Fire, police call for SOS
Published on April 14th, 2004
STONEHAM, MA - Cautioned that mutual aid requests at three routine fires over the past eight weeks jeopardized the fire department's Metrofire membership, the Board of Selectmen agreed Tuesday night to increase the safety office's FY04 overtime budget by $19,000.
According to Stoneham Fire Chief Lawrence Lamey, the town's dependence on mutual aid to fight minor fires reached an all-time high last Thursday after two surrounding communities assisted Stoneham firefighters in extinguishing a one-bedroom blaze at 10 Brookbridge Rd.
"It was a little bedroom fire and we had to call Reading over to cover our station and Wakefield came to help us with the fire. I hate to say little fire because every fire's a big deal, but these routine fires are becoming more and more of a problem for us to handle," said Lamey, who added that no one was injured in the blaze.
Explaining why last Thursday's call for help hurt Stoneham's standing within Metrofire, Lamey said that the mutual aid contract requires that the town be capable of handling "the usual firefighting workload" within its borders.
Citing two additional fires on William and Main Streets where mutual aid shouldn't have been requested, an April 6 letter sent by Lamey to the Board of Selectmen opines that given the projected layoffs of three firefighters under a zero-override budget, routine blazes will continue to prove problematic.
"The mutual aid system is not designed to serve as a community's 'first line of defense' to deal with a community's usual firefighting workload," Lamey wrote.
"Our current and future staffing levels have left and continue to leave the Town of Stoneham unable to deal effectively with our usual firefighting workloads. Two most recent examples of this are fires at 166 William St. and 495 Main St., in which mutual aid needed to be summoned immediately, as a 'first line of defense' due to an inadequate initial response," the letter continues.
In a separate April 2 letter sent by Metrofire Chairman Chief Paul R. Thibault to each of Metrofire's 34 community participants, Thibault warned that members unable to properly contain routine fires as a result of staffing reductions will not receive the service in return or will be forced to pay a fee for aid rendered under dire circumstances.
"If a community chooses to opt out of mutual aid, or fails to supply mutual aid as part of your community's required commitment, mutual aid will not be provided to your community...if a response is necessary for life safety to a community...there could be an associated response fee," cautions the correspondence, which did not detail exact cost estimates.
Although appearing consoled by the Selectmen's action to provide additional overtime funds, Lamey still worries about the town's ability to receive mutual aid in FY05 under a zero-override budget. And the fire chief is not alone. According to Stoneham Police Chief Gregory O'Keefe, the police department's own mutual aid system could be jeopardized in FY05 without approval of an override. Slated to lose three police officers after already being forced to cut two officers from the budget last year, O'Keefe will struggle without an override to keep two policeman patrolling Stoneham's streets next year.
Currently staffing his department with three patrol officers 24-hours a day, O'Keefe hasn't determined whether the permanent reduction of one street officer will violate current mutual aid agreements. However, O'Keefe is positive that mutual aid will be hindered by his inability to provide the service in return, as he considers it irresponsible to send half of his resources to assist another town.
"It's just common sense. If I'm running two people on the street and another department calls, what am I going to do, send half my force away? I might if it's a life or death situation [for that community], but that's going to have to be with the understanding that I might have to call them back at any time," explained O'Keefe. "You just can't have a situation where an officer's out there and he has no backup."
Losing three firefighters at the cost of removing one engine company from service for the entire year if an override fails, Lamey will also face the same mutual aid quandary in FY05.
"I'm speechless about it; I can't even imagine next year," worried Lamey. "Under the mutual aid agreement, in addition to being required to have the staff and resources to deal with routine fires, you also have to be able to dedicate one-third of your resources to another city or town at any given time. With only two pieces of apparatus, it's irresponsible to leave Stoneham in that state where 50 percent of our resources are going somewhere else."
Yet another major concern for both chiefs, the Selectmen's zero-override budget cuts a combined $290,000 from the departments' overtime funds. According to Lamey and O'Keefe, such drastic reductions will impede efforts to adequately staff the reduced level shifts throughout the year as officers request vacation and sick time.
"I actually asked for more overtime because they're cutting additional people. Right now by cutting $164,000 from my overtime budget, you might as well say you're laying off three or four more guys," O'Keefe remarked.
"It's tough to know exactly what will happen right now. There's not going to be any flexibility in schedules. I'm sure there's going to be shifts where if people can't come in for whatever reason, I'm only going to have one person out there on the street," the police chief warned.
Because of the everyday life-and-death dangers police face when confronting criminal activity, O'Keefe worries that when only one person patrols Stoneham's streets, an officer might hastily act to defend himself in the absence of backup.
"God forbid we have to run shifts with one officer. I'll run a deficit and they'll have to fire me before that happens. In those situations, an officer might think with his gun first and brain later. These guys want to go home to their families to0, and I can't say I blame them. They didn't join the force to commit suicide," the police chief said.
Claiming that the fire department unions negotiated a mandatory level of overtime in each year's budget, Lamey said he's required to fund at least $120,000 of overtime in FY05.
With only $68,000 left in his overtime budget after losing $126,000 from the account, the fire chief will be forced to layoff an additional 1.3 firefighters to meet that obligation, bringing the total number of layoffs under a zero-override budget to 4.3 people.
"On some days I'd be down to one piece of apparatus because I'm required to let two people off a shift [for personal or sick time]. The bottom line is since they only gave me $68,000 to work with, I'm not even going to bother trying to staff those groups [if people call out]," the fire chief commented.
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