Barry Allen’s Comments on the
Glendale Fire Department
in the 10-05-08 Vanguard Weekly News
In Glendale we pay firefighters to sleep and pay
tremendous amounts of overtime to managers, the firefighters sleep through
alarms such as received because of the Lorain Street fire resulting in a fatality. The Truck
Company 26 got to the scene faster than the first responder Engine Company.
Why? Is there going to be an internal investigation to determine what kept
them? Maybe internal investigations are only for the GPD.
As we have
recently seen, firefighters working 24 hour shifts do not benefit the public.
It is self serving by allowing firefighters to sleep on the job and jump out of
bed at 7:30AM to go home to manage their lifestyles. Retired Chief of
Police Bruce Philpott offered up a viable solution to
save the City over $10,000,000 annually. Ask Frank Quintero and Ara Najarian why they voted
against those recommendations. Ask Chief Scoggins why he won’t debate Philpott on GFD Policy.
On September
14 at 4:49.18 Engine 21 located at Columbus and Oak received a run to an appliance
fire on Wilson between Columbus and Central. They were on scene ½ mile
away in 3 minutes and 20 seconds after the call. Compare that to the 6 minutes
and 14 seconds it took Engine 26 to get to Loraine St. also ½ mile
away at 2AM. Three extra minutes and the victim died. Three extra minutes
to wake up, dress and get moving. Sleeping on the job does not provide the
public with a good quality of life.
|
Date
|
Distance
from station to scene
|
Engine
|
Dispatch
|
Arrive On
Scene
|
Elapsed Time
|
Fatality
|
|
8-27-08
|
½ Mile
|
26
|
16.49.18 4:49PM
|
16.52.38
|
3:20
|
0
|
|
9-14-08
|
½ Mile
|
21
|
02.01.34 2:01AM
|
02.07.47
|
6:14
|
1
|
It is also time for the Council to direct the Fire Chief to stop
the practice of spending expensive fuel dollars and causing higher maintenance
costs by adding unnecessary mileage to the 12 engines and trucks. Personnel
should be ordered to use the sedans and utilities trucks to go grocery
shopping, go to City Hall for HR and off to the wellness clinic while on duty.
Even the GFD must be accountable.