Whenever I come out with articles similar to this one I get responses, (especially on Story Chat) that I'm tooting my own horn. This may be true but it's important people realize Salisbury News is not only delivering first, we're changing the scope of information not normally provided by The Daily Times. The paper is getting fatter with news and the quality of their work is also excelling quite a bit, thankfully.
Today we're seeing important information referencing the Ocean City Fire Department and the priceless Volunteers being ousted by a controlling majority of the City Council and the Mayor of Ocean City.
It's simple, they want the Volunteers out and they want the Taxpayers to provide a 100% Full Time, Fully Paid Professional Team on Staff. This will cost the Taxpayers a fortune and no one can say that the Volunteer Chief Chris Larmore isn't qualified to direct the Paid Fire Fighters.
In a call early this morning, I spoke with one of the 20+ year Volunteers and I asked him, you guys didn't pass up offering to PAY Chris, did you? Not at all. We did make that offer and they turned us down. You see, it's all about the Paid Fire Fighters not willing to take instructions and direction from the Volunteer Chief.
For more than 100 years the Volunteers have served Ocean City proudly and unconditionally. Clearly the Paid Fire Fighters come with conditions. I personally believe people shouldn't forget where they came from, yet far too often we see this power struggle where municipalities have to prove control.
Use the City of Salisbury as a perfect example. Come on now, a $10,000,000.00 Fire Station has been constructed, why? Because they have to be the biggest and the best. Would they have BUILT a $10,000,000.00 Fire Station IF they had to pay for it themselves? Yet the Daily Times never asked THAT question. The Salisbury Zoo wants to completely rebuild with a $36,000,000.00 Master Plan, FOR WHAT? They can't even keep animals alive and everyone who visits the Zoo can clearly see that it continues to fall apart with double the Staff and a quadruple budget than previous years. You have the old Station 16 that is a valuable piece of real estate being considered as a GIFT to the Artsy Fartsy people and then they, (the SFD) have the nerve to ask for hundreds of thousands of dollars from the City AND County Taxpayers to remodel another Station, yet they aren't willing to SELL the old Station and use the funds from that sale to do the renovations.
Just like the Salisbury Zoo, they have yet to hold a single fundraiser for a so called $2,000,000.00 Animal Services Building. The AZA demanded they construct this building 3 years ago and the Zoo knows it won't cost $2,000,000.00, they start high and when all is said and done they'll get what they want without doing a thing to help fund the expense. They already got $500,000.00 committed by the Taxpayers in the City, now they want an additional $300,000.00 from the County and another $500,000.00 from the State. Pretty SLICK, if you ask me! That building shouldn't cost $700,000.00! One can only wonder if Ron Alessi will attempt to get his Crew in there to build it too?
The point here is, the City has valuable property they can sell to help pay for their wants and needs and this is why I strongly suggest the Attorney General's Office look hard and deep and any so called, FOB's. It's the IDEA of fraud, not the fact that it has happened. It's the idea of opening opportunities for such a problem at the Taxpayers expense.
The idea of Volunteers getting involved and raising funds for such wants and needs are one thing. There's a sense of PRIDE in paying for something on your own. Similar to HELPING your children purchase a vehicle and them paying you back for it. If you GIVE it to them, more than likely they will not respect it as much, knowing once they break it they can just get another one.
The City of Salisbury is hurting the Taxpayers by spoiling these organizations with freebies and each and every year, WE WANT MORE! The Fire Boat is yet another perfect example. My God, Ocean City NEEDS these Volunteers! Think about all the investors who have put up millions, actually, billions of dollars in real estate there. They pay enough taxes on property now plummeting in value, yet the City is still getting top dollars in real estate tax revenue. IF the City could afford a Fully Paid First Response Professional Team in the past, they can't afford it now because the costs are only going up while the values of property will certainly be going down.
Fire Departments are a monopoly business and the Volunteers keep them honest. Taxpayers must have Volunteers or they'll end up just like Salisbury with contention everywhere and a divided organization free to do and spend wherever they so choose.
I'm pleased to see The Daily Times writing such editorials and allowing Letters to the Editor referencing such. With enough outside pressure the scope of their news and delivery of such said news will improve their chances of survival. My only criticism of their Editorial today is, perhaps they could use words the regular Joe out there can clearly understand. No, I wasn't lost but from the many comments I get here, especially from the Fire Department, they lost pretty much most of their attention, yet the Editor looks pretty darned sophisticated.
The real question is, what's better? An article people can read and understand or the idea that they can prove their better educated? Obviously with all the hits I get here each and every day, keeping it simple gets better results. Just food for thought.
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