Smoking Mad AboutThe Firefighters' Unions Rip Offs!

[lone wolf]

Why do you suppose most of us read your rants?

 

[TeddyBallgame]

So Teddy Boy a.k.a. Mensa boy is still propogating the myth that everyone is wrong, excepting HIMSELF of course!-

- JLM ... No, M,M&M, I`m advancing the argument that the Toronto Fire Chief, mayor, budget director and the legions of other folks who can read and research and reason for themselves are right about this specific issue perhaps because, unlike you for example, they have no vested interest in big government and public sector privelege at the hands of the wretches who toil in the privagte sector and make up 80% of the population and instead focus on value for the taxpayers.

Why do you suppose most of us read your rants?

- LW ... Actually, most of you lack the intelligence and experience and attention span to read my so called rants or so the quality of the responses leads me to conclude.

 

[lone wolf]

- JLM ... No, M,M&M, I`m advancing the argument that the Toronto Fire Chief, mayor, budget director and the legions of other folks who can read and research and reason for themselves are right about this specific issue perhaps because, unlike you for example, they have no vested interest in big government and public sector privelege at the hands of the wretches who toil in the privagte sector and make up 80% of the population and instead focus on value for the taxpayers.



- LW ... Actually, most of you lack the intelligence and experience and attention span to read my so called rants or so the quality of the responses leads me to conclude.

So, you're just howling at the moon?

 

[JLM]

Typical arrogant response and we are all saturated with your "wisdom" about the lunatic left, now maybe you can expound on the arrogant right.

 

[TeddyBallgame]

So, you're just howling at the moon?

- LW ... I should think that only lone wolves howl at the moon. I post here a bit because sometimes I hope (albeit I am often disappointed) to generate discussion at least among the handful of informed conservative and moderate posters who still come here occasionally and sometimes I just want to tweak the smug, self satisifed and hopelessly out of touch noses of the loony left who dominate the place.

Typical arrogant response and we are all saturated with your "wisdom" about the lunatic left, now maybe you can expound on the arrogant right.

- JLM ... Seeing as how you have posted 58 posts here to every one of mine, I presume you do more expounding than most and certainly more than me. Just out of curiosity, among your vast throng of over 59,000 posts here is there even a single one that anyone other than yourself can even dimly remember.

 

[Highball]

I don't know the source of the statistics you quote but I retired from the second larget fire agency in the US. We operated 168 fire stations an eleven Life Guard Beach posts. Our response levels continued to rise from 1990 until 2000 and while the majority (72%) were Medical in nature the fire numbers steadily rose also. When I was still assigend to a station (7, West Hollywood) we rarely (if ever) went to bed during our 24 hour duty shift. True, fire numbers are decreasing in the areas which had no effective fire regulations at one time but now have implemented and enforce some now. But in a nationally sense I doubt the accuracy of your information. The numbers of wild fires in the western states has doubled in the past five years.

 

[lone wolf]

- LW ... I should think that only lone wolves howl at the moon. I post here a bit because sometimes I hope (albeit I am often disappointed) to generate discussion at least among the handful of informed conservative and moderate posters who still come here occasionally and sometimes I just want to tweak the smug, self satisifed and hopelessly out of touch noses of the loony left who dominate the place.

Now, how would you think I would know what howling at the moon is all about? ;-)

Just a suggestion: Somewhat less venom goes a long way toward generating discussion. Opposite extremes seldom meet without turbulence.

 

[JLM]

Typical arrogant response and we are all saturated with your "wisdom" about the lunatic left, now maybe you can expound on the arrogant right.

"59,000 posts"? - Teddy boy- you can't even get easily verifiable facts correct, SO WTF would anyone pay any attention to anything you have to say, given your simpliest offerings are blatant bullsh*t?

 

[TeddyBallgame]

I don't know the source of the statistics you quote but I retired from the second larget fire agency in the US. We operated 168 fire stations an eleven Life Guard Beach posts. Our response levels continued to rise from 1990 until 2000 and while the majority (72%) were Medical in nature the fire numbers steadily rose also. When I was still assigend to a station (7, West Hollywood) we rarely (if ever) went to bed during our 24 hour duty shift. True, fire numbers are decreasing in the areas which had no effective fire regulations at one time but now have implemented and enforce some now. But in a nationally sense I doubt the accuracy of your information. The numbers of wild fires in the western states has doubled in the past five years.

