Rant #3, “City of Toledo puts fire, police classes on indefinite hold”

This (also Sunday Nov. 16th) article in the Blade, “City of Toledo puts fire, police classes on indefinite hold,” by Laren Weber, Blade Staff Writer, touches more on the personal.

So, rather than heavily quoting from the article, I will trust you to read it and then come back here for my take on this fine kettle of mayoral fish (and more than a little dirt).

Toledo's ranks of public safety forces, while mostly under mayor FINKbeiner's watch, has plummeted precipitously while we continue sailing unavoidably (now) towards a perfect storm, with potentially disastrous consequences...

With “soon to have been cadets” already screened/selected, many of whom have already left their former jobs and moved (when & where necessary) into Toledo, to comply with their residency requirements, “duh mayor” just decides (as if on a whim, and with no regard to the consequences) to drop the classes in order to balance the City's “Fudge-It.”

“duh mayor” is even talking about closing fire stations, much to the surprise (and dismay) of the Fire Chief.

*With “duh mayor's” historically stellar support of our public safety forces,* this means that in 2010, when the senior members of both Police and Fire/Rescue who have been participating in the “DROP” program reach their mandatory 8-year limit, Toledo stands to lose Police on the order of a hundred or so senior officers, with Fire/Rescue suffering proportionally similar losses.

Now, combining this forcing out of our most experienced (and, by nature of their seniority, the higher paid) public safety talent added to the attrition replacements that were never hired, we face an extreme shortage of man (and, woman) power, unpatrolled streets/districts, unstaffed fire/rescue response equipment and overworked public safety workers.

Some Toledo Dirty Little Public Safety Secrets:

Police:
Particularly in the Summertime, when many officers are on vacation (and the more time you have, the more vacation you get) the ranks of command officers are filled with lower ranking officers (there is a 16% wage increase between ranks) while the lowly privates usually remain shorthanded, meaning single crews covering several patrol districts.

Sergeants don't get sent on regular calls; they may show up, but they are not usually sent to a call.

Police recruits fresh out of the academy (and the academy does have a practical limit as to how many adequately trained recruits they can squirt out at a given time) aren't automatically ready to respond to calls for service; they must be paired with more seasoned officers for a period of time.

And then, there's the issue of background checks for all prospective recruits; this too, is a very limiting factor in preparing recruits for the academy and the street. The pipe is only so big...

Now, can you see how too few patrol officers can quickly get burned out?

Never mind the overtime. . .

Again, you just can't put out hundreds of street ready police officers on a whim; it takes time, and that “DROP” clock is still ticking...


Fire/Rescue:
There is a negotiated and agreed to minimum manning number per shift for a reason, to adequately cover/protect/serve the citizens of Toledo.

And, as with Police, the management ranks get filled first (in most cases) meaning that the ranks of the grunts sometimes get thin (although, each vehicle has its own minimum manning levels).

Again as with the Police, firefighters are built one at a time and the Fire academy has similar limitations, without watering down the training, which could be disastrous.

And, when you have a run of significant fires, you can recall (or precall, if necessary) off duty personnel for large fires, but that means overworked people functioning at less than optimum, which takes an inevitable toll in increased injuries.

Mutual Aid can only help so much, before mutual aid needs to be coerced. Mutual aid is supposed to work both ways, yet Toledo rarely gets called to help, but often calls others repeatedly.

Q.
Scanner Listeners:

When is the last time you heard Toledo call for a third alarm?

(Alarms 2nd, 3rd, etc., are determined by the number and types of units responding. In Toledo however, after a 2nd alarm is called, Toledo Fire issues calls for extra equipment (some times SEVERAL calls), rather than calling another alarm. It has to do with insurance rates, I'm told....)

Hence the much used/abused Toledo Mutual Aid calls.

If you were a Mutual Aid Department Chief, wouldn't you be seriously rethinking the wisdom of re-upping the Mutual Aid agreement/contract, the next time it comes up for renewal???


The Toledo Ambulances:
Now that the sixth BLS ambulance has been pressed into service, where is the “spare” rig?

Every other kind of rig has a spare to use when their usual rig goes in for service, so where's the spare ambulance???

(A nasty question that one, as the ambulance equipment doesn't easily fit back into the squads that they replaced, and that we do have spares of....)


Sooo, how does not hiring lower paid (to start with) police and fire recruits save us money when we have to pay even more in overtime to fewer and fewer overworked seasoned personnel???


Regarding “duh mayor,” in the words of that world famous philosopher, Bugs Bunny, “What a maroon.”

Note: *---* denotes extreme sarcasm....