless you're one of these two members, which I seriously doubt because I know and can name both then that means one of two things happened.
A. You voted "Yes" with the rest of the fire company to move to West Ocean City,
or
B. as the "ACTIVE OCVFC" member you say you are you didn't show up to quite possibly the most important meeting in the fire company's history.
So which one is it?
"ACTIVE OCVFC" Member: What is misleading or half true about the article? If you're going to challenge it please do throw out some examples.
When it comes to the "TWO HATTER" types, the word hypocrite comes to mind.
As someone who is a part of Ocean City Fire/EMS there are definitely 2 separate factions even within the ranks of the volunteer fire department. In my opinion one side is the members who belong just to say they belong. They very rarely respond to any alarm calls except for the rare "all call" They walk in long after an alarm is over to get their credit then walk out. They may do a few duty crews in the summer but that is just to keep their percentage up. The other side are the guys who show up for the middle of the night alarm activations, they ride duty crews regularly, they participate in the training that is being provided for them by the career division. They are the ones who put the citizens of the town ahead of themselves. Larmore is a nice guy but I don't believe he even meets the minimum requirements that are being accepted nationally for a person in his position. The intent of the volunteer fire company was to hire a chief whom they could control, revert the fire/ems division to ems only calls and hire their own paid force to respond to the calls they don't want to get up for themselves. There is no financial accountability either. And now these guys want to take equipment that is in their name that city taxpayers paid for to West OC? So what if Dennis and some members of the council want to have a fire chief that answers to them. Aren't they ultimately responsible for the overall operations of all resources in the city that the taxpayers pay for?
Career EMS/firefighters have tried running volunteers off for years. “Union” says it all!
Jester is a peace of shit.
Sounds like station 2 fire years ago all over again.
so ocvfc member if it was such an important meeting why did it happen 2 hours after the the council meeting. You would think if it was that important would you not want to let all members know .Like life members gold badge and yes even those one who were still working on a working incident.So you say that it was so important why werent these people notified or allowed to attend. As for the truth how come none of the membership knew about this lawyer no lies humm or when they stand up and say we are going down to give them a report and our feelings why wasnt the chief forward to the floor saying that he wanted to be in charge of the paid staff. i truel dont believe that some of the memebership even know what they voted for.
Anonymous said...
Jester is a peace of shit.
6:58 PM
I believe it's PIECE not PEACE. As far as that comment goes, he's actually a good hearted guy. His condescending know it all attitude is what rubs most people wrong.
Piece Out.
OCFFEMT
The reason the meeting happened two hours after the council meeting is because that was the normal time for our weekly meeting. There was already a meeting the week prior to discuss the council meeting and we assured our chief that we would support anything he brought to the table because we have full trust in him. Our regularly scheduled meeting is every Tuesday at 7:00 pm. It just so happened that this meeting fell on the same day as the council meeting. All members knew what was at stake at the council meeting that day and that there would obviously be a lot up for discussion that night. If they didn't attend then that was at their lack of participation or care. You will never have a meeting of an entity as large as the OCVFC with 100% attendance. It's just not going to happen. Volunteers are just that, volunteers. Unfortunately I'm sure some had other pressing issues in their lives to attend to or their regular jobs and businesses. Others just didn't care enough to attend and their opinions therefore aren't really valued that much. There was also an all page that went out every half hour following the council meeting urging members to attend. Anything else?
Thats bullshit! the meeting did not happen because it was your regularly scheduled meeting..if so why did they spend from 4 pm to 7 pm. paging out every 30 minutes requesting the mebership show up and all drills have been cancelled??
Oh explain to me how a 29 year memeber of the career staff in ocean city who is also an assistant chief can say " Lets not run any fire calls, let them run the overtime budget into the ground so they cant afford to pay anyone, then we will come back and show 'em how the boys do it..." sounds to me like someone wants to make some extra money before he retires, sounds to me like your getting screwed by people who just want money and power instead of BETTERING the community...
Thats bullshit! the meeting did not happen because it was your regularly scheduled meeting..if so why did they spend from 4 pm to 7 pm. paging out every 30 minutes requesting the mebership show up and all drills have been cancelled??
Oh explain to me how a 29 year memeber of the career staff in ocean city who is also an assistant chief can say " Lets not run any fire calls, let them run the overtime budget into the ground so they cant afford to pay anyone, then we will come back and show 'em how the boys do it..." sounds to me like someone wants to make some extra money before he retires, sounds to me like your getting screwed by people who just want money and power instead of BETTERING the community...
how can your piece of shit chief state that if that if things dont go his way in the meeting he is going to resign..however when began what seemed to be a resignation speech he said he would leave it in the hands of the volunteers..how bout we live up to your word..evidently something he has problems with for his entire life..
How would you let a chief adress your fire company as you..
"You will not be here in year.." is what chief larmore said...
