The answer is that Hoboken does not have mature unions. They're experience is likely that bluster not reason gets them what they want. The sooner they mature the better off their membership will be.

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To that end the membership might want to replace Matthew Markey and Jason Cassesa with people who can represent them more effectively.

The unions aren't used to having to deal w/ a mayor who isn't a former city worker.

"why not just meet with the mayor ?" because she could not be bothered, she would rather throw fund raisers for fire victims than staff the fire dept.

The way fire protection goes you get what you pay for, there are several functions that need to be preformed at every fire here are a few
Implementing the IMS
Primary search
Secondary search
Rescue
Public protective actions
Locating fire
Confining It
Then extinguishing it
Protecting exposures
Evacuating the fire building / bravo and delta exposures
Salvage operations
Securing several water supplies
Deploying attack and back up hand lines
Overhauling to find hidden fire
Forcing entry
Placing ground ladders to upper floors
Feeding sprinkler and standpipe systems
Silencing alarm systems
Providing scene lighting
Etc
All that while someone is screaming in your face that their “cat is on the forth floor”

I know from experience that 10 to 14 firefighters could not launch a coordinated fire attack at 300 Washington St , that is why a beautiful (former tax paying) building is now being torn down.

Shame on whoever let staffing levels get so low.

because units from Hoboken were out of town fighting JC fires, without being back filled . Not that there are any reserve fire trucks to staff in service in Hob any how.

What I want to know is what they expect the public safety director to do besides watch the fire burn until it was put out. Putting out fires isn't exactly in his job description. BTW, doesn't he normally work weekdays anyway? Should we expect him to magically show up when he is not working to help with these sorts of things? I ask b/c if the union expects the public safety director to suddenly show up to help out when it is his day off for fires like this then I suggest they use the same standard for the 50+ firefighters who were likewise off duty and would be available to help using the same standard the FD is expecting for the public safety director to live up to.

If first hand observation of two major public safety crises is unnecessary for the public safety director, how necessary is the position?

If he isn't on duty, he isn't on duty. If you expect the public safety director to drop whatever he is doing to respond to these sorts of things then you should expect the exact same behavior from every other public safety worker. Anything else is hypocritical.

Public Safety is not 9 to 5 job Red. The PSD should make himself available if for nothing else guidance based on 25+ years of ploice work. He should be there it is his job.

If public safety is not a 9-5 job and you expect off duty employees to work when off duty w/o OT (like a salaried public safety director would be working) then I suggest the FD stop paying you guys OT and start expecting you to work when it isn't your scheduled shift whenever they need the manpower. You deserve the same treatment as you wish to inflict upon our public safety director. Anything else is hypocritical.

Red,

The PSD should be a PROFESSIONAL, not an hourly worker who punches out at 5:01. Technology PROFESSIONALS (such as I) are occasionally required to work unpaid OT. Nobody likes it - but that's the job.

The PSD is getting a good salary and IIRC the last audit said his position was unnecessary. No, he shouldn't be on call 24/7, but yeah, he ought to show up most of the time when it hits the fan.

You are right, he is a professional you twit. He doesn't put out damn fires! WTF do you expect him to do at a fire? Toast marshmellows?

Seriously, your stupidity is stunning Ken. How about you start asking the auditors who oversee your OT show up at 2 AM when you are doing a software update just b/c you need someone to make sure know they are watching you when you had to get off your size 56 ass and do some work. That make sense? Because that is what you are expecting our paper pushing director to do.

Red,

At no point did i suggest the PSD suit up and fight the fire. however someone with influence on the staffing of the FD ought to OBSERVE them in action rather than just read about it. "direct observation" - if you are unfamiliar with the term, look it up.

It amuses me that wasting big bucks on an unnecessary municipal paper pusher is OK with you... when it's YOUR side wasting the money.

As for your typical torrent of pathetic insults, well, I just feel sorry for you. You really should try to relax.

