Roto, Those guys gave you the good Reader's Digest version and Medic is 110% correct about needing a few weeks to get completely caught up. Make no mistake about it, this has been a "civil war" that has cost friendships and created such deep seated resentment and hostilities besides going on the better part of 20 years that there's a whole generation of firefighters on both sides that only know these tensions and have no clue how it used to be when we all got along.
It's a shame and it's disgraceful because it took a system that functioned and through attrition was steadily headed towards a single career department but the then arrogant, bully of a mayor whose currently the incompetent, crooked governor spreading his ability to completely F' up everything he touches, statewide. There easily could have been a transition plan but it would have taken time and that imbecile creates friction and causes problems to get what he wants when he wants it and one of the very few combination systems in the country that worked well was brought to it's knees by this guy.
The mayor NEVER negotiated in good faith or personally and always kept the appearance of being at arm's length. Offers that would be made in the morning would be retracted by the afternoon, documents would be tampered with and just every aspect of trying to deal with the City of Stamford was dirty. That imbecile always had an issue with the overtime paid to the career guys, particularly Turn of River because it's the biggest with the most employees. Unfortunately for him their contract that was bargained with the city stipulated the overtime more or less mirroring the very same contract the city bargained with Stamford Fire & Rescue so what was his real bitch? When your minimum and maximum staffing are the same and you replace guys one for one you're going to have overtime whenever ANYBODY calls out. The city squeezed so bad playing games with budgeted money to the point Turn of River was unable to pay bills and because the career guys at that time were employees of the independent departments they were forced to defer vacations, overtime pay, uniform allowances, school etc. because the money just wasn't there and it got to the point of having to explain this to the electric company to keep the power on and since the fuel company wasn't happy and cut Turn of River off the machines were being fueled dangerously in the winter time with No. 2 heating oil. Machines weren't being maintained, ladder, pump and DOT inspections were deferred, EMS and Hazmat certifications lapsed, guys were operating in disintegrating turnout gear and on and on and on. Turn of River even had an off the record meeting with a lawyer about mortgaging the equity in the two stations. There were discussions of declaring bankruptcy to get out from underneath the union contract and the career guy's "Driver's Association" agreed to not fill the mechanic and fire marshal when they called in sick to help the dept. save money. It was that desperate. It would seem simple that since most of the personalities involved back then have moved on, retired, died etc. that common sense might prevail and why not just go back to the way it was and undo everything. I'm not an attorney so I can't answer specifics but because of court decisions that have been handed down from the lawsuits decided so far, they can't. It's a big jumbled mess that never had to happen in the first place and has sucked up 20 years of people's lives. It's been an atrocity.
Some of the biggest casualties in this are the career guys from Belltown, Glenbrook and Turn of River, some of who were forced against their will under threat of termination to be reassigned to Stamford Fire & Rescue. A lot of these guys had 30+ years on the job and now had a gun held to their heads. Since these guys didn't go through the civil service process and test for the jobs they weren't exactly welcomed with open arms and some SF&R guys still don't accept them and probably never will. One of the guys who voted "No" summed up his years (since 7/1/2008) downtown as "miserable".
What never made sense was the mayor's "problem" with overtime when part of the "solution" ended up being giving Glenbrook, Turn of River and Belltown additional career firefighters to allow those depts. to staff 2 man houses around the clock. Since the minimum/maximum didn't change and it was still one for one he only made the overtime situation worse by adding more faces. Those additional guys were allowed to hired by the depts themselves since the career guys were technically private employees at that time. Once they were hired all the career guys became city employees, NOT SF&R employees, just city employees but that's what made it easy for the mayor when he decided to reassign them to SF&R with the union's blessing.
If you're completely confused by now don't feel bad. This is just a little insight to a much bigger situation going on for 20 years. Who knows how or when this will get resolved. Right now a few court cases are going on, the city owes the career guys at Long Ridge a ton of money the court awarded them but the city says they don't have the funds, machines aren't getting out the door at Turn of River (less than 50% of time and I heard even less than that)or Springdale and Glenbrook but they have SF&R Engines 6 & 7 running out of their firehouses so they do get out. While Engines 8 & 9 in Turn of River are there they have to hope either Turn of River gets out the door with the tanker, ladder or rescue or they have to wait for those machines to come up from downtown or down from Long Ridge but taking them out of Long Ridge only compounds the problem because it's a large, difficult district to cover. Turn of River covers over 40% of the City of Stamford with some remote areas particularly on the western side that used to be covered by Station 2 difficult to reach just asking for a disaster.