- The stats were quoted in Canada`s national newspaper by one of Canada`s most honoured and respected political columnists. They did not get their reputations by making things up (as so many do here) but by looking things up. If you find and cite authoritative statistics that indicate serious discrepancies in the cited stats, then I shall personally report the errors and the corrections to Wente and, if necessary, to the Globe.

- Tell me, was your fire operation a public or a private sector operation and was it unionized or non-union. This tends to make a major difference in manning, compensation, response rates, etc.

Typical arrogant response and we are all saturated with your "wisdom" about the lunatic left, now maybe you can expound on the arrogant right.



"59,000 posts"? - Teddy boy- you can't even get easily verifiable facts correct, SO WTF would anyone pay any attention to anything you have to say, given your simpliest offerings are blatant bullsh*t?

- JLM aka Just a Loony Moron ... OK, idiot boy, my eyesight is failing and I misread your little post thing as 59,000 and change rather than 29,000 and change. Nonethless, you still have outposted me by the 58-1 that I indicated and I still doubt that anyone can remember a single one of your nearly 30,000 puerile posts. Now piss off for awhile, you obsessed A-Hole, I`m done with you today.

 

[Nuggler]

Quote Teddy noballsgame
"
- After all, Canadian Content is the Mecca for moochers, morons and misfits"


...................You should feel right at home oh great Teddy the Troller

 

[JLM]

Now piss off for awhile, you obsessed A-Hole, I`m done with you today[/B].

What's the matter Teddy boy? Hooked on to a lunker you can't handle? So I've outposted you 58:1. Yep 58 X an I.Q. of 2 comes pretty close to mine!

 

[Serryah]

She, actually, Teddy, and yes, I do agree that they don't get paid enough.

So where's the answer to MY questions I asked you? You like to dish but to explain yourself - yourself and not quote a paper or other news source - is something you don't seem to ever do.

And please stop lumping me in with the left, I'm not. I also work for a living and while I am unionized and recognize the benefits of it, there's also a lot I don't like about it and wish would change. Hell, I wish a lot of things would change; stop making an a$$ out of yourself by "assuming" stuff about people.

 

[L Gilbert]

- Did any of you know that in the past forty years the number of fires in the US has fallen by over 40% while the number of firefighters has risen by 40%?

- And did you know that only 2-5% of the public's calls to fire departments for assistance are actually fire emergencies?

- Or that rapidly increasing numbers of our firefighters now pull down six figure salaries for working their 6 shifts a month which gives them plenty of time to moonlight at other jobs while they prepare to take their early retirements in their early 50s on their lavishly subsidized, guaranteed, defined benefits, fully indexed pensions not available to those who are not in the new priveleged class of monopoly public sector union members.

- If you didn`t know these things and if you were naive enough to think that I was being a bit harsh on L. Gilbert recently in my thread about not contributing to the Coles bookstore book drive for schools when he commented about having nothing but respect for the firefighters`union that scored him his cushy gig and early retirement, perhaps you should enlighten yourself by reading award winning Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente`s column of today concerning the extraordinarily brazen and extravagant (even by public sector standards) rip offs of the beleagured taxpayers by the fire fighters unions.

MARGARET WENTE

How firefighters fan the flames of fear


The Globe and Mail


Published Thursday, Jan. 17 2013, 6:00 AM EST

Last updated Thursday, Jan. 17 2013, 6:08 AM EST


What happens if your city dares to cut the fire department budget?

Easy: Children will die. Maybe even yours.

That is the message of Toronto’s firefighters, who have been waging a shameless fear campaign against the poor wretches who are trying to rein in costs at City Hall.

Those wretches are no match for Ed Kennedy, the president of the firefighters’ association, who has been posing in front of burned-out houses to make his point that people probably died because of the firefighting jobs that went unfilled last year. More cutbacks would “definitely impact the response times,” he warned. Firefighters have been showing up at City Hall in T-shirts with the slogan “Seconds Count.” They’ve also been busy polishing their halos. They recently made heartwarming news when they donated children’s toys to a family whose house (and Christmas presents) had caught fire on Christmas Day. The sobbing family thanked them on the air.

