In August 2012 I wrote THIS ARTICLE as I personally attended the City Council Meeting referencing the hiring of 12 new Firefighters. In bold are a small portion of what I published in 2012.
Click on the link to the original article. Now Hoppes wants to do everything in his power to keep them but even Mayor Ireton is saying the City doesn't have the funding.
Look, I have witnessed TONS of occasions whereas our elected officials have stated, if we say we're going to do something, we cannot do the opposite and disappoint the public.
So why not hold Departments Heads to the same scrutiny? The Fire Chief stated just as many Firefighters will be retiring in two years. So, have they, will they? Was it a lie?
I can tell you that I immediately heard NO Firefighter intended to retire because they just can't afford it.
Now Ireton and Hopes are scrambling to find ways to keep these 12 Firefighters we can't afford. Look at the charts we're publishing seven days a week. Can anyone argue that the Fire Department needs to shrink, rather than increase by 12?
These 12 Firefighters will cost the City, (are you ready) $700,000.00 A YEAR!
So here we have the Court of Public Opinion. Should we retain the 12 Firefighters at $700,000.00 a year or should we let them go? I'll add, should we ask TWELVE Veteran Firefighters to RETIRE, (as promised) and retain the new Firefighters? You make the call.
27 comments:
Joe, You called it back then and now it has become reality. Hold the management responsible as it should be held. Now what about the new Police Officers they talked about?
Time to get rid of the old timers and keep the young guys!
Joe, I doubt they will keep there word! But a solution might be to let the new hires go and as the others retire offer the ones who lost out first choice to be rehired. We certainly cannot afford the additional $700,000. dollars. The city and the firefighters MUST keep their word.
Let them go! Too many already! Their motto is Never lost a Basement!
Last-in - first-out is how it usually works in the working world with unions....
These Democrat-voting folks need to see that they are getting what they voted for.
The city needs to be held accountable for their word!
DISGUSTING! They knew 2 years ago this was going to happen, and fully planned to "worry about it then". No-one is going to retire, if so get it in writing, otherwise let the ones go that were hired under this flim flam!
The list of firefighters going to Ocean City is growing fast. Base pay $20,000 more, and not having the hassles or Hoppes, who can blame them.
Typical Obama, Omally, Lierton mess. I say let them go!
They're already creating a fire marshal division so they can keep them!
Whoever made the assumption that all those firefighters were or were expected to retire needs to be held accountable. To the ones that were hired with the grant money they owe you all an explanation. This is government incompetence at it's best. No wonder Sby/WicCo county is the mess that it is.
If the City has any sense towards
their responsibility----THE 12 guys willhave to go! Plain & Simple--It's a No Brainer!!!!!
I have to constantly be aware of
where the pot holes are in this town & the City is taking money
from the source of repairs there--
to do something else with it!
When is this careless spending
every going to stop???? It's a constant spend , spend of tax payers money---There is NO Accountability to the people!!
I hope you people are satisfied with those you voted in cause I'm
sure not!
Out of the original twelve seven have been hired on as full timers. Then there had to be back filled due to the grant.
Kick the old guys out. Back up their promise.
As a taxpayer living in Salisbury and one who attended the meeting where Hoppes stated that funding would not be provided at the end of the SAFER grant; I expect, no I demand, that the fire chief and mayor live up to their word. There are not going to be any wholesale retirements in the SFD for years to come. I made my feelings known to the mayor and council that this exact thing would happen. In 2 years these 12 personnel would have to be terminated, period. Guess my prediction is coming true. And if I read the grant correctly because these were hired with federal funding they are not eligible for unemployment benefits.
Another great job by Mayor Liarton and his supposed fire chief Rick "I could not spell fire chief of I was one" Hoppes. Maybe they could save some money and keep one position if the chief had the balls to eliminate all the take home vehicles and fuel wasted on food runs and self dispatched responses. Oh we'll, guess we will need 12 applications for food stamps and Medicaid.
2:33, I watched on TV. I remember council members asking, "When you hire them, do they understand this is temporary with no promise of future employment." That fire chief said, "Yes!"
Ireton and Hoppes can pay for them out of their own pockets if they want to keep any. I remember the "retirement" line as well.
Ireton = LIAR
Hoppes = LIAR
Pollitt = LIAR
Most of City Council = LIARS
How much more can we take? They are spending OUR money like it was water running through their hands. Enough already. No accountability for anything they do - ridiculous.
8 of the 12 hired in the Grant have moved to Full Time status. This took place due to retirements and people leaving for other jobs. Most citizens do not realize that Station 2 was unstaffed with a Duty crew for nearly 3 years as a result of furloughs and 4 frozen vacant positions. This left Stations 1 and 16 to cover that response district. In a city with as large of a geographic response area as Salisbury that's a big gap to fill. Salisbury has added two additional staffed ambulances in recent years to handle the increased call volume. I'll stop there and we can tally the numbers. 4 frozen vacancies, 2 additional ambulances 2 personnel x 4 shifts = 8 and 5 personnel staffing Station 2. The total is 17. Simple math shows there aren't adequate personnel to fill the apparatus. Its easy to sit and say there are too many on duty firemen. That theory changes when your the one having a medical emergency in Home Depot or a fire on Zion Rd. Those crews have to come from Cypress St. or Beaglin Park Dr. Do you want to be the one that suffers a loss because you chose to close a station ?
And I remember that the volunteer members of station 2 were able to provide adequate staffing for the station on a 24/7/365 basis. Also during this time the Fruitland Volunteer Fire Department placed 2 ALS EMS units in service which further reduced the number of calls that Salisbury FD EMS was running, probable a reduction of more that 500 calls a year. The leaders of the City of Salisbury need to open their eyes. Let the volunteers continue to provide the excellent service they have done for over 100 years. Divest the EMS system into a separate department, close the palace on Cypress Street or at least turn it into a homeless shelter, a better suited occupancy than the unneeded fire station it is today.