Why cant he address the fire company as "us" or "we" maybe because when its all said and done he would honestly care less about the volunteers, he just wants the support until he can get "GOD" powers..then you are worthless to him..
you know so much tuesday night was a drill night and it was called off do to the special meeting. we meet every other tuesday in the winter. so yes it was a special meeting
Whats wrong with Jester being a Know It All. Are you jealous that you can ask him a question and he will have a proper answer. There are only several times that he has been stumped that I have scene.
Jay for Chief of Salisbury no Ocean City, No , Jay for Chief!!!!!
Councilmen Hall stated in the meeting, "We have here a qualified, first class Chief..."
How do you say he is qualified and only just RECENTLY completed FF2 and now sitting in Fire Officer I. Hmmmm... Sounds like Councilmen Hall needs to know what he is talking about!!
Jester knowing all funny ok ask this question how many times do i need to get pulled over . Or how about lets have one to many and make inappropriate remarks about a member of the ladies aux during the banquet. we can go on and on and on not enough time or energy. go to west oc maybe you will run a few more calls.
Jester knowing all funny ok ask this question how many times do i need to get pulled over . Or how about lets have one to many and make inappropriate remarks about a member of the ladies aux during the banquet. we can go on and on and on not enough time or energy. go to west oc maybe you will run a few more calls.
It's just a MATTER OF TIME check stats across the country ...Vol. Depts are on the "outs". It's happening in Salisbury...See and Gordy are single handily working on that. Every year they get "Budgeted Paramedic/FF's If he doesn't get enough money to hire FF's "to man the Fire Trucks" then he will say we needs more Paramedics for medic units. HELLO , "they" are cross trained and will be made FF's used on Fire Apparatus. Face it , we have said it for years Volunteer Firefighters will be 'a thing of the past'. Open those wallets Tax Payers. It's a shame you can get service for Free but "powers to be" want it for a cost....just to have it Their "power play" way....
I do think it is Ironic Jay Jester is now going through some of the same things we went through a few years ago.... He was one of the most outspoken "paid" guys responding against us then.....how does it feel Jay? It's a real shame.
It's kind of funny that the Chiefs and President can blind the volunteers into doing whatever they want...
I thought joining a volunteer fire company was to serve the community..and no you leave because you didn't get your DAMN CANDY? So what Larmore is not the chief..
The FIRE/EMS and Larmore both agreed there needed to be one power..
Then he said he wanted to be Chief and it got denied..
WHO GIVES A RATS ASS..get over it, you cant do the job and thanks to the council members, because the first time a firefighter gets hurt or kill, it goes to the chief, "oh well im only a volunteer.." isn't that whats always stated?
ACTUAL INFO 700…..
I DO AGREE WITH YOU TO SOME EXTENT. IF YOU DO NOT GET YOUR WAY THEN YOU ACT LIKE A CHILD. I HAVE NEVER BEEN A FAN OF THAT POLICY. BUT I THINK THIS IS MORE THAN JUST THAT. THEY DO MAKE A GOOD POINT. THE COUNCIL IS ALLEGEDLY MAKING DECISIONS REGARDING THE FIRE SERVICE AND SAFETY OF THE TOWN WITH NO REPRESENTATION FROM THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. SOMETHING JUST STINKS ABOUT THAT TO ME. PERSONALLY, IF I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR SOMETHING I LIKE TO BE INVOLVED IN ALL ASPECTS OF IT.
OCVFC or AQVFC (Al Qaeda)?
The "leadership" of the OCVFC is a disgrace to the fire service. I have never seen such a blatant abuse and misuse of trust in authority. In order to get "their way", the Chief/President have used propaganda to attempt to instill fear in the very people that they are supposed to protect. Their hyperbole about safety concerns and increased taxes for the citizens and business owners has no emperical data or evidence to support their claim. Yet, their very decision to "take their ball and go home" would be the catalyst for such events if it weren't for the fact that the city has career fire personnel that are there 24/7 in addition to a core group of volunteers who are there to provide protection rather than engage in politics. The OCVFC "leadership" is using scare tactics and threats on the citizens and business community to gain support for their veiws, essentially holdng them hostage until their ransom met. The OCVFC "leadership" has the backing of an affluent local business man who consequently directly controls the vote of a long-term councilman. Interestingly, the aforementioned both have vested interest in a local newspaper. That newspaper's use of "yellow journalism" is obvious when compared to the more balanced reporting of other local publications. So, to summarize, there is a group who wants power and control and will use threats and fear to gain them. They are well financed and have political henchmen disguised as public officials who control a media source. Propaganda has been fed to the followers and non-conformists have been isolated - if someone didn't speak up, their silence was taken and portrayed as "100% support of the membership". Again, the "leadership" of the OCVFC (or AQVFC)are a disgrace to all firefighters, paid and volunteer, who wear the badge. To the Chief and President, I say to you both, you are nothing but a terrorist in a dress uniform.
