 |
| Homeland Security Moose Boat coming to a Marina near you ! |
I'm a big supporter of our public safety agencies -- I think our Police & Fire Departments are under-staffed and under-equipped. I think their headquarters buildings are an embarrassment as as well as a safety hazard.
But, at a time when we can't open our third fire station or get an ambulance to the far corners of Sandwich -- even to rescue two of our own firefighters injured in a house fire -- how can we justify operating a $900,000 high-tech fire boat capable of hunting dirty bombs along the Cape Cod Canal ("Hey, you -- open that tackle box slowly !!").
Granted, the boat was a "gift" from Uncle Sam -- but anybody who has ever been given a free horse knows the cost is the care and feeding of the beast, not the acquisition cost. How are we going to pay for the ongoing maintenance and training? I hope we won't treat this boat the same way we treat other Town assets (ie. just ignore them and hope for the best). How much rental income will the Marina lose by giving away a 40' slip?
I have to assume we won't be leaving a million dollar piece of equipment unattended at the marina. Who's going to babysit it? If we can't staff our existing stations, how can we justify staffing a fireboat?
What's the Coast Guard for? There's usually a pair of 40' USCG Boats stationed at the marina. There's also multiple Canal Patrol boats staffed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Lately, there also seem to several small, but very heavily armed, Navy boats in the the Marina --- let them defend the canal!
No offense to my friends on SFD, but in the event of terrorist activity, I would be a little more comfortable seeing a heavily-armed Coastie on-scene than a Sandwich fireman. Likewise, when I finally have The Big One, I would much rather have a Sandwich firefighter at my house working the defibrillator, than out on the canal checking the Onset Canal Cruise Boat for potential terrorist activity!
15 comments:
Did the BOS sign-off on this fiasco? The paper cited 1 boat fire last year -- for that we need a million dollar boat? USCG is part of Homeland Security -- they already have a large presence on the canal that
Why not send the boat to Plymouth where they have a bigger harbor and a nuclear plant?
Easy -- Plymouth was smart enough not to ask for something they knew they couldn't afford to operate properly.
You need to have a naming contest --
How about "Delusional Warrior", "Tax Dollars Up In Smoke", "Overtime Maximus", or maybe "No Ambulance For You, East Sandwich!!"
"C Anal Probe" ?
The Carl Johansen ....
Sounds like a good excuse for some overtime "training cruises" !
Seriously, this seems silly. Most days,more people work at the dump than all the fire stations combined -- who's supposed to drive the boat?
It seems like somebody should have been able to convince Homeland Security that a structurally sound, adequately-sized fire station (that wasn't teetering on the edge of a marsh) would provide more Big Picture benefit than buying another boat to follow behind the Coast Guard boats!!
If you adopt a dog, most rescue groups check to make sure you have a good track record of caring for your animals and that you have the resources to properly maintain it.
Too bad DHS doesn't do the same thing with their "free" million dollar boats !!
Mass Environmental Police also has at least 1 boat at the marina --- as do the canal pilots. Given that the Pilots meet and escort every large ship through the canal -- it seems they should be the ones with the radiation detectors.
You people need to get a life. I'm sure this boat is not just for the Canal do you realize that the town is responsible to 10 miles off shore. I can recall about 5 times I saw the fire boat beat the USCG out of the canal and 3 times that the Coast Guard could not respond because they were out on buzzards bay. Live on East Sandwich Beach rafts with people are always getting pulled out to sea.So you tell a family member so we lost your loved one because it took to long to get there. Hats off to the SFD for doing what they do
I agree with the Hat's off to the SFD -- they've been making do with too little for too long.
I don't think Simmons or anybody else slammed the SFD -- but given the small amount of money the Town gives them (and I'm one of many who thinks they deserve far more), I agree with the previous writers that the spends should be focussed on getting the most bang for the buck. I bet annual maintenance and training for this boat will hit $200,000. That's money that won't be spent staffing trucks and ambulances, new safety equipment, or training for other emergencies.
Remember -- we didn't open Station 2 because we couldn't afford to staff it or maintain it?
