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.
