Rallying Again To Stop Fire Unit Cuts
Once again facing the threat of up to 20 Fire Department companies being eliminated in the next fiscal year, elected officials, firefighters and residents rallied outside Richmond Hill’s Engine Co. 294 on Tuesday, May 29, calling for the proposed cutbacks to be scrapped.
The protest was organized by City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley, chair of the Council’s Fire and Criminal Justice Committee, as well as the two major labor unions representing firefighters and ranking fire officers respectively: the Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA) and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association (UFOA).
In recent years, Crowley and the two unions teamed up for rallies outside firehouses across the five boroughs after Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed executive budgets which included cuts to the Fire Department that would necessitate the elimination of entire units. However, in each of the final budgets negotiated between the mayor and the City Council, none of the closures took place, as full funding was restored to the Fire Department.
“For the third year in a row, the Bloomberg administration has put our FDNY companies on the chopping block,” Crowley pointed out. “I will fight to make sure the mayor does not close a single fire company.”
Joining Crowley and firefighters at Tuesday’s rally were State Sen. Joseph Addabbo, Assemblyman Mike Miller, students from P.S. 273 in Richmond Hill and residents of Woodhaven. Assemblyman Rory Lancman-who, like Crowley, is a candidate for the new Sixth Congressional District seat-also took part in the protest.
Miller, in particular, echoed Crowley’s sentiments about the annual battle between the mayor and City Council over the fate of Fire Department units.
“Each year, Mayor Bloomberg wants to tell us that we are spending too much money on our education, too much money on our quality of life and too much money on our safety. How much money is too much?” Miller said. “These cuts weren’t needed last year, they aren’t needed today, and they won’t be needed next year, because you know we will undoubtedly be back out here defending the same firehouse a year from now.”
“Once again, the mayor is threatening to close firehouses and is literally playing with fire,” Addabbo added. “When you play with fire, you get hurt. People should not be subject to the mayor playing with fire.”
Steve Cassidy, president of the UFA, stated that “closing any fire companies defies both logic and public safety,” pointing out that firefighters have been busier than ever before in responding to a higher number of calls for fires and medical emergencies.
“New Yorkers have needed more services and not less from New York City firefighters, as the modern FDNY is a rescue department for all New Yorkers in need,” he said. “It is time to recognize just how closely our firefighters are intertwined with protecting all New Yorkers lives, as well as their property.”
“The bottom line is very simple: if they close [Engine] 294, there will be no one in this community to provide the [fire protection] that the taxpayers needed and deserve,” Cassidy added. “If you take one away from this community, you have to rely on [another engine company] coming from further away. And then you create gaps in the grid throughout the City of New York.”
“We have got to keep Engine Co. 294 open. We have got to keep all of our firehouses open, because this is our life we are talking about. It is life and death,” said Maria Thomson, executive director of the Greater Woodhaven
Development Corporation.
“It’s just ironic that after last year’s rally, within 24 hours, Engine 294 responded to a first due emergency and saved a local resident,” added Leo McGinnis of the UFOA. “Later in that day, they responded to a structural fire with Ladder Co. 143, and minimized the damage to the house. These companies are vital and important to this neighborhood, and they are needed to stay open.”
By this time last year, the Fire Department had announced the 20 companies which were in danger of closing; under city law, the FDNY must provide a minimum of 45 days advanced notice to the City Council before permanently shutting down a company.
As of press time Wednesday afternoon, however, no such announcement has been made by the FDNY regarding the potential closure of units. It has been speculated that the same companies which were in danger of closure last year could once again be marked for elimination in the new fiscal year.
Among the companies on last year’s list were Engine 294 (which was previously closed in 1991 but reopened later that decade following a fatal fire in Richmond Hill), Ladder Co. 128 in Long Island City, Engine Co. 206 in East Williamsburg and Engine Co. 218 in Bushwick.