A powerful combination of fear-mongering and hero worship has made Canada’s fire departments largely immune to budget cuts. As a consequence, the citizens are getting hosed.

Thanks to better building materials and awareness, the number of fires in the United States, for example, has plunged in recent years – more than 40 per cent since the 1970s, according to the U.S. Fire Prevention Association. But the number of professional firefighters has increased 40 per cent.

We like to think of firefighters as brave men who rush into burning buildings and risk their lives to save others. And so they do – once in a while. These days, the overwhelming majority of their work is responding to medical emergencies – many of them non-life-threatening, such as picking up elderly people who have fallen down. Of course we have EMS for that. But firefighters have to justify their existence. So they race to the scene because they can often get there a few minutes faster than the paramedics can. The evidence that this faster response saves lives is scant to non-existent.

And when paramedics show up two minutes later, then what? Well, the firefighters can always direct traffic.

In most jurisdictions in North America, only 2 to 5 per cent of calls to fire departments are actual fire emergencies. The rest are medical emergencies, false alarms, vehicle accidents and other miscellaneous events. Last year, Toronto’s fire department logged 145,335 incidents, around 7 per cent of which were “reported” fires. The number of actual fires was considerably smaller. Despite those dangerously unfilled firefighting jobs, fire fatalities in Toronto have dropped from 19 in 2001 to only nine last year.

If the nature of emergencies has changed profoundly, why hasn’t our model for responding to them changed at all? The answer: union clout and spineless politicians (who often enjoy the benefit of union clout at election time). That is why we have become all too accustomed to the sight of million-dollar hook-and-ladders screaming down the block whenever a little old lady has a fainting spell.

Toronto’s firefighters are near the top of the heap. They enjoy some of the best pay, pensions, perks and work conditions in North America. Toronto’s per-capita firefighting tab is 30 per cent higher than in neighbouring Mississauga. Many firefighters pull down in excess of six figures. They get regular “recognition bonuses” so they won’t leave, despite the fact that retention is not a problem. They can retire in their early 50s on full pensions. Best of all, they are required to work just six 24-hour shifts a month, which leaves lots of time for driving limos or working construction on the side. As for the crucial issue of response time, a 2010 study of 14 fire departments clocked how long it took firemen to get dressed and get on their trucks. Toronto placed last.

Across the U.S., the firefighters’ gravy train is crashing to a halt as municipalities run out of money. Some smaller cities are amalgamating services, and some are contracting out. At least one is planning to replace a few of its fire trucks with a paramedic in an SUV.

But not in Toronto, where smoke, mirrors and fear-mongering have triumphed once again. Yesterday the firefighters’ union won their budget fight. And citizens will pay and pay and pay.

Interesting. Considering that I didn't spend every hour of every day on-shift fighting fire, I managed to stay busy anyway. As you say, there are a lot of duties firefighters perform besides just fighting fires, from educating the public about many aspects concerning safety to attending vehicle crashes and emergency medical responses. There's also constant training on new and better equipment and procedures as well as the constant maintenance of equipment.
That's not to mention that during our relatively few times at actual fighting fires, we are subjected to a variety of dangers from injury as well as a much higher rate of lung diseases, cancer, etc.
The vast majority of firefighters are not receiving 6 figure salaries either.
Perhaps you have a sharp stick up your a$$ about firefighters and their unions, but the least you could do is include ALL the aspects and quit f'n exaggerating things you think supports your opinion.

 

[TeddyBallgame]

Interesting. Considering that I didn't spend every hour of every day on-shift fighting fire, I managed to stay busy anyway. As you say, there are a lot of duties firefighters perform besides just fighting fires, from educating the public about many aspects concerning safety to attending vehicle crashes and emergency medical responses. There's also constant training on new and better equipment and procedures as well as the constant maintenance of equipment.
That's not to mention that during our relatively few times at actual fighting fires, we are subjected to a variety of dangers from injury as well as a much higher rate of lung diseases, cancer, etc.
The vast majority of firefighters are not receiving 6 figure salaries either.
Perhaps you have a sharp stick up your a$$ about firefighters and their unions, but the least you could do is include ALL the aspects and quit f'n exaggerating things you think supports your opinion.