Ken, when you say something stupid, expect to be called stupid. There is no need for our public safety director to show up and observe every fire that happens in town just like there is no reason for him to show up for every late night brawl in front of a bar or for every idiot who jumps off a pier. And only a complete moron would need to engage in direct observation to understand that the reason the FD was undermanned is it had crews in JC helping w/ a multi-alarm fire in JC when the fire in Hoboken started. But I am guessing you didn't pick up on that which is why you think the public safety director should drop whatever he was doing in his off time to observe something he is perfectly capable of finding out about in an after action debriefing the next day.

Red, at no point did I say the PSD should show up at every trivial fire and/or bar altercation. Blowing off the mega fires at both 1st&Jackson and 3rd&Washington is another matter - a competent, involved professional would be there to better understand the situation and for public relations reasons.

Bring on the bluster and vitriol. Maybe if you call me an operative of the Mason/Old Guard Axis, your flimsy argument will seem tenable.

The Matrix audit states 20 or 21, we were not even close to that.

But if Falco steps down, don't we end up w/ someone who you just said scored poorly on the exam? Not sure that is an upgrade.

There are no layoffs coming as you claim. Prove it --------------liar

JC staffing levels are JC's problem and certainly not a reason to beef up staffing in Hoboken.

Correct Red,
The point I was not so successfully trying to make is that Hoboken should call in members to backfill when our units are sent out of town. If we had done that perhaps the HFD could have been able to get more than one attack line in service.

"When Hoboken called for assistance from the surrounding community’s fire departments," Markey and Cassesa wrote, "no one was available for immediate response; they were battling their own fires."

@Whitey - Hoboken DID call in for mutual aid which was unavailable because of the fire in JC. Paid departments do not call in off-duty personnel for a single fire or high call volume. They call for mutual aid from surrounding departments.

You can read it however you want but the fact is only one 110 foot ladder truck was in town and there was an immediate need for two. People were trapped on the upper floors and the interior stairs were full of smoke. I heard on the news that several residents had to jump for their lives to the adjacent roof. that is not acceptable not now not never. Keep rolling the dice ,had that fire started a few hours later we are burying at least 5 residents today.
Sleep on that one with your 200 dollar a year tax reduction.

Correct me if I am wrong, but had that fire happened a couple hours or so later, the crews that were helping out in JC would have been back in Hoboken, right? I think you may just have it backwards.

Regardless, I just don't ever see it being all that feasible for this town to spend so much money that we have enough staff to deal w/ multiple multi-alarm fires at the same time.

Are you that dense?! Of course we only had one ladder in town because the other was out on another assignment, not because it wasn't staffed. Red, is 100% right. Had this fire occurred at any other time all HFD companies would have been in town and available.

Obsess much douche? She hasn't posted on Patch all day. Go lick your scabs. Might be all you get to eat today.

Who is nutty Nancy?

It must be lonely, pointless and useless existence to serve your mistress in a not paid for friendship position.

Couldn't agree more. To use a tragic situation like this to try and win contract points is a disgrace to the entire department. The union leaders in Hoboken are a joke and they should be ashamed of themselves for their behavior. The fire was still being put out, their own men were still on the scene and they couldn't help themselves but attempt to take advantage of the situation. Makes you wonder if Russo was involved in this strategy. Total amateurishism that you would expect from that political lightweight.

What an asinine comment. It was Mayor Zimmer and the majority who had to try 2 times to get capital improvements for the police, fire and environmental workers. It was your side who said no. BTW, I was supporting the chiefs and the environmental workers. Where were you and your side?

Sadly Mason, Russo & Co continue to play the same OLD GUARD hate cards over and over again. The number of people who will swallow their lies and hate grows smaller every day.

Hoboken's Municiple Unions seem more intrested in playing the OLD GUARD cesspool politics than working to protect Hoboken.

I wonder if Mason's/Cammerano's political consultant Swibinski have been hired by the HFD Unions like the HPD did for $50K to try to spin this for them ?

Have to agree this was a pretty stupid comment considering the mayor and CC majority went to bat for these guys to get them their retro pay & new public safety equipment and the CC minority pretty much told them to F off.

