ABSTRACT: The Carmel Fire Department was an issue at the Candidates’ Forum hosted by the Carmel Residents Association on Thursday, February 21, 2008. Statements of Mayor Sue McCloud, City Council Member Ken Talmage and City Council Member Karen Sharp are presented, as reported in The Carmel Pine Cone (March 7, 2008). COMMENTS are made, including statements by August Beacham, Engineer and President of the Carmel Firefighters Union, and the Union, as reported in The Carmel Pine Cone (February 29, 2008), and Questions are asked of Carmelites.
The Carmel Fire Department was an issue at the Candidates’ Forum hosted by the Carmel Residents Association on Thursday, February 21, 2008. According to The Carmel Pine Cone (March 7, 2008), Mayor Sue McCloud, City Council Members Ken Talmage and Karen Sharp agreed that the Carmel Fire Department “works as is and needs no changes.” Moreover, each stated, as follows:
“We are staffed the way we should be,” stated Mayor Sue McCloud.
The Fire Consolidation Study “had serious flaws in its financial analysis,” stated City Council Member Ken Talmage.
The Fire Department is “only outpaced by the Police Department in spending,” stated City Council Member Karen Sharp.
COMMENTS:
• Mayor McCloud thinks the Carmel Fire Department is “staffed the way” it should be, even though August Beacham, Engineer and President of the Carmel Firefighters Union and the Union, stated in The Carmel Pine Cone of February 29, 2008, as follows:
“We are understaffed and underfunded, and have been for some time,” said August Beacham.
“The city has gotten used to this $110,000, thinking it’s normal.” (The city contracts with Pacific Grove for chief services and an administrative coordinator and for supervisors from Monterey during emergencies for $110,000/year.)
“They have gotten used to the ambulance taking up the slack, even though their own study in February 2003 said that was temporary at best,” said August Beacham.
Choosing to continue with the status quo “means the city is willing to accept all of the risks, including personal liability, and is willing to compromise the safety of the citizens, by having an improperly structured emergency response system,” according to the Union.
Question: Are Carmelites to believe the expert, veteran firefighters with years of training and experience or the non-expert who thinks she knows more about fire issues than professional firefighters?
• City Council Member Ken Talmage now thinks the Fire Consolidation Feasibility Study has “serious flaws in its financial analysis.” Yet, at an earlier City Council meeting, Talmage stated that merging the Carmel Fire Department with Monterey and Pacific Grove Fire Departments would cost the city an additional $400,000/year as the City was underfunding the Carmel Fire Department. Apparently, Talmage failed to detect the “serious flaws” in the Study’s financial analysis at his earlier reading of the Study. Irrespective of Talmage’s opinion, the crux of the issue is, as follows: if the City Council of Carmel-by-the-Sea decides to merge the Carmel Fire Department with the Monterey and Pacific Grove Fire Departments, then the Monterey and Pacific Grove Fire Departments would surely demand as a condition of merger that Carmel-by-the-Sea pay an additional approximately $400,000 annually, based on the Fire Consolidation Feasibility Study.
Question: Are Carmelites to trust the Carmel Firefighters who not only want to merge the Carmel Fire Department with Monterey and Pacific Grove Fire Departments, but who feel the status quo means the City “is willing to compromise the safety of the citizens” or a City Council Member who doesn’t trust the judgment of the Carmel Firefighters?
• Another important issue it that the City Council has a record of contracting with consultants to perform studies and then failing to implement the recommendations of the studies. A wiser use of taxpayer monies would be to either stop wasting taxpayer monies on unimplemented studies or start funding and implementing studies’ recommendations.
• City Council Member Karen Sharp stated that the Fire Department is “only outpaced by the Police Department in spending.” The issue is not the relative budget amounts for the Police Department and Fire Department, rather the issue is whether or not elected and appointed city officials trust the judgment of professionals, such as the Carmel Firefighters and the Fire Consolidation Feasibility Study consultants, and act on the recommendations of the professionals.
• Interestingly, Mayor Sue McCloud and her appointed City Council Members Ken Talmage and Karen Sharp are in agreement that no changes are needed in the Carmel Fire Department.
Question: Are Carmelites better off trusting the opinions of a mayor and two city council members eager to win an election in April 2008 or the professional judgments of veteran firefighters?
3 comments:
The mayor and city council continue to put reducing city expenditure, staff and working equipment ahead of the welfare of the city or doing the job they were elected or appointed by the mayor to do. Not only are they unwilling to spend excessive reserves that exist for times such as this fiscal shortfall the city council created, they are even unwilling to spend all the city's annual revenue for badly needed staff, repairs, maintenance, road improvement and most importantly safety. How did we get these people, who are willing to short the Fire Department by $400,000 annually when it's not necessary? What's the matter with these elected officials who put their extremist views before the welfare of the city they were elected to run?
Something is obviously very wrong with the city council of Carmel. Who knows what is wrong with these people. It should be enough that they are compromising the safety of residents. Their spin about the fire dept. is absurd. They are putting their egos first and the residents last. I worry Carmel voters don’t care about any of this. I’m not even sure there will be many protest votes against McCloud and her council clones. What is wrong with Carmel voters? In any event the present situation doesn’t reflect well on the voters of Carmel. Maybe, just maybe, most voters are as egocentric and uncaring as these representatives.
And I would wager after the usual suspect candidates said the status quo at the Fire Department is A O.K, there wasn’t a peep out of the audience. Everyone in the room should have expressed disgust and outrage. And another thing, this insistence on praising all the candidates for their willingness to serve. Wake Up! If we should know anything about politics these days, it is the best are not the ones who run for office. In fact, the worse often run and win, the most power and control obsessed persons. Too many persons these days mistake smooth delivery and slick ads with solid substance and acheivements.
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