It's a mess.
It's a shame and it's disgraceful because it took a system that functioned and through attrition was steadily headed towards a single career department but the then arrogant, bully of a mayor whose currently the incompetent, crooked governor spreading his ability to completely F' up everything he touches, statewide. There easily could have been a transition plan but it would have taken time and that imbecile creates friction and causes problems to get what he wants when he wants it and one of the very few combination systems in the country that worked well was brought to it's knees by this guy.
The mayor NEVER negotiated in good faith or personally and always kept the appearance of being at arm's length. Offers that would be made in the morning would be retracted by the afternoon, documents would be tampered with and just every aspect of trying to deal with the City of Stamford was dirty. That imbecile always had an issue with the overtime paid to the career guys, particularly Turn of River because it's the biggest with the most employees. Unfortunately for him their contract that was bargained with the city stipulated the overtime more or less mirroring the very same contract the city bargained with Stamford Fire & Rescue so what was his real bitch? When your minimum and maximum staffing are the same and you replace guys one for one you're going to have overtime whenever ANYBODY calls out. The city squeezed so bad playing games with budgeted money to the point Turn of River was unable to pay bills and because the career guys at that time were employees of the independent departments they were forced to defer vacations, overtime pay, uniform allowances, school etc. because the money just wasn't there and it got to the point of having to explain this to the electric company to keep the power on and since the fuel company wasn't happy and cut Turn of River off the machines were being fueled dangerously in the winter time with No. 2 heating oil. Machines weren't being maintained, ladder, pump and DOT inspections were deferred, EMS and Hazmat certifications lapsed, guys were operating in disintegrating turnout gear and on and on and on. Turn of River even had an off the record meeting with a lawyer about mortgaging the equity in the two stations. There were discussions of declaring bankruptcy to get out from underneath the union contract and the career guy's "Driver's Association" agreed to not fill the mechanic and fire marshal when they called in sick to help the dept. save money. It was that desperate. It would seem simple that since most of the personalities involved back then have moved on, retired, died etc. that common sense might prevail and why not just go back to the way it was and undo everything. I'm not an attorney so I can't answer specifics but because of court decisions that have been handed down from the lawsuits decided so far, they can't. It's a big jumbled mess that never had to happen in the first place and has sucked up 20 years of people's lives. It's been an atrocity.
Some of the biggest casualties in this are the career guys from Belltown, Glenbrook and Turn of River, some of who were forced against their will under threat of termination to be reassigned to Stamford Fire & Rescue. A lot of these guys had 30+ years on the job and now had a gun held to their heads. Since these guys didn't go through the civil service process and test for the jobs they weren't exactly welcomed with open arms and some SF&R guys still don't accept them and probably never will. One of the guys who voted "No" summed up his years (since 7/1/2008) downtown as "miserable".
What never made sense was the mayor's "problem" with overtime when part of the "solution" ended up being giving Glenbrook, Turn of River and Belltown additional career firefighters to allow those depts. to staff 2 man houses around the clock. Since the minimum/maximum didn't change and it was still one for one he only made the overtime situation worse by adding more faces. Those additional guys were allowed to hired by the depts themselves since the career guys were technically private employees at that time. Once they were hired all the career guys became city employees, NOT SF&R employees, just city employees but that's what made it easy for the mayor when he decided to reassign them to SF&R with the union's blessing.
If you're completely confused by now don't feel bad. This is just a little insight to a much bigger situation going on for 20 years. Who knows how or when this will get resolved. Right now a few court cases are going on, the city owes the career guys at Long Ridge a ton of money the court awarded them but the city says they don't have the funds, machines aren't getting out the door at Turn of River (less than 50% of time and I heard even less than that)or Springdale and Glenbrook but they have SF&R Engines 6 & 7 running out of their firehouses so they do get out. While Engines 8 & 9 in Turn of River are there they have to hope either Turn of River gets out the door with the tanker, ladder or rescue or they have to wait for those machines to come up from downtown or down from Long Ridge but taking them out of Long Ridge only compounds the problem because it's a large, difficult district to cover. Turn of River covers over 40% of the City of Stamford with some remote areas particularly on the western side that used to be covered by Station 2 difficult to reach just asking for a disaster.
It's a mess.
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