Left In Lowell

Is Your House In Danger?

14 Responses to “Is Your House In Danger?”

1. Prince Charming Says:
   March 10th, 2009 at 2:05 pm

   Why couldn’t he have driven the damn thing to a firehouse for Chrissakes! Oh, that’s right this is Lowell where the firehouse might be closed. When you’re talking about cops and firemen being laid off, that’s a matter of public safety. We always talk about laying off cops, firefighters, teachers, closing libraries etc. We never hear of dropping the sports programs though. Add or raise sports fees and listen to the howls. But it’s okay that the safety of the entire city can be jeopardized.

2. Paul@01852 Says:
   March 10th, 2009 at 3:40 pm

   PC would it have done any good if the driver *had* driven it to Pine St Station House? NO!!! If the pumper malfunctioned at the scene it also would have malfunctioned at the station! Just because its “home” doesn’t mean they can hook it up to the garden hose and get water.

3. Prince Charming Says:
   March 10th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

   I didn’t think I’d find anybody that would take that first sentence seriously, but I guess I did.

4. Tryin to Stay Anonymous Says:
   March 10th, 2009 at 7:10 pm

   I assure you it did happen, the issue has since been resolved with the truck. In addition the regular truck was being repaired as of today. The question is, how reliable is some of the aging equipment and what is the status of the new trucks that are being ordered? You can’t bandaid things forever. Increases in fire and rescue spending in this city have paled in comparison to Police, Schools, etc. over the last 20 years. Its a little out of date but check here for an idea what I’m talking about:

   http://www.boston.com/news/special/fires/rankings/budget.html

   Yes Lowell is 105th. In addition a lot of the major purchases were made with the help of grants. Helpful yes, long term viable planning, no.

   While the crashing economy is going to hit all municipal services harder in the coming months this city has not made a commitment to keep fire stations open for nearly 17 years. There is not consistent, reliable service for all. Either you have a standard or you don’t. Standards are not a flexible thing in my book. When the economy was booming a few short years ago Lowell had somewhat fewer station closings, not zero station closings. The policy of replacing equipment is inconsistent at best.

   Lynne is correct and if people in this city don’t start demanding the services or diminishing their expectations very quickly, you can
   bet someone will eventually suffer for it.

   These Links may be helpful:

   http://www.boston.com/news/specials/fires/20_questions_for_your_fire_chief/

   http://www.boston.com/news/specials/fires/who_is_watching_the_fire_department/

5. Tryin to Stay Anonymous Says:
   March 10th, 2009 at 7:21 pm

   The link below is an even better illustration of what I was trying to show. Lowell is ranked 85th despite being the 4th largest city in Massachusetts.

   http://www.boston.com/news/special/fires/rankings/percap.html

6. murphy Says:
   March 10th, 2009 at 9:35 pm

   Comparing the services of other towns and cities with Lowell, the administration suggests in the FY09 proposed budget that funding levels might be fine:

   “With regard to safety, spending levels appear to have less effect on response time than does geography. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) establishes an ideal incident response time of 4 minutes. However, success can largely be attributed to the distances fire companies must travel. In dense cities like Lowell this is a distinct advantage.”

   Yet if firehouses are closed on a rotation because of the city’s tight budget, then geography is quite clearly correlated with spending levels, as are response times resulting from this and aging equipment. So it would seem that some perceptions—in addition to city finances—must change.

7. Kim Says:
   March 10th, 2009 at 10:18 pm

   I have been amazed for a while now at the number of people screaming to cut the city budget and that there is too much fat. The police, fire, and the teachers seem to be the scape goat for the bad economy. The Lowell city management has done a wonderful job. I do however agree with some cost saving measures that just make sense, such as group buying power on hmo medical benefits, and some regionalization of services.

8. Tryin to Stay Anonymous Says:
   March 11th, 2009 at 2:31 pm

   With regard to the HMO and GIC plans. The city insurance rates were better than the state’s as of last year. That may change but do we really want to take all control of this and hand it over to the state? Who will ultimately look out for Lowell’s best interests? Because we’re still paying the bills no matter what we use.

   Also has anyone ever seen the breakdown of Lowell employee numbers enrolled in each health plan? I never have and am just curious if that information is available anywhere? Right now city workers have been told the HMO and PPO are subsidizing the Master Medical enrollees. That couldn’t happen if no one was enrolled in them.

   As for regionalization, especially with public safety, many of the surrounding towns are cutting services more than Lowell already. Can we afford to, in effect, subsidize them with our services when we can barely keep aproprate staffing ourselves? You need every community to agree on a set level of resources and I guarantee the towns would not agree to staff the same way a city needs to because of the size and density difference. In addition Mutual Aid Agreements through NEMLEC (Police) and Fire District 6 already exist for those contingencies.

9. Maggie Says:
   March 11th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

   Due to my previous before retirement life, I know several firefighters. The city truck was no place near a firehouse and it went up rather fast. But to the real point - our city in in trouble with more trucks with problems than we are being told about. I ran into one of the guys last week and he was telling me that they only have 1 back-up truck and on that day it was down. I would love to know how old each truck is and what their individual problems are. The Highland Street fire a few weeks ago strtched the area recources to the limit. Imagine if there had been a second big fire someplace else.

