1) Elimination of Police Officers
2) Eliminating Many Recreation Department programs
3) Adding new Trash FEES and TAXES for ALL City residents and businesses
4) Postponing the Kingston Fire Dept. raises for one year.
The above solutions are UNACCEPTABLE, since #3 above is INCREASING TAXES, #4 could be just delaying the raises until next year, #2 would most likely be a permanent destruction of the City Recreation programs, and #1 is making Kingston MUCH LESS SAFE…………Instead of DISMANTLING our POLICE DEPT. and RECREATION DEPT., let’s start talking about converting one PAID FIRE DEPT. to VOLUNTEER at a potential savings of $1 Million to $2 Million. This is a reasonable and safe suggestion.
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16 comments:
Why does the mayor in Sunday's Freeman suggest using volunteers for the Rec Dept but not for the Fire Dept?
dear 747,
because this would uncover the notsohidden secret of what the paid fire department actually does all day... accompany ambulances to completely bullsh!t calls. Like "50 yr old female w/headache" and "28 yr old male dizzy" and my personal fav "22 yr old male intoxicated outside of snapper mcgees."
there is n reason for them to accompany the ambulances. if they didn't though you would see very plainly that there is nothing for them to do all day and you would draw the only natural conclusion: welltrained and mobilized volunteers is the only way to go for the occasional fire and gas emergency in Kingston..
To: 2:49am,
How does a person get the emergency response reports that you present in your comment, such as "28 yr old male dizzy"? I would like to have access to those reports. Thanks.
The fat to cut is in City Hall - too many people in Clerk's office, Comptroller's, Corporate Council, Assessor, Planning & Engineering, Community Development, Economic Development, Purchasing - all staffed with the Mayor's cronies.
How does laying off cops equate to 'dismantling" of the department? There will still be the same number of cops patrolling. They will be working double shifts to cover the ones that got laid off, at overtime rate. IF they truly care - I.
'm sure there is room in their contract to help save those jobs.
I agree the PD & Rec dept should not be cut - I would like to see some action to have all the not for profits start paying for trash pick up - make it less attractive for them and maybe they will go elsewhere. Reducing the FD won't work, where are the volunteers going to come from? The FD responded to over 6,400 calls in 2008, even if you eliminated all EMS calls, and that is not wise, there would still be 3,000 calls in a year, nearly 10 a day. There were over 157 "fires" in 2008, nearly one every other day. Are you or Landi going to respond about 8-10 times a day? Why do you think others are going to? The quick response of the FD keeps small fires small. Cutting the manpower more will prohibit firefighters from entering structures until the proper number are on scene. Please do some research and educate yourself. You can FOIL any of these numbers to find out the FACTS.
To 4:01PM,
The following letter which is being discussed at Kingston's Finance Committee Meeting tonight explains how to convert one of Kingston's fire stations from PAID to VOLUNTEER.
November 11, 2009
Mr. James Noble
Alderman-at-Large
Kingston, NY 12401
Subject: Proposal for Converting one fire station from paid to volunteer
Jim:
I have had several discussions with 3rd ward alderman, Charlie Landi about the need to seriously reduce city spending to prepare Kingston for the present hard times and for the future where lowest taxed areas will be the place new jobs will be located.
Kingston needs to substantially reduce the expense of its fire budget. The City of Poughkeepsie which announced a 2010 budget with no property tax increase has a population of 30,000 and a fire budget (including building dept.) of $5.5 Million. The City of Kingston with a population of less than 25,000 has a fire budget (including building dept.) of in excess of $7 Million. It appears that there is the potential to reduce the Kingston fire budget by $2 Million for a reduction of 10 percentage points on the property tax levy. One very realistic way to begin to approach this level of savings in the fire budget is to convert one fire station from paid to volunteer. The savings would be in the manpower that was assigned to the converted fire station. The manpower could be reduced via buyouts and attrition. The city and firefighter’s union would have to open the contract where necessary to accommodate these changes.
Secondly, the city should begin the process of creating a vibrant volunteer spirit to man the converted station. The goal would be to create the kind of excellent volunteer fire station in the city that now exists in the Town of Ulster. Several factors, which contribute to the success of the main Ulster Hose Station, are 1) special retirement incentives, 2) brotherhood, sisterhood environment 3) comfortable station with amenities (food, coffee, papers), 4) sports teams, 5) family days, 6) open to 16, 17, 18 year olds, 7) service awards, and other creative ideas. With leadership, this type of volunteer station could be created at one of the paid fire stations in Kingston.
