New Council Speach

Last night at 126 Gilligan St.
We were dispatched to an expanding grease fire.

Remember fire doubles in size every minute. In the time it took Engine 1 to get there, the fire would have been 4 to 8 times the size
An engines tank water lasts about three and a half minutes,
The closest hydrant over 500 ft away, too far to drag a supply line
Engine 2 ten to 12 minutes out.

Thank God we happened to have enough staffing to man Engine 3 because under the mayors current staffing minimums this would have gone from a destroyed stove to a room and contents or worse.

on Apr 29th, nine displaced by an apartment fire at 5 Mallory
Place. With our present reduced staffing this could have been a
catastrophe.
How long are you going to depend on luck to save lives?



You have heard Fire Dept members talk about the number 17 being the minimum for staffing.

The Lloyd study and its minimum staffing number of 17, a study the city commissioned, a study the city paid for, and a study the city has recognized, By ignoring this study you are opening the city to legal action. This is not responsible

The Lloyd study quoted a minimum of 17. This number is not an opinion, or the mayors guess, it is a scientific survey commissioned BY THE CITY.

17 is not a number that the Fire Dept came up with.
The City's own study quoted it as the MINIMUM.

17 is necessary for our goals of life saving, incident stabilization and property conservation.

With proper manning the dynamics of the emergency scene is much more manageable, Please remember our job is NEVER safe, just hopefully controllable.

A common misconception is that minimum staffing is simply the number of Firefighters on scene. It is not, It is the number of Firefighters on scene in a matter of minutes.

A successful fire fight means everyone returns to their family safe and whole. With adequate staffing, we have the most important tool to do that.

We are the citizens ONLY defense against most life threatening situations, and manning is our only defense on that frontline. We can not safely work with this low a manning number.

The list of things that can go wrong at a fire is too long to list and a fire scene is too unpredictable to try, it is one of the most Hostile enviroments known to man, so for our safety and to truly protect innocents we need proper manning

Remember Response times and adequate staffing are EQUALLY important to all Fire fighting and EMS operations, We are talking about situations where minutes, if not seconds, are the differences between a save and someone's incalculable loss

The fire service is the all threat responder, the Default responder to all threats.

If we don't have the right people there, doing the right thing, in the right amount of time then things will get worse, People and fire fighters will get injured and/or die.

"The Department responds to approximately 7,000 emergencies each year - providing assistance to roughly a third of the 20,374 homes throughout the City of Wilkes-Barre - as well as responding to emergency calls from businesses, accident scenes, and an assortment of other incidents."
a quote from the city's own web site


Once again I would like to end this by Quoting our mayor


May 31, 2008 (Citizens' voice) "I have great respect for the fire department. They
do a great job and their safety is my number one concern"
By cutting our manning and taking engines out of service?


July 8 (WNEP) "It's very crucial that the fire department have adequate water pressure when they're fighting a fire so, we don't want to see any lives lost because water couldn't get on the fire"
But lives lost due to inadequate manning and cutting engines are OK?


Oct 26, 2007 (The Time Leader) "we need to protect our residents"
Reducing essential services is not protecting our residents


April 3 2010 (Citizens' voice) "As an elected official, you're sworn in to uphold an oath of office"

Mar 12, 2010 (Citizens' voice) "You left me with no choice, I'm not failing you, the city administration is not failing you and city council is not failing you. Your union is failing you."
Wrong, the union cannot replace people as they retire that is your responsibility and you are failing the public you took an oath to serve and protect.
22 Firefighters have retired without replacement, in the next 2 months that number is expected to be at least 25. And you blame our union instead of fixing the problem by hiring.

And now one from the City Council

Oct. 25 2007 (The Time Leader) "They (the council candidates) favor better fire protection, some advocated a new fire house in the Heights section. And they all said the city's biggest asset is its people."
Yet you remain silent as the Mayor risks lives.


When too much power is concentrated in one person, the government loses touch with the citizens they are there to serve.
Council, your silence on this life threatening policy is deafening.