Fraitag Trounced In Hartsdale Debate

The Fire Districts are having their annual elections on Tuesday, December 12. In Hartsdale it will be held at the Hartsdale Fire Station #1 between 3pm and 9pm, The date and times are different than the regular elections held in November. There are two seats open in the Hartsdale Fire District. One is uncontested, running unopposed is Peter Woods and the other, already filled by appointment with Robert Iamonico, is a seat that was vacated and has two-years left in its term. Mr Iamonico and Ms Mona Fraitag are vying for this seat. All commissioner positions have a term of five years.

Mr Iamonico is a retired Eastchester paid firefighter having started as a volunteer firefighter. Ms Fraitag has worked tirelessly on appointed committees within the Town for Mr Feiner. She claims that since this is a volunteer position, all she has to “lose” is her time. She also stated that she is the only resident that attends fire district commissioner meetings month after month. And yet she still was unable to explain to the audience what the role of the fire commissioner is when asked by an audience member.

Both candidates said they wanted to help the fire district save money, possibly through consolidation and budget trimming. Iamonico stated “Everything is on the table.” Ms Fraitag questioned why we need three career chiefs (Fairview FD, Hartsdale FD and Greenville FD), although she admitted that Greenville is not a factor due to their involvement in the Edgemont incorporation pursuit. But the consolidation of Fairview and Hartsdale's fire districts cannot easily be done and would require a host of things to happen, including a referendum. 

So, while the discussion to eliminate one position has been pushed by Mr Feiner and his ilk, she also admitted she did not want to eliminate personnel. Huh? Why bother to consolidate positions and then not eliminate one person? Would that one salary and benefits change the paradigm of fire operations? Of course not - there would not be any advantage when you break down the roughly $200k salary and benefits by the amount of total taxpayers funding that salary.

This seems to be a politically motivated idea we’ve heard every election time from Mr Feiner. His goal is to get a majority of his hand-picked people into the fire districts as commissioners so they can push for a referendum to ultimately allow Mr Feiner to somehow take over the fire districts’ budgets and control of the fire departments. This would be similar to him controlling the police department. 

Ms Fraitag also fell back to the stale argument of changing the department’s dispatching from an internal one to utilizing 60-Control, the County dispatching service. She stated savings could be had by switching to 60 Control and/or utilizing civilian dispatchers. At no point did she offer any facts or figures to back up her argument of possible savings, differences in costs or how it would affect the district and its residents. When asked how much could be saved, she said she didn't know because she is on the outside looking in and needs to be on the inside to get this information. We found this interesting since again, she claims to be at every fire commissioner meeting. If she didn’t have an answer she either fell back to the same "on the outside looking in" argument or sat there silent. The audience did not seem receptive to changing the dispatch system no matter how many times she suggested it. Ms Fraitag repeatedly asked, "Don't you want to at least look at other ideas?" Many shouted, No!”

Ironically, 60-Control was developed under the leadership of then Elmsford Fire Department’s former Chief Raymond Rush, deceased father of Hartsdale fire Chief Edward Rush. The senior Rush was also the first administrator of the Richard A Flynn Fire Training Center in Valhalla, where 60-Control resides. He was instrumental in moving it from the County Police Department's basement to its current location. The reasoning was that police and fire departments have different needs and requirements and as such should be separate. Currently, the 60 Control dispatchers are EMS dispatchers while the County Police are not.

The evening was peppered by questions from the audience. At one point, Mr Chip Nanko, a Hartsdale Fire union representative stood and addressed Ms Fraitag, asking why she repeatedly refused to meet with the union members and leadership? After a long pause, she finally responded that they had treated her in an abrasive manor. The crowd shifted uncomfortably in their seats. If you want to be a commissioner, even for only two years, you have to have a thick skin and strong constitution. That includes doing things you don’t like or want to do.

Certainly, Mr Iamonico has the necessary firematic background to perform in the position of a commissioner. Ms Fraitag, touting old and hollow arguments, has two goals, to eliminate a chief officer position and change the dispatching system. But she wouldn’t or couldn’t offer any facts or figures as to why these two moves would be advantageous. In fact, when Mr Feiner tried this in Fairview, these two ideas were quickly dispelled by ABG and others. 

Finally, while Mr Feiner and Ms Fraitag seek to eliminate one Chief officer position and have stopped including the Greenville Fire Department, they would better serve their constituency by focusing on Town finances, lawsuits, guilty verdicts and budgetary concerns. The fire districts’ budgets and operations seem to be running just fine. If Ms Fraitag wishes to be a commissioner in Hartsdale, she should focus on the Hartsdale Fire District and not worry about the Fairview Fire District. If she is so concerned to learn from the inside, perhaps she should become a volunteer firefighter in the Hartsdale Fire Department and really learn what it’s all about. It’s for these reasons we endorse Mr Iamonico for fire commissioner. It will help make for A Better Greenburgh.