Be Careful What You Wish For

Now that the town is looking for a new Fire Chief, the above three groups may want to look at just what will happen in the new "professional" era of the SFD.

 We can argue whether Chief Senecal was treated fairly or not, after talking to various people with more inside knowledge than I, I tend to think he wasn't, but what's done is done and now let's see what will happen.

We' all heard it, "Be careful what you wish for, it just might come true." I am guessing the tax payers, Board of Selectmen and Firefighters in Sturbridge will soon find this out.

First of all, the taxpayers can expect to see quite an increase in the Fire Department budget next year, and maybe even a Special Town Meeting later this year when it is found out that we just don't have enough to fund the "new" department. Sure, as the independent report (and I use that term somewhat loosely as it may not really have been all that independent) pointed out, there needs to be some work done to the fire equipment. Most of this can be done fairly cheaply, but someone has to do it. I'm fairly certain it won't be the same people who complained about the conditions in the first lace, after all, couldn't they have done a lot of this already during those shifts when there were no calls?

The real added expense however will be with the salaries. There are rumors out there that the reason this whole thing started was that certain union members weren't happy with the new contract. It seems they wanted to work two 24 hour shifts a week, using full time people to cover all shifts, unlike in the past when the call firefighters would cover the weekends. I can certainly understand this, after all it is their full time profession, well kind of anyway. Here is the problem with that however.

If the call department doesn't have the opportunity to work weekends, will it till be worth their while to work at all? I seem to recall that my union dues were higher than what I would make some months when I no longer worked weekend shifts. Yes, I also gave up my EMT certification which meant I could no longer go on ambulance calls, but there weren't many of those anyway, remember the study that began all this and how it said that must nights there were no calls. And most of those call department members work full time jobs during the week days which means even less calls.

So what happens when the call department goes away? Which by the way has always been the intention of those who promoted the union, if you recall there was quite a brouhaha over the union of choice the PPFM representing call members, after all they aren't real professionals. But I digress. When there are no call members, who will answer the calls? Yes, the full time members, except hen they don't. Why wouldn't they? Ask the current full time members of the department how many of them have other jobs on their "days off"? Again, I have absolutely nothing against moonlighting, I wish I could do it, but when they are doing this second job, who will answer the calls? I see more full time firefighters in the budget for next year. And what does the contract say about when these full time firefighters answer calls when they are not on their shift? What is the minimum call in time? Does this count as overtime?

Oh, and remember all those things which the fire department used to do for free, because the members were proud o be on the department and volunteered to do them? It's my understanding that the directive has already gone out that there is to be no volunteering for anything any longer on the Fire Department. Boy those taxpayers over there on Walker Pond are sure going to be upset when they have to pay for the fire truck at their little Fourth of July parade.

What does the Board of Selectmen have to worry about? As much as some of them like to think they are in the big city, they aren't. There could be some interesting races coming up in the next election. And not letting people express their opinions at public meetings? Well that kind of goes against what this country was built on, as some board members love to claim they believe in.

And finally, the Fire Fighters. You could conceivably have placed yourselves right out of a job. You see, when people see the increase in the budget they might start looking at cheaper ways of doing things. According to your own numbers, there are't a lot of fires in town, which I think we can all admit is a good thing. Maybe it's time we look at hiring a private ambulance company for ambulance calls? I would be willing to bet that this would save the town some money. Again, from your own study, if we didn't have the ambulance to worry about, why do we need full time firefighters? We could go back to the good old days of having a Chief on during the day, with an inspector and maybe one person to take out a truck, and we would be all set. It seems to me something was said about using mutual aid for fires? Maybe we need to look at some numbers.

In conclusion, just so you know, I have absolutely no ax to grind with the Fire Department. I like to think I left on good terms, I put my 20 plus years in and am proud of it. Now, as when I was on, I am torn between my love for the department and my concerns as a taxpayer, but I can tell you that the taxpayer side is winning out on this one.

So, like I said, be careful what you wish for.