city councilors

[Fireknight]

I see that the Toronto local ran their councilors through some fire ops, I think this is a great idea. There is a few councilors here I would like to suit up in a July heat wave and run through a burn house, Have any other cities done this?

[iamvff]

I sit in a pretty sweet position. I am a Councillor in our Town and a member of our Volunteer Fire Dept. As luck would have it our Mayor appointed me council rep to the local fire board. My Fire Chief and myself attend the meetings together, and we seem to get a great deal of respect from the other board members. We have 5 other municipalities on our fire board, and for the most part we get what we request. A good note on this subject is that our Fire Dept. does a lot of fund raising, and when we request something (eg: turnout gear, new pager, etc) we will quite often offer that if they buy 2 we will buy the third or something like that. It is a great gesture and they see that we are trying to meet them part way. We never buy a piece of equipment on our own with out making sure they know we've done it. It helps to keep the wheels greased. Next time your Fire Dept. is trying to get a piece of equipment and your having a tough time convincing the board members to buy it, try offering to donate a bit of cash into purchasing it, you'll be surprised how well it goes over, and they remember it for next time.

Be Safe,
iamvff

[Leafs Fan]

IAMVFF, I do not see this as possible in the career firefighting world, Generally career fire dept's are operating in a different fiscal area. Career firefighter unions take the approach that if municipalities want a piece of equipment they fund it. It is a slippery slope to start on. During times of economic hardship the fire dept may find they are in need of a large piece of equipment, and the municipality may take advantage of the good will of the firefighters in the past and expect them to fund it all. Career firefighters do a large amount of fundraising through their association benevolent funds, but these are directed to charities such as Muscular Dystrophy.
I understand your view as fundraising may be needed in a small community to provide the piece of equipment the firefighters want but is not really important to council. My only question, Does your municipality have the same arrangement with the police or public works dept? I do not expect that your local roads crews have to do fundraising to acquire the new snowplow they need so why should the firefighters expect any less?

[iamvff]

Hey Leafs fan,
Point well taken on the career fire issue. I guess when I replied to the post I had Volunteer depts. in mind. Sorry, kind of one tracked it on that one. On the police issue, they are funded through the Province with each municipality paying set fees for their services depending on population. Therefore all equipment for the RCMP has nothing to do with the municipality. As far as the local road crews, no our Town employees do not fund raise to buy their equipment, I never looked at from that point of view, therefore I have no valid arguement for you. I still stand by the point of my post though, and that is for those dept's that have a tough time with their Fireboards, and yes.. this probably applies more to the Dept's out in the Sticks as opposed to the cities or paid Dept's, If you try to show them that you are meeting them part way, whether it's financially or whatever, it seems to go a long way to getting what your dept. requires...or desires. That is both respect and/or some cool new equipment.

Have a great day
Be Safe,
iamvff

[smoke286]

We got a guy elected to council last time around. I don't think it did us much good though.