I told you in April that the department's operating budget has shrunk from $455,098 in 2008 to just $156,896 in 2017, a drop of 65.52%. No provision has been made for repair or maintenance supplies. The equipment on hand has decreased from $108,638 in 2008 to just $23,396 this year. Only $35,000 is allotted to train 122 firefighters. A scant $3,500 is set aside to purchase chemicals that are often more important than water in extinguishing a fire.
"He is setting our department up for failure," said firefighter Jeremy Warmkessel, a hero who once gave up his own breathing mask so that a little boy could breathe in a building being consumed by fire.
He does not care about politics. He cares about lives.
Allentown City Council President Ray O'Connell has previously called the situation an "embarrassment to the City."
What about Mayoral candidate Nat Hyman ?
He met with firefighters recently to get a jumpstart on a positive dialogue and relationship with them, something that's currently absent with Fed Ed.
Hyman said there will be three non-negotiable items in the city budget - fire, police and EMS. "If we do not have safety, we simply do not have a city," said Hyman. "Safety is the foundation for everything we want to do in this city."
Hyman said that the first thing he will do as Mayor is "sit down with all of the stakeholders from the firefighters, push the reset button and start a fresh new relationship. While I cannot promise you that I will always tell you what you want to hear or agree with everything you want, I can promise that I will always listen and do what is in the best interest of Allentown. I have absolutely no other agenda."
He addressed the fact that there are fewer firefighters today than 12 years ago and called that "obscene, particularly when you consider that they have double the call volume from 12 years ago!" He likewise said that the fact that they do not have a functional ladder truck while Bethlehem has three is unconscionable."It is not a function of if there will be a tragedy but rather when and the likelihood of loss of life is very real."
Hyman assures firefighters that if he is Mayor, they will have a friend in city hall as he views his number one job as Mayor is to "ensure that every citizen is safe and that we do everything we can to get every firefighter and police officer home safely at night."
Firefighters will not have time to save lives. They will be too busy fighting fires at Hyman's abandoned firetrap properties.
ReplyDeleteYou tell 'em, Fed Ed.
ReplyDeleteMaking pronouncements from his living room full of country club supporters isn't going to get him elected mayor.
ReplyDeleteAll those new, tall buildings and an increasingly skeletal fire service. Allentown voters really know how to pick 'em.
ReplyDeleteWho cares what or who Mr Hyman is!He isn't Pawlowski and he is the only candidate who can beat him. He has my vote and I know others who think the same.
ReplyDeleteBernie, ask anonymous if said firetrapps shall be engineered electrical malfunctions his administrtion allowed to pass code? There is the story of the 4th floor flooding from the 5th floor that just hasn't made it to the media outlets. Was this a engineered mishap and what was lost and how much did this mishapp cost the city as it insures itself?
ReplyDeleteBernie why don'tyou break that story as by now there is no evedence it even happened except the antique scanner transmission.
REpublican redd
humanist by design and just so happens to be American made
I agree, "Fed Ed's" treatment of the AFD is abhorrent. Equally, his policing philosophy is also abhorrent. This mayor, since he has been in office, has consistently failed the citizens of Allentown. Absent the downtown NIZ development, the rest of the town is one war zone. He has proactively failed to establish police presence in the neighborhoods and detrimentally relies on police reactively responding to calls for service; which does not solve the root causes in the neighborhoods. A comprehensive community policing effort would be a start and a neighborhood stabilization unit to overtly suppress crime in the neighborhoods should follow. I know that Hyman has thought about resurrecting Neighborhood Community police, however, without a corresponding suppression unit to crush crime, he'll be wasting good money on a very problematic issue.
ReplyDeleteOther than hold meetings and ask everyone to sing kumbyah, what are Hyman's proposals? Evict the minorities and the underclass from Allentown?
ReplyDeleteThat would reduce the amount of crime by 90%
3:28, So far as I know, you don't meet firefighters at country clubs.
ReplyDelete8:55, you were just given his chief proposal - keeping Allentown safe.
Fake news
ReplyDeleteAnd Ed's view is to let the mobs run the city? Throwing money at the problem isn't the answer Is raising taxes for more equipment and more cops the answer? People leave Allentown already due to the high taxes.
ReplyDeleteCracking down in crime-ridden neighborhoods is an answer. Following NYC Mayor Giuliani's approach worked before.
Says the man who hires people into his warehouse and fires them the day before their benefits kick in. Funny how when you start a job there, you get pulled aside from other staff and told they are going to do that to you and not to take it personally.
ReplyDeleteThe guy is a slumer. He is however not Fed Ed and Bernie hates Fed ED. So O'Hare law states that you love any person who is opposed to the guy you hate.
ReplyDelete