More FIrefighters Sepaking Out!!

Apparently, more firefighters are speaking out on what is taking place , especially with last night's kiss butt fest, and wanted to give me their input:

I read your posting today about last night's township meeting. As a member of the Bensalem fire service for over 40 years, I have seen a lot. However, I have nothing to compare the things I have seen in the last four years to!

Closing down a fire station without a legitimate reason. No explanation for the closure either! None of the other fire companies (well there is one with real close ties to the Director of Public Safety that might) have any idea why it happened.

The sudden meeting with the Mayor and Director of Public Safety with our leadership with no explanation for the meeting, only to learn that they were taking funds away from us to pay for a fire department that they formed without our knowledge and against township code!

The sudden firing of the township fire marshal without any explanation except; "we are going in a different direction". We are still waiting for them to tell us what the new direction is.

I am confused while they would need to take money away from us to pay for this project. Do they take money away from the police department when they add new personnel? No, they add money to the police budget! Why then, when you submitted a Federal grant for this project did you fail to plan for how you were going to pay for it when the grant ran out?

Now I get to watch a selected (by the paid township Battalion Chief) group of firefighters being lead into a council meeting (the ones from my fire company had no idea why they were asked to be there) to support a fire school that has failed to meet our requirements! Now, either we have no idea what a proper fire training facility is, or we are now represented by card carrying (and as I read on you posting before) Kool Aid Drinkers!

IF you don't believe me, feel free to check the National Fire Protection Association standards for a fire training center. You will find that we don't meet them.

Here are a few training centers in the area that you can conduct live fire training in:

1. Mercer County NJ

2. Philadelphia PA

3. Lower End Bucks County Emergency Services Training Center in the Croydon section of Bristol Township (at no cost to the fire companies).

4. West Chester training center

5. Bucks County training center in Doylestown

6. Reading PA (one of the training centers that they went to look at).

The fact is, a chief of one of our fire companies was not included in the county planning committee for the new training center. Not getting his way, he talked the township into building one in the township that despite the claims they made in the press does not meet the requirements of the fire service and still requires us to travel.

Despite what they claimed on the propaganda channel, the facility is not complete, is not state of the art and does not meet the needs of the fire service. If the two councilmen that claimed to be firefighters were in fact firefighters, then they know that the facility is a waste of millions of dollars.

I am not aware of what occurred during the last hurricane that jeopardized numerous residents of our community, but I intend to find out. I know from the confusion I witnessed at my station, that there was little to no planning. In fact, I was present when they called our chief to the township building for a planning/organizational meeting during the storm!

Instead of answering the questions posed to the council (I want to stress that the questions were posed to the council, NOT the solicitor) they pulled a stunt like they did last night.

You did accomplish one thing, you made those of us that have been sitting on the fence get off the fence.

Unfortunately, its not on the side you hoped for, Freddie!

The Firefighters Are On to You Freddie!!