Fire Starter noted with great interest last weeks story about promotions within the Johnson City Fire Department. Then over the weekend, buried further in the paper, there was a story that Hannon and Bertoni's Fire District; the thrust of which was that because Johnson City and Endicott are not contiguous, it may be "more difficult than anticipated".
We initially note that it's good to know that the Press and Sun Bulletin are reading this blog. Maybe they will begin to report real news and expose real corruption within the local municipalities. Certainly we make it easy for them. We do the research and get to the tough answers. The least they could do is print the stories.
However, we were disappointed that the Press limited it's inquiry into the technical failing of this hair brained scheme. We have provided many reasons why this is a bad idea from a financial and safety standpoint. In case they are still reading, insurance costs, response times and expense, and the forfeiting of federal aid are all significant non-technical problem with this scheme. This should be enough material to keep the Press and Sun Bulletin busy for a little while!
Now, with the hair brained fire district plan placed on the back burner, Johnson City has decided to promote command officers. This is certainly a positive development. But note that while Hannon and Bertoni were fiddling, they were burning money. The Press story noted that while pursuing the destruction of the fire department, the Village wasted over $50,000 on overtime rather than promote firefighters. This can only be explained by Hannon's myopic view of the fire department. As we have pointed out in the past, for Hannon, no price is too high for the destruction of the fire department. The Village's legal fees over the last two years easily exceed $350,000 just for fire department related matters. And what have they got to show for it?
At some point, the madness needs to end. But it will likely only happen when the madman leaves.
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