- LG ... You actually seem like a pretty good, straight forward, stand up guy unlike many here so the last thing I want to do is to get into a slogging match with you on a personal level.

- I have genuine respect for firefighters so my issue is neither personal with you nor specific to firefighters.

- In summary, my issue is that monopoly public sector union power and gutless politicians have combined to create an increasing, unfair and unsustainable gap in pay, perks, pensions and productivity between the 20% in the priveleged public sector and the 80% of workers in the competitive private sector and what this has done in Greece and the other PIGS and in California and several US cities is also going to happen here unless we get a handle on the situation. My book on this should be out by mid year and I'll send you a copy if you like.

- The specific matter raised in this thread happens to concern the Toronto fire fighters union's latest successful power play but trust me when I tell you that the FF unions are in no way alone in terms of what is happening on the REAL PAY EQUITY front (not the BS male-female job comparisons but the comparisons of pay, perks and pensions between identical and similar public and private sector jobs) and indeed are a fairly small part of the looming financial crisis.

- Having said this, I would urge you to actually and to carefully read the column I cited from the Globe and Mail before letting off further steam on this and to provide me with specific feedback as to where the columnist is off base. I would certainly appreciate this.

- Now, you say that the vast majority of FF don't make 6 figure salaries and I never said they did. What I did say as did Wente is that an increasing number of them now make over $100,000 in Toronto and many other Ontario FF services counting their base salary which is now typically around $80,000 for a first class FF and all the overtime and the bonuses they can pull down.

- Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Thursday, March, 22, 2012 - 3:03:29 PM

Firefighters make up half of city’s sunshine list

By Heather Abrey
Kitchener Post staff

Half of the people who made over $100,000 at the City of Kitchener last year were members of the Kitchener Fire Department.
This year’s “sunshine list” features 108 employees, down from 2010’s 110 total, but up from the 91 people who made over $100,000 in 2009.

The sunshine list is the disclosure of public sector workers who make more than $100,000 in a year.
While the list is usually fairly stable, things like contract negotiations can cause fluctuations.
“Sometimes if a collective agreement is expired for some time and there’s retroactivity, it could result in some people receiving lump sum payments that would cause them to be on the list,” said Dan Chapman, deputy chief administrative officer of the city’s finance and corporate services department. Chapman appears on the list himself, with a salary of $163,574.
Carla Ladd, Kitchener’s former CAO, was the highest paid bureaucrat, making more than $200,000. Ladd left her job at the city in February, and now works for the City of Barrie.
Directors of many city departments also surpassed the income mark, as did some employees from Kitchener Utilities.
“A number of those utilities positions are market-rated, meaning that their compensation is tied to industry comparators,” said Chapman.
Workers for the city’s gas utility would have comparable salaries to those working at Union Gas, he said.
“That’s why some of the compensation may vary for some of those utilities positions than other positions in the grid.”
But with 54 firefighters named, that group surpassed any other on the list, which Chapman and Fire Chief Tim Beckett say is not unusual.
The fire department launched a 24-hour shift pilot program in 2009 in the hopes of reducing overtime costs, which has tipped a few firefighters over $100,000.
“I would say a majority of them have overtime associated to them, but some of them, their base salaries are already over $100,000,” said Beckett.
Platoon chiefs and assistant platoon chiefs are among those whose salaries are more than $100,000, but there are also a few first-class firefighters with a base salary of $83,000.
In addition to regular salary increases, firefighters receive a three per cent pay increase after eight years of service, six per cent after 17 years and nine per cent after 23 years, which also brings them closer to making the sunshine list, according to Beckett.
So far this year, the fire department has seen lower levels of overtime pay.
“We saw a spike in overtime two years ago. We saw a spike in overtime at the start of last year, but a decrease in overtime at the tail end . . . of 2011,” he said.
“So far this year, two-and-a-half months in, we haven’t seen a large use of overtime.”


- In closing, may I add that if I had chosen FF as a profession then I, too, would proudly defend it and would also aggressively persue the best deal I could get for myself. This is normal. But we have real fiscal problems in regard to out of control and out of line public sector compensation which now, for example, constitutes 55% of the entire Ontario operating budget and over 80% of some municipal operating budgets and if we don't get a handle on this fairly quickly then we and particularly our children and grand children will suffer a great deal.