"Contempt for the men in blue"??? You mean these honorable men that do little but embarrass the city with their reckless and unprofessional behavior? They act like thugs, embarrass the city and do little but complain about how tough they have it when in fact many....not all but many...are making twice as much due to the generosity of the city's taxpayers as they could ever make if not for the extreme nepotism that pervades far too much of the dept. Again in many though not all cases, Hoboken's men in blue are lucky to make what they are as their alternatives are minimum wage jobs given their skills and intellectual capabilities. It's not exactly like we're talking about a bunch of grads from top schools here. In many cases we're talking about people that could barely make it out of HS.... Though they had daddies on the force or council to pave the way. And then the city wonders why they have one of the most incompetent police forces in the state. How about another booze bus cruise guys. That seems to be where your skills are best directed.

Ahhh....sadly more "Outofcontrol" hate.

FYI....Beth Mason MIA tonight for tonight's City Council meeting.

outofcontrol is what happens when haters pay otheer haters to blog. How's Bet, outofcontrol??

Seriously? You pulling out this lame card again? So who are these mystery central Jersey politicians you keep droning on about. Name names, I dare you. Pretty sure I dared you last week too and you couldn't name a single one of them.

Maybe it was a typo. Maybe they meant "gross negligee." Next thing you know there's a lot of confusion and everyone has the wrong idea.

I would think more over being in Jersey City and not backfilling . If you add the 6 bodies that were not in Hoboken to the 1 you speak of , 7 guys can do a lot of work in the early stage of a fire

Well the Old Guard thanked the union for their loyalty by screwing them out of their OT. The Old Guard and the unions deserve one another.

I beg to differ and know first hand you are reading this wrong.

on p 23 of the audit it says a second alarm should add another engine etc for a total of 20 personnel. 14 is for a single alarm fire. I assume the 300 Washington st fire was more than a single alarm fire...?

Oh yeah 300 Wash was an all hands working upon reciept of the alarm, I can say with all honesty it was a personell disaster. This whole crap about first and second alarms looks great on paper, but with reports of people trapped everyone rolls

RedWing - do you really expect Hoboken to staff up enough that it can respond to a multi-alarm fire in Hoboken and also send 6 guys to man a firehouse in JC while they and other surrounding towns respond to a 5 alarm fire in JC? The odds of 2 fires in 2 neighboring towns happening again like that are so remote it is beyond belief.

Red, the number 20 or 21 whatever it is sounds good but, when Hob units are sent out of town to JC or NHRFD there should be an automatic back fill of manpower so not to leave us with the crap storm we had the other night. If the PSD had seen it with his own eyes he may be putting that policy together as we type.

I can just imagine the level of OT abuse such a union sponsored plan would result in. No thanks.

Read this: http://hoboken.patch.com/articles/city-likely-unable-to-pay-lawyers-after-emergency-funds-aren-t-passed

City runs out of money to pay the FD soon. After that, you can blame the CC minority for not getting your checks on time. But you are right, you aren't getting screwed out of the OT you earned so far. You just won't be getting checks the last pay period or so in the quarter if this emergency appropriations impasse isn't resolved b/c the city can't pay you money it hasn't appropriated for that purpose even if it has it sitting in the bank. Thank Russo, Mason, Occhipinti & Castellano when you see them.

Hoboken219 - I assume you will read this article and become a proponent of disbanding the fire department and merging with North Hudson.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-06/police-merger-services/53228874/1

Scott, SAFER Grants are now a no strings attached grant to hire firefighters. I have no clue why the City didn't apply for the grant last year of the year before ? Someone in power was keeping spots open perhaps?

RedWing - why are you asking a question he answered 2 hours ago at the bottom of the page?

Yes , I agree we have enough firefighters when they are all in Hoboken ,21 is enough to staff 6 companies. When units are dispatched out of town however they should be backfilled with O/T .

I agree it is a policy problem, they need to backfill in Hoboken as soon as units leave town to fight fires elsewhere. If the PSD had taken that fire in he would have seen with his own eyes the need for such a backfill policy.

You guys will be volunteering to backfill every time a cat gets caught up a tree in another town if you can rack up unlimited OT like that.