As long as the retiring firefighters leave all the menu's and where to park the truck, I think new fire fighters will make out fine and do well and continue on with supporting all the local businesses
And I remember that the volunteer members of station 2 were able to provide adequate staffing for the station on a 24/7/365 basis. Also during this time the Fruitland Volunteer Fire Department placed 2 ALS EMS units in service which further reduced the number of calls that Salisbury FD EMS was running, probable a reduction of more that 500 calls a year
Your memory is quite different than most. The station 2 volunteers have not provided 24/7/365 coverage in many years. 50 to be exact. Do you listen to your scanner and hear re-alerts day in and night out ? Do you hear many of the county stations experiencing the same problem ? The cold facts are that volunteers everywhere are having problems handling todays call volume. Fruitland handles appx. 1000 EMS calls that were previously handled by Salisbury for years. A tip of the hat to Fruitland. For the 1000 calls lost to Fruitland there have been 2500 -3000 gained. For years Salisbury had 1 staffed ambulance and a back up for second calls that mounted to around 3500 in the late 80's when I worked there. Headquarters ran around 500 fire calls and station 2 around 275. Today the figures show nearly 9000 EMS and 3000 fire. Salisbury has changed dramatically and police, fire and EMS are at the breaking point to keep up. Step up to reality and see what really going on.
Show me the money, no that's show me the FACTS in black and white. Salisbury FD is not running 3000 fire and rescue calls per year. Take away the self dispatches, pro-qa,and service calls that could be handled with a pick up truck staffed with 2 people ( for medic assists) and I doubt that SFD responds to less than a call a day for fire emergencies. Sell the million dollar tower and one of the quints. The money spent on these wasted resources could fund the SAFER grant for several more years. Come into the 21st. century.EMS is where the money is; plain and simple. We need a SFD and separate SEMS. Period
First I will tell you this, we were told when we signed our contracts that there wasn't a guarantee of permanent employment at the end of two years. In fact it was laid right on the table that the probability of funding was pretty much nil. But that most of us from the 12 hired would have permanent positions due to attrition. And that has happened. 7 of the 12 of us were moved to permanent and others were hired to backfill. Chief Hoppes has not once to date mislead us nor made any promises of the contrary. So none of you here have any grounds to call him a liar for any part of this process. He told the council we allow for quicker response times, and we did (and before you start there's no way to fudge the numbers, they came direct from central). He said we would allow the reopening of a day work station, and we did. He said that we would help lower property damage costs because of being more adequately staffed to handle fires, and we did. And these are just a few examples of the promises that Chief Hoppes did make. And they all have been fulfilled. And for all of you who have insisted that the 12 of us were not needed and are going to be a complete waste of money, answer me the following questions. If we weren't needed, the department was already adequately staffed, and we are of nothing short of a waste of money; why before we were hired were response times in the city at or above the NFPA recommended times? Why have those times now fallen well under the NFPA times? Why has property damage costs from fires gone down, when the number of fires has increased? Why has the number of cardiac arrest saves increased?
It's not the 12 of us making all of these changes, rather we are a contribution to the collaborative efforts of the entire department that IS now a little closer to being adequately staffed. We ran almost 12,000 calls for service last year. There's an estimated population in salisbury of 33,000 people. That means statistically you have a 1 in 3 chance of needing EMS or fire service. Is that really odds that any of you want to gamble with when it could be you or your family waiting the extended response time for? Especially when it seems that you are so blinded with disgust for our administration that it is causing you to black label those of is who do this because we love what we do. Common sense and simple math proves that the 12 of us are a benefit to the city. Come this October 22 if the city can't find the funding and the grant can't be secured in time, or at all, I will not utter a single cross word. Not because I was forewarned that this may happen. But more so because those last two years I briefly got do have a career that I loved. I came to work everyday excited to be there, willing to learn, and ready to put it all on the line if that is what you, the people I swore to protect needed. So that's why I ask that all of you stop holding the past administrations mistakes against us, bash the current administration all you want, but don't be so ignorant to the fact that our department is not the one who will ultimately suffer if we get cut, it will be you...
I love how your answer is so simple. Oh yeah let's run 2 on a pickup for med assists. And where do you get those two from? You either hire two guys to chase ambulances all day (an even bigger waste of money), you shut down a truck or engine crew (cause they are minimum staffed as it is, and risk not having the additional manpower if there is a fire), or you send a second ambulance (because with over 8,000 EMS calls that would really make sense). Logistics is always easy spewing a bunch of nonsense from a keyboard. How about you out some real thought in the process and get back to us when you have an intelligent idea. It's no secret that there have been irresponsible purchases in the PAST. And if you keep living in the past you can never move forward. Don't forget history because it will repeat itself, but don't live it everyday.
Oh and you suck at math too. The tower and a quint brand new would have barely paid for two years of the SAFER guys. Take into account depreciation and you might get 18 months.
On any given week day you can find the Chief, Deputy Chief, administrative Asst Chief, training Lt, inspections Lt, EMS Capt, Maintenance and Supply Lt and Shift Asst Chief at St 16. 7 total officers in administration. Then an officer, Lt or Capt, at each station. So, 10 officers whom supervise 14 people who are on EMS or Fire Apparatus. That is 1 officer per 1.4 employee. They say they need more individuals to run st 2 7-5 Mon thru Friday?? Maybe they should demote some officers, collaborate duties and supplement staffing. Seems like common sense to me!
If you lay off 12 firefighters, who will be there to drive the truck to Arby's????
February 4, 2014 at 11:14 PM
is right on the mark!
Put personnel where needed, not requested.
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