Is it worth tieing up a million dollar asset plus staff "just in case" a kid on a raft drifts off the beach in East Sandwich?
Explain that to my neighborhood that has to wait for an ambulance because there's no money to open Station 2 -- or adequately staff the other trucks. Or -- to the family of a firefighter injured because of poor equipment or delays.
8:57 -- Not sure what you're talking about -- the only SFD boat around now is on a trailer at Station 1. Are you saying its faster for SFD to hook up, tow the boat to the marina, and then launch than it is for for the CG to respond?
Maybe if CG is already on a call -- but when that does happen, SFD can still tow their existing boat over and launch it -- they don't need a million boat .... "just in case".
It comes down to money ... is maintaining that boat really the best use of our taxes?
People in East Sandwich are "always getting pulled out to sea" ? When? DO you have any real run statistics to support that?
I'd be willing to bet more East Sandwich people have accidents or heart attacks than get washed away on rafts!
Maybe the Conservation agent could borrow this boat for Peters Pond -- if that guy at Town Meeting thought the other DCR pond boat was overpowered -- he'd love this one!
Station #2 was voted to be opened at Town Meeting but that vote was never acted on because at that same time the economy tanked. What is interested is not the BOS say they will not ask for a debt exclusion to build a new building unless it includes the staff needed for that building such as in the case of a new joint safety building. This was in their Long Range Plan this year. Funny thing is though, if they had opened stations #2 in 2008, we would already have most of the staff needed to staff the town through the proposed new Fire Station, which will be part of a joint station. Planning is always what is left out of the picture it seems. Let's hope we get it right this time around.
Where this boat is concerned, I'm sure I heard the Town Manager say it was a federal grant that bought the new boat.
The feds did buy the boat -- but the issue isn't who bought the boat --- it's who is going to pay to maintain it and staff it.
We didn't open Station 2 because the BOS knew they couldn't maintain or staff it without an Override.
True anon1:56 pm, no one wanted to have an override to cover the cost of added staff and since the issue was voted in on Town Meeting floor, there was no plan. So now according to the BOS planning we have to add staff to build a new station, and how will we pay for that?
The real issue is how do we pay for anything? Avoiding an override as a goal in itself, does not seem like the end all beat all some think it is. Looks like we may need to rethink how and why we budget as well as how we plan for the future.
If the town pulls off the debt exclusion that according to the BOS Long Range Plan has to include the cost of appropriate staff for a new building, what happens when that debt is paid off. How do we pay for the staff then, if I understand a debt exclusion, which is a limited time taxes are raised for a particular expense.
I would say the ultimate political correctness is Sandwich is no override, under any circumstances regardless of increase in cost of town services or buildings falling down around our ears. If there are, as is the case in many town incremental overrides to build appropriate budgets so towns can keep up with things, seems like those towns will be looking better and better while Sandwich struggles.
How do we pay for anything? That is the real question. In the case of the BOS and say Station #2 and a small override to bring the operating budget to a place to afford this service, one the people in East Sandwich rightly deserve, no one got a chance to vote on it. So another real question is when will we get the leadership to bring questions of legitimate increases to the population with out the "politics of override" being more important than the democratic way. Shouldn't the people get a chance to decide what they want for their town in a democratic process, and I don't mean the bogus notion that a "mandate" in any given Selectman race is the voice of the people.
A recent example is the stop put to bringing or even discussing to bring the extremely modest increase in local option meals tax to Town Meeting like all but one other town on the Cape is now getting real dollars for to add to their general fund. That came up and got put down by the recent Chairman of the board. He want's to discuss it till May. If it were on special town meeting warrant in Nov. by recommendation of the BOS or citizens petition, got voted in, which I think it would, we would obviously be getting the money sooner and could count on it in the next budget cycle.
As they say, it's all green. Any increase in revenues to the town will be helpful. But if the town people never get to vote on increases however modest, we just keep adding to the problem of not enough in the budget to get a good job done, like roads paved, signs painted, not to mention there will be a steady decline in services to the public like quality of education and safety. And you heard it before but it is true, property value decline and no investors willing to move economic development forward.
Post a Comment