- If you have any specific comments relating to the specifics of the cited column, please get back to me either publicly here or privately by email.

 

[damngrumpy]

Yes some people do lack intelligence then there are some who don't have any at all to
lose. Teddy you whine about those terrible public servants with a pension and the
benefits they have. They come out of having to put up with people who have no
intelligence and continue to smile at them.
My wife worked for the Federal Public Service most of her life and yes she has those
benefits, the ones you call entitlements. She paid into them and the Government used
the Pension funds, the Unemployment Insurance Fund and everything to pay down the
debt the governments created when they allowed the multi nationals to have huge tax
breaks at everyone's expense. While these governments made free trade deals with
half of the third world and now they want us to start living like third world residents
instead of raising the standard of living of those in the third world.
Nope I hope you are happy knowing our family is reaping the rewards of a lifetime of
work and enjoying the programs you condemn. Oh I think I'll go out and get my subsidized
prescription now.

 

[Tonington]

- Torrington (sic) incorrectly noted that fire fighters are being asked to do more than ever

They are. Just because they are fighting fewer fires does not make this untrue. It's simple logic that if anyone takes one task in their role profile, and drops the percentage from say 80% to 50% as an example, that they have time now to do other tasks as well. That's responding to current reality...

Your confusion on this matter is similar to the standard sort of cautionary tale about statistical correlations. Damages from fire are correlated with number of fire fighters on scene. Does that mean that a causal relationship exists between the number of fire fighters and damage? No, absolutely not.

As for facts, you and your Wente article are scant. Fire fighters are trained first responders, and there are many cases just like my own experience. Also the dispersal of fire stations throughout metropolitan areas and other municipalities/cities means they are more likely to arrive on scene first simply because they are closer.

So I'm not sure if it's reading comprehension or poor eyesight. It may be eyesight, as there very clearly is no "r", let alone two of them, in Tonington.

 

[L Gilbert]

Ok, I missed a point or two, admittedly. I do agree that many issues in Canada (and the USA) are due to an overabundance of top-heaviness and what seems to me to be greed on the part of that top-heaviness. Sh|t rises (I only reached lieutenant , and I was just one of many in the companies that worked effectively and had some work-ethic).
I just don't see a whole lot of difference between something like Toronto's fire dept. costs and something like a private company's CEO, CFO, or whatever ruining a company and getting paid an exorbitant amount as well as getting an equally exorbitant amount of severance. And that's at the expense of the shareholders and others. The issue is rampant and has been for decades.
And it doesn't help when some dude like Kimi Raikonnen can drive for 3 years and make $153million, some dude like CC Sabathia can play baseball for 7 years and come out of it with $161 million, etc.

I think that the problem was introduced by private enterprise.

 

[JLM]

-



- JLM aka Just a Loony Moron ... OK, idiot boy, my eyesight is failing and I misread your little post thing as 59,000 and change rather than 29,000 and change. Nonethless, you still have outposted me by the 58-1 that I indicated and I still doubt that anyone can remember a single one of your nearly 30,000 puerile posts. Now piss off for awhile, you obsessed A-Hole, I`m done with you today.

Now I've got some news for you - idiot boy- you are quite right that might posts outnumber yours by 28/1 (over a considerably longer period) BUT the length of your posts exceed mine by about 30/1, so word for word, you've got me beat by a country mile as far as Bullsh*t per word goes.

 

[petros]

- Did any of you know that in the past forty years the number of fires in the US has fallen by over 40% while the number of firefighters has risen by 40%?

- And did you know that only 2-5% of the public's calls to fire departments for assistance are actually fire emergencies?

- Or that rapidly increasing numbers of our firefighters now pull down six figure salaries for working their 6 shifts a month which gives them plenty of time to moonlight at other jobs while they prepare to take their early retirements in their early 50s on their lavishly subsidized, guaranteed, defined benefits, fully indexed pensions not available to those who are not in the new priveleged class of monopoly public sector union members.