Please support converting one fire station from paid to volunteer in order to bring Kingston’s fire budget in line with other local municipalities and to allow Kingston’s 2010 property tax increase to be zero or negative. The City of Kingston needs to make this type of decision this year to avoid a disastrous budget in 2011.
Thank you,
Ralph C. Mitchell
cc: Charles Landi,
Chairman of Financial & Economic Development Committee
Your letter is just a hack against the FD. You fail to mention that Kingston is nearly twice the square mileage of Poughkeepsie, thus station are placed for response times. You also fail to mention that Poughkeepsie is surrounded by paid departments, trained to the same level as them. When mutual is called, reliable and fully trained firefighters will assist. Volunteers are just not required to meet the same standards as paid firefighters.
Ulster Hose certainly has a fine reputation but this is the exception , not the rule when it comes to volunteering in the rest of the county as well the nation.
The landscape is also different in the City that it is in the county. Structures are more close, thus the chance of conflagration is greater.
I can go on all day as to why your letter is not based in reality. Landi has been in government for a long time and this is all he can do? How about generating some revenue and bringing in business.
You need to think different. Instead of putting the burden on the back of employees you need to focus on the welfare system. Sue the county to have them pay for the SafetyNet. Kingston is the ONLY City in the state that has to pay or this. In every other county, it is the county that pays for it. Increase the residency requirement from 0, to a week or a month to stop the influx of check seekers.
To 11:49PM,
For Kingston's 2010 and 2011 extremely difficult budgets, the City will have to choose among more Crushing Taxes, Dismantling the Rec and Police Depts. or Seriously Reforming the Fire Safety operation. The land areas of Kingston is 7.3 sq.miles versus 5.1 sq.miles in Poughkeepsie.This is not 2 to 1. Also, Kingston has the Town of Ulster and Town of Esopus FDs to back them up. That is more than adequate. The longer we wait to reorganize the fire dept., the more permanent damage will be forced on the City of Kingston. If we hang on to the status quo for the FD, more of our young people will permanently leave, the tax structure will permanently keep new businesses out, and the city will die (ie. Detroit Michigan).
It's great that during these difficult budget times where people and services are getting cut and taxes raised that the Mayor and Common Council found the money to rebuild and take off the tax rolls and of course must now maintain the privately owned road to Kingston Plaza.
Let me correct you then - the City of Poughkeepsie does not include retirement and benefit costs in the FD budget. When you add these cost PFD's budget is over $8,000,000. Well over $1,000,000 more the KFD's budget. KFD is not over paid, in fact they make less than any paid department between NYC and Albany. I would believe that have more calls per capita then any of those depts. as well. Please get your facts straight before making wild accusations
To 4:10PM,
Thanks for the correction. This does not change the fact that the City of Kingston is in trouble. The population of the city is decreasing rapidly. Kingston is the HIGHEST TAXED city in upstate New York. What is wrong with limiting the Fire Dept. to fire calls? We can easily let Mobile Life and Alamo paramedics respond to emergency calls. These ambulance companies are trained at a higher level than the fire dept.EMTs. What are your proposals for reviving the HIGHEST TAXED City of Kingston? I suggested to Chief Salzmann to get ahead of the curve and suggest some substantial cuts ($1 Million to $2 Million)in the Fire Budget before we get to the 2011 debacle when NY State government is bankrupt and city residents refuse any more Police cuts. The budget picture gets really ugly over the next few years. What do you suggest?
Ralph,
As far as you're concerned the City of Kingston must have the lowest tax rates since you don't pay any taxes!!
I would suggest having the county pick up the tab for the SafetyNet program. Kingston is the ONLY City in the state where they are responsible for the welfare costs. In every other county, the county picks up the tab, spread the costs around evenly. Stop making the program so lucrative were they are coming off of buses to collect checks. Stop blaming city workers for this crisis.
To 7:26AM,
Thanks for the excellent suggestion. This morning on Kingston Community Radio (KCR) on WGHG radio, I asked Al Teetsel, Kingston Ward 1 Alderman, if the SafetyNet problem came up during this year's budget discussion on the City Finance Committee, on which he is a member. He said no and that he did not know the latest status of the proposal to have Ulster County pick up part of the Safetynet Welfare costs which the City of Kingston pays 100%. Al said that he would check with former Kingston Alderman Maryann Parker about her knowledge of the Safetynet issue. Bottomline, it appears the present Kingston Council is not including this incluing this issue in the 2010 City budget discussions.
Shocking how this City and you will beat up on the workers but no one can touch the 5oo pound elephant in the room. I not talking about cutting service to them , just have the county pay their share. It has to be a ton of money. We are the only City in the state that must pay for this program.
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