Anonymous said...
The rest are scum bags, along with the mayor and that worthless piece of crap they call the city manager.
11:01 PM
"that worthless piece of crap they call the city manager"
Is that Dennis something or another?? Is it true that some members or employees of the fire department were banging his old lady??
Anonymous said...
The problem is the Larmore wants to be GOD of Ocean City, the white hat got to his head!!
8:23 AM
Does Larmore even have the credentials to be a paid fire chief anywhere?
Anonymous said...
lets think about this..
Jay Jester is the President of the OCVFC also the former President of the Union in Salisbury
How can you fight for two different things? One day Career, the next three volunteers, then come back and bitch that your not getting paid enough? Explain that?
8:23 AM
Jay Jester is a worthless piece of shit that doesn't know the first thing about being a real firefighter, but he plays one in Salisbury. I mean on TV.
Didn't that asshole get fired or suspended from MFRI for doing something that almost got a student killed. His ass needs to leave the fire service before he kills someone. The idiot wants to die a "hero" on the fireground. ROTFLMAO
Anonymous said...
Councilmen Hall stated in the meeting, "We have here a qualified, first class Chief..."
How do you say he is qualified and only just RECENTLY completed FF2 and now sitting in Fire Officer I. Hmmmm... Sounds like Councilmen Hall needs to know what he is talking about!!
6:51 AM
If Laremore just completed Firefighter II class and he is now sitting in Fire Officer I class he doesn't have the qualifications to be a pimple on a real chiefs dick. Sad but true he is more "qualified" than most chiefs in Worcester and Wicomico Counties. ROTFLMFAO
Jester. What a tool. If he'd stay off the damn cell phone at work for five minutes he'd be able to figure out what being a real firefighter is all about. Sadly, the City pays him while he conducts OCVFC business while he's on duty. One of you Jester nut huggers wanna defend him on that one? You can't because you know it's true.
Hey look this post gets put back to the top but a Career Fire Fighter for Salisbury (who also works for OC FIRE/EMS)Royally screws up and it goes to the wayside.
It truly is sad that the 100+ years of proud volunteer protection by a great department has been totally sidelined by all of these authors, who felt compelled to sling mud at the various persons involved in the issue. One can only hope an pray that some elected goverment official comes forward to help put and end to this insanity through the realization of the true contributions, both past and present of the volunteer fire service, coupled with the obvious needs of an exploding growth rate at the no-longer sleepy resort community.
ladies and gentleman what is happrning here is totaly brought on by lies. The motion that was made on the floor the other night was for the intent to look into moving not to move not until the chiefs press release did you hear we are moving . So what is it we are or we are not, Also look at the words that are on this web site as well as all over the press even the words state even if the mayor and council change there vote how can the fire company or fire chief work for that. So please mayor and council stick to your guns dont let the money and pressure of some of these people scare you.Ask hale harrison last year when he went down there and stood for the fire company had an alarm bells call the next morning at one of his buildings downtown all the people he supported were not there just career people.
The fire company has a long honored tradition and it is being tainted by a few people who believe they know whats best.hopefully we can get thru this and do the job that needs to be done
I have remained off here long enough I just received a phone call from my sister to ask me the question if I am actual info 700 let me answer that one first no I am not. What I am about to tell you is my feelings yes I do have feelings about this subject I have been and will be a fire fighter for the town of ocean city yes that right will be.
The words I speak here are nothing that I haven’t told president jester to his face or the chief knowing my view. I do not agree with the threat of us leaving the town of ocean city. First that wasn’t the motion on the floor why are we saying were leaving if its not our intent to. Yes I do have a problem with the meeting was conducted we had a fire on going and people do have to work two and three jobs to support a family. Please don’t even question my loyalty to this fire company just look at the stats over the last ten years and you will find that there isn’t many people that can touch me. The vote was conducted and to be honest with you don’t know how valid it is people voted on this motion who shouldn’t have i.e.: assoc members probationary and such. Listen I truly don’t believe we should be moving a fire company with a tradition of 100 plus years because were mad at a few people and that’s what we are.
We are Fire Fighters whether its paid or Volunteer we have taken an oath to serve and protect and that doesn’t mean only when we like who we work for. Its only responsible for the mayor and council to do what they did. The council gave us more then we had a time line and didn’t take nothing away Chris left with the same authority as he had when he went in. There are members of this community who are scaring the crap out of people for nothing . Mr. Harrison if its so important to you why was there no letters put in everyone house like north of 28th St. Anybody that knows me should know how hard it was to write this with out me using my favorite word and I am sure that I am going to lose friends over it but if were truly friends you will value my points and agree to disagree.
Lt Tim Jerscheid AF 109
Could not have said it better myself! It's nice to now that there are real dedicated firefighters out there that are living up to their oath and are willing to stay no matter what happens. I know it was tough for you to write that without using your favorite word, but I'm glad you did because the facts must be known.
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