- If you didn`t know these things and if you were naive enough to think that I was being a bit harsh on L. Gilbert recently in my thread about not contributing to the Coles bookstore book drive for schools when he commented about having nothing but respect for the firefighters`union that scored him his cushy gig and early retirement, perhaps you should enlighten yourself by reading award winning Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente`s column of today concerning the extraordinarily brazen and extravagant (even by public sector standards) rip offs of the beleagured taxpayers by the fire fighters unions.

MARGARET WENTE

How firefighters fan the flames of fear


The Globe and Mail


Published Thursday, Jan. 17 2013, 6:00 AM EST

Last updated Thursday, Jan. 17 2013, 6:08 AM EST


What happens if your city dares to cut the fire department budget?

Easy: Children will die. Maybe even yours.

That is the message of Toronto’s firefighters, who have been waging a shameless fear campaign against the poor wretches who are trying to rein in costs at City Hall.

Those wretches are no match for Ed Kennedy, the president of the firefighters’ association, who has been posing in front of burned-out houses to make his point that people probably died because of the firefighting jobs that went unfilled last year. More cutbacks would “definitely impact the response times,” he warned. Firefighters have been showing up at City Hall in T-shirts with the slogan “Seconds Count.” They’ve also been busy polishing their halos. They recently made heartwarming news when they donated children’s toys to a family whose house (and Christmas presents) had caught fire on Christmas Day. The sobbing family thanked them on the air.

A powerful combination of fear-mongering and hero worship has made Canada’s fire departments largely immune to budget cuts. As a consequence, the citizens are getting hosed.

Thanks to better building materials and awareness, the number of fires in the United States, for example, has plunged in recent years – more than 40 per cent since the 1970s, according to the U.S. Fire Prevention Association. But the number of professional firefighters has increased 40 per cent.

We like to think of firefighters as brave men who rush into burning buildings and risk their lives to save others. And so they do – once in a while. These days, the overwhelming majority of their work is responding to medical emergencies – many of them non-life-threatening, such as picking up elderly people who have fallen down. Of course we have EMS for that. But firefighters have to justify their existence. So they race to the scene because they can often get there a few minutes faster than the paramedics can. The evidence that this faster response saves lives is scant to non-existent.

And when paramedics show up two minutes later, then what? Well, the firefighters can always direct traffic.

In most jurisdictions in North America, only 2 to 5 per cent of calls to fire departments are actual fire emergencies. The rest are medical emergencies, false alarms, vehicle accidents and other miscellaneous events. Last year, Toronto’s fire department logged 145,335 incidents, around 7 per cent of which were “reported” fires. The number of actual fires was considerably smaller. Despite those dangerously unfilled firefighting jobs, fire fatalities in Toronto have dropped from 19 in 2001 to only nine last year.

If the nature of emergencies has changed profoundly, why hasn’t our model for responding to them changed at all? The answer: union clout and spineless politicians (who often enjoy the benefit of union clout at election time). That is why we have become all too accustomed to the sight of million-dollar hook-and-ladders screaming down the block whenever a little old lady has a fainting spell.

Toronto’s firefighters are near the top of the heap. They enjoy some of the best pay, pensions, perks and work conditions in North America. Toronto’s per-capita firefighting tab is 30 per cent higher than in neighbouring Mississauga. Many firefighters pull down in excess of six figures. They get regular “recognition bonuses” so they won’t leave, despite the fact that retention is not a problem. They can retire in their early 50s on full pensions. Best of all, they are required to work just six 24-hour shifts a month, which leaves lots of time for driving limos or working construction on the side. As for the crucial issue of response time, a 2010 study of 14 fire departments clocked how long it took firemen to get dressed and get on their trucks. Toronto placed last.

Across the U.S., the firefighters’ gravy train is crashing to a halt as municipalities run out of money. Some smaller cities are amalgamating services, and some are contracting out. At least one is planning to replace a few of its fire trucks with a paramedic in an SUV.

But not in Toronto, where smoke, mirrors and fear-mongering have triumphed once again. Yesterday the firefighters’ union won their budget fight. And citizens will pay and pay and pay.

Did you know firefighters have a lower than average life expectancy?

Personal and family sacrifices to protect your sorry azz should be minimum wage?

