First off my question to our council:
Now in my opinion I don’t believe that we can afford any layoffs, especially
with the new fire station still not completed. Layoffs are going to force
overtime a lot of overtime and I vividly remember Mr Scott bocking at the amount
of overtime the fire dept had last year in comparison to PD. Keep working with
the fire fighters, don’t try to show your strength through ultimatums and fear
tactics.
Finally I wasn’t at the last council meeting but I would have come un glued
if I had to hear people comparing what a fire fighter makes a year, How much
money should one make when they put their lives on the line daily for complete
strangers?
Why dosent the 8% Utility Tax go for public safety anymore?
I await your comments, nothing will be taken out of context I only seek
honest open dialogue.
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What I found out is sad and makes me wish I was at the last council meeting and not fighting crowds at work.
First off according to a source from inside the Fire Dept. there were a lot of friends of Ed Scott at the council meeting. These people got up and were saying that fire fighters make 300 K a year and implying that we could do better to cut their salaries and get rid of some. Now I know this is hard for some of you to understand if you have never been in harm’s way, but let me tell you it takes a special person stand firm and charge forward in the face of danger. Yes I know they knew what they were getting into when they signed up for the job but even so they do what most of us don’t want to and some of us are incapable. It takes the courage of a bear to rush into a fire to save a life heck it takes balls just to get within 50 feet. My friends and I were somewhat ambulance chasers in our youth, the last time we did it was to a house engulfed in flames from the opposite side of the street with the windows up the heat was intense and scary, I would never want the job of rushing into that mess to save other homes, lives or one of their own.
Ok so not every call is a fire, ok. How much of a strong stomach and clear mind would you need to care for an accident victim that was just thrown from a moving vehical? How would you react to the job of being the one responsible for caring for a gun shot victim, that is a cop that later died, what kind of resolve does that require?
We can talk about how to find creative ways to keep fire fighters working, but I refuse to allow people to try to put a price on how much a man or woman is worth that is willing to risk their own lives just to save a stranger.
Now to the Utility Tax. We pay 8% on our utilities every month which is supposed to go to Fire and Police, that was a selling point they think they don’t have to adhere to. Now let me be out front I voted no on this for 2 reasons. 1 not everyone had to pay it senior citizens were exempt, don’t they use the same services we do? 2 I knew this was going to happen where we found out that it didn’t go to public safety and we would be here in a hole trying to lay off public safety officers.
More to come visit the Facebook page to get up to the date info:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rialto-Residents-for-Rialto-Fire-Department/145275045567795
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