10. Paul@01852 Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 6:32 am

    With the release of the Boston Fire Dept’s report yesterday I’m curious to know how Lowell compares to Boston’s practices. Does the LFD have trained maintenance crews to maintain our fire vehicles? Or do they also “lack the basic knowledge such as recommended frequency of oil changes?” How about driver training — whodoes it and how is driver training provided? Does Lowell have a written program/policy for inspection and preventive maintenance? What checks are made when a vehicle must be repaired by an outside vendor? Does Lowell have traceability to ensure that reported problems are addressed such as written work orders and followup procedures? Hopefully someone in the know can answer these questions. I know the CM is an occasional reader of LiL and there seem to be several firefighters who are regular posters (Jason?). Maybe one of them can comment. Lynne/Mimi maybe this comment is worthy of its own thread?

11. tryin to stay anonymous Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 8:14 am

    My point was never that the DPW truck could have been saved, just about any vehicle that has a significant car fire is totaled. It was however, threatening about a dozen brand new U-Haul trucks within a few feet. The bigger the fire got the more potential for colateral damage. That area already has longer response times when all stations are open. My point was that if the reliability of the trucks is an issue and it happens at a small incident what happens at a big one?

    The trucks do have some problems and now the city (Courtesy of Councilor AK and the Mayor) want to go back to subcommittee again and go with the low bid when a fire department committee spent 6 months researching (of their own time - mostly OFF duty by the way) trying to come up with real tested specifications and buy quality trucks that fit the city’s needs better. Nice message to send to committed workers, thanks for your help… take a hike.

    All 13 front line trucks have been the same low bidder. So if you’ve been operating the same brand of trucks for almost 15 years you would have a pretty good idea whether they accomplished what you needed right? Isn’t 15 years enough field testing? The only reason the city went with this brand initially was because they had very limited funds and were desperate to get something new in the early 90’s when the fleet was even worse off. Since there has been very little priority placed on capital expenditures for the fire department over that time (Not the current manager’s fault BTW), the city just kept buying on the cheap. Guess what brand Boston has been running for the majority of their fleet all this time? Same as us. I’d rather have what Cambridge, the best Class One fire department in the state uses. It just so happens to be the brand recommended.

    Maybe there was a reason they recommended something at least middle of the road. The low bid didn’t meet about 20 of the minimum specifications the apparatus committee requested. Such as a steel aerial ladder with a 500 lb tip load that could extend over a bridge. If the city wanted to go with the low bid with no input from people that will use the trucks they should have just bought the cheapest in stock trucks when the money was bonded in the summer. At least then we would already have the new trucks here or very close to delivery already. Now we have aging trucks with reliability issues, no margin for error and no new truck delivery in sight.

    By the way the issue of the weight of the apparatus raised by the mayor is irrelevant. Steel vs. Aluminium chassis doesn’t matter because the aluminium chassis are already too heavy for some of the bridges right now. Hence you may want a heavy duty steel aerial ladder that could reach over a bridge for a water rescue while not being on it (some of ours aren’t rated for that). No fire apparatus can use University Ave. No ladder truck can use the Rourke. It doesn’t matter what brand we buy, unless the bridges are upgraded that still will be the case. Weight of the truck is not an issue, the bridges are. So if a truck has to go all the way around to get somewhere anyways, you had better make sure it works when it gets there. Maybe the lowest bid isn’t the best idea in that situation. Evn more so a low bidder that was just recently bought out by a private equity firm after nearly going bankrupt.

    Don’t let politicians get involved in this type of issue. When the city’s bid requirements didn’t get met for the Spinners we had to rebid the contract, correct? Now when the city’s demands weren’t met for fire equipment we go with THAT bid? Sound hypocritical to you? Yet the manager isn’t convinced? The fire department had an even higher bid AND they didn’t even consider at least two other companies that they would have liked, but knew couldn’t meet the demands for close to the amount alloted.

    The recommendation was to go with the lowest bid meeting minimum specifications. No more, no less. Did anyone ever consider that maybe spending the extra 140k now would save you and extra year or two from having to buy another truck AND you would have less out of service and safety issues? Its not like the money wasn’t already bonded for this. Penny wise, pound foolish. Of course its only partly about the money. There are a few personal agendas and personnel issues here too. Otherwise someone wouldn’t go run to their favorite city councilor, now would they?

12. Jake Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 10:58 am

    Funny, the firefighters basically just made up the difference between the price of the trucks themselves by giving back $130,000 in pay to the city didn’t they? That’s pretty ironic don’t you think? Some thank you gift.

13. Maggie Says:
    March 19th, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    What can we do to support our fightfighters? We can call or write our councilors and urge them to get the fire department the equipment it needs. They stand between us and the total loss of our property and possibly our lives. The right equipment stands betwen them and possible injury or loss of their lives. They deserve better.

14. Tryin to Stay Anonymous Says:
    March 25th, 2009 at 9:39 am

    You’ll all be pleased to hear that Ladder 1 from the Lawrence Street firehouse needs a complete brake system overhaul. It currently has all the wheels off and is sitting up on jacks at HQ on Moody St.

    It is so expensive a job that it had to be put out to bid. But since there is no money to fix it, firefighters report it may be out of service well into the summer months as it currently stands. There is no spare ladder truck. The former Ladder One that used to be operated as a spare is sitting outside HQ is an expensive parking lot ornament, so old they don’t make the parts to fix it anymore.

    If you live above the third floor in South Lowell/Back Central and parts of Belvidere I’d start to be concerned, because you will be waiting a little longer for a ladder truck to arrive from the Downtown or Branch St stations. But we don’t need quality new trucks right? How long until we get our public safety sub-comm meeting to discuss the issue?

    No one will even talk about the elephant in the room which is the layoff issue.

    Would this qualify as fiddling while the city burns ?(Pun intended)

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