 

[TeddyBallgame]

- While it has been my intention to avoid posting anything further in this s#ithole for lunatic left wing fringe A-holes who savage any intelligent and thoughtful and original writers who fail to promote left wing causes and the reckless spending of other people's money to inflate the numbers and compensation of already underworked and overpaid public sector parasites, I simply can't help posting this Globe and Mail column by the venerable Marcus Gee concerning the current fire services budget controversy that caused such a firestoprm of vitriol to rain down on my head when I posted my original thoughts on this controversy.

- But that is it for me, comrades.

- Henceforth, you can carry on your leftist love in uninterrupted except by the occasional conservative cut and paste by locutus who, as moderator and since he hardly ever adds anything of his own to the material, you will wisely allow to post stuff that is not to the left of the ghosts of Karl Marx or Jack Layton.

budget pressures

Politics and sentiment keep a redundant fire station open

MARCUS GEE

The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jan. 21 2013, 10:46 PM EST

Last updated Monday, Jan. 21 2013, 11:08 PM EST


It is nearly to impossible to close an underused school, library or fire hall in Toronto. No matter how much money it will save or how much sense it makes, politics and neighbourhood pressure always get in the way.

Consider the case of fire hall 424. The picturesque 1928 building at 462 Runnymede Rd. in the city’s west end has been targeted for closing for more than a quarter century. Again and again, it has dodged fate.

The city’s 1987 Fire Master Plan noted that the service area for 424 overlapped with that of a nearby station at 83 Deforest Rd. It recommended closing both and building a new station at a different location. Nothing happened.

A report by KPMG consultants in 1999 said that, because the city had failed to find an appropriate place to build a new fire station, the fire service should simply close station 424. Nothing happened. In 2007, yet another master plan recommended closing 424, considering how near it is to other fire stations and how little response times would be affected. The station lived on.

In this week’s budget negotiations, 424 was once again on the chopping block. Under pressure from Mayor Rob Ford to flatline his budget, fire chief Jim Sales recommended closing the station. But the firefighters union and the local city councillor, Sarah Doucette, fought back. In a last-minute deal to get the budget passed, city council added about $3-million to the fire-service allotment. The extra money allows the service to fund 63 firefighting positions and keep five fire trucks on the road, at least until an efficiency review comes in this summer. It also saves 424 yet again. This little fire station has more lives than a cat.

Ms. Doucette, who led a rally and organized a petition to save 424, calls it a victory for a changing community that is getting more high-rise buildings and may need better fire service in the future. “I appreciate past reports, but we have to look at now and the future. What will my ward need five years, seven years out? That’s why I’m so passionate about this. Closing is final, done, gone.”

But in a time of tight government budgets and limited economic growth, the city has to make the best possible use of its resources. Keeping a redundant fire station open year after year on the basis of sentiment and community protest is hardly the way.

Three other fire halls lie within a few blocks of 424, which sits in a mainly residential, low-rise neighbourhood. The station gets around 1,300 calls a year, or between three and four calls a day. On the day I visited last week, the four firefighters on 24-hour shift had responded to calls about a fire on the subway tracks, an elderly woman who fell in her apartment and broke her hip and a backhoe that punched through a gas main.

District chief Stephan Powell argues that in a job where seconds make a difference, “I don’t think anyone wants to gamble on somebody’s life. I don’t want to be the actuary who says ‘Let’s just yank this hall,’ and somebody dies.”

If that isn’t reason enough to keep the hall going, he says, the local community is devoted to it. One resident started a Facebook page to save it. A local artist displayed a painting of it. “This tends to be a walking neighbourhood,” he says. “People will visit their local fire hall, frequent the library, frequent the parks.” Generations of schoolchildren have come to 424 to learn about firefighting. Only the other day, says veteran firefighter Dwayne Verhey, a woman locked out of her house in the rain with her children came by asking for help. They went and picked her lock.

That was a nice thing to do, and fire hall 424 is a lovely old place, with its antique bell and classic fire pole. But you have to wonder whether it is reasonable to keep the station open against repeated recommendations to the contrary even from the fire service itself.

It happens again and again with city buildings. A core service review recommended closing a handful of underused libraries in 2011. City council balked. Consultants and studies have repeatedly called for closing schools left half full by declining enrolment. School-board trustees repeatedly push back.

Such stubborn devotion to bricks and mortar makes it hard to deliver services in the efficient way the city should