Coventry Fire Departments to Shut Down

[CoventryDude]

Originally Posted by mr2448

I disagree. Why incorporate into one large district? You really think your town council will control costs better? What are you drinking? If you bring all those fully or partially volunteer fire departments into town expenses your taxes will go up. You are getting for free, volunteers. They make no money, no benefits, etc. A station that now has 40 volunteers would need to be run full time by at least 25 full time employees. I don't begrudge what these people earn or their union membership, but why increase costs when you don't have to?

Not drinking anything there, hero, you should watch your tongue.

A town the size of Coventry doesn't need multiple fire districts, that's insane. It may have made sense when the town was much more rural and had far fewer paved roads. and I have plenty of friends who got their start as volunteer firefighters in town, there's no reason volunteers would be affected by combining the districts. I'm not sure where you are getting that inference from. Does Coventry need multiple chiefs? Multiple tax collectors? Public sector jobs aren't supposed to be money machines for the employees (why do the dog officers make $50k? thats nuts). And the tax base is getting bled dry. Eliminating duplicate positions will save money, but the town council has to have the testicular fortitude to do that. Lots of folks in the private sector face job elimination every day, having public employees protected from that is a crock. A town job shoudn't be an award of lifetime tenure.

I don't buy the BS union crap and the "they put their lives on the line for you every day" argument that gets thrown out as soon as you oppose anything the firefighters union supports. I've had a dangerous public service job, not in the civilian sector, and I've faced death many more times than most of those guys ever will. I certainly respect what they do, but I respect a private serving in Afghanistan a lot more. I don't toss out my experiences every time there's a disagreement. There's no way to have a conversation if that trump card gets played every time, which is why, of course, they do it.

The firefighters should be paid, that's a given. But the district has been mismanaged, terribly, thats not really debatable. We're (that's the taxpayers) are on the hook for their back pay, unpaid pension obligations (why the hell do they still have those? They need to go to 401(k) like plans, either 457's or 403b's and contribute their own money like the rest of us) and the districts debt. Thegolden goose is about cooked and we are approaching the point where we are no longer an endless source of revenue.....

[Raiderman]

So, I did some basic math.. it looks like the taxes would go up about $200-$300/year to keep CCFD. If I'm not mistaken, people who live more than 5 miles from there would get an increase in their homeowner's insurance by a comparable amount.. and not have a local fire department. I think I would have to map the town fire departments that are left to see how many that would affect.

[mr2448]

Originally Posted by CoventryDude

Not drinking anything there, hero, you should watch your tongue.

A town the size of Coventry doesn't need multiple fire districts, that's insane. It may have made sense when the town was much more rural and had far fewer paved roads. and I have plenty of friends who got their start as volunteer firefighters in town, there's no reason volunteers would be affected by combining the districts. I'm not sure where you are getting that inference from. Does Coventry need multiple chiefs? Multiple tax collectors? Public sector jobs aren't supposed to be money machines for the employees (why do the dog officers make $50k? thats nuts). And the tax base is getting bled dry. Eliminating duplicate positions will save money, but the town council has to have the testicular fortitude to do that. Lots of folks in the private sector face job elimination every day, having public employees protected from that is a crock. A town job shoudn't be an award of lifetime tenure.

I don't buy the BS union crap and the "they put their lives on the line for you every day" argument that gets thrown out as soon as you oppose anything the firefighters union supports. I've had a dangerous public service job, not in the civilian sector, and I've faced death many more times than most of those guys ever will. I certainly respect what they do, but I respect a private serving in Afghanistan a lot more. I don't toss out my experiences every time there's a disagreement. There's no way to have a conversation if that trump card gets played every time, which is why, of course, they do it.

The firefighters should be paid, that's a given. But the district has been mismanaged, terribly, thats not really debatable. We're (that's the taxpayers) are on the hook for their back pay, unpaid pension obligations (why the hell do they still have those? They need to go to 401(k) like plans, either 457's or 403b's and contribute their own money like the rest of us) and the districts debt. Thegolden goose is about cooked and we are approaching the point where we are no longer an endless source of revenue.....

I am not a hero at all, sorry you took that so negatively as I have seen worse than that on this forum. My point is that once you make it one district for all of Coventry it will be an all paid fire force. There is no reason to combine those stations(Western Coventry) that are all volunteer with other stations that have a partially regular force or full force. In both Cranston and Johnston volunteer fire departments have been done away with in the last 20 years. Western Cranston used to have 3 volunteer fire departments. Have you seen the new fire department on Scituate Ave fully staffed with a regular force? Their closings in part were due to union influence and in each city/town the closures adversely affected the tax rate. I don't know the particulars of the badly run CCFD and maybe this negative vote will lead to a combine of offices, the Coventry District(Eastern Coventry) has but 12 regular member as compared to CCFD with over 40. Just let Western Coventry remain a fully volunteer station, a place to gain experience to move up to a regular paying job, with no pay to firefighters or Chief and thus that district can manage their department, hopefully better than the CCFD district did.