St. Albans Fire Dept Changes Could Effect Fairfax Men

[Henry]

Three Fairfax Men, Jordan & Justin Hayes and Jesse Flemming are full time employees of the St. Albans Fire Department.  Jordan & Justin can be seen in the photos above, in attendance at the meeting last night where the town of St. Albans wants to cut full time firemen and go with volunteers and put that money towards the Police Department.  You can click on the link below and watch the video if you wish:

http://www.wcax.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?clipId1=3122849&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=St%2E+Albans+Considers+Fire+Department+Changes&d1=161233&redirUrl=www.wcax.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv&rnd=77234480

Another video appears on channel 5 where Justin Hayes is shown speaking:

http://www.wptz.com/news/17951925/detail.html

[Henry]

You can click on the following link if you wish to read the St. Albans Messenger write-up on last night's meeting:

http://www.samessenger.com/NewsView.asp?ID=4390

[Stand Alone Defense]

WOW Seems like a crappy call to make sacrificing one department for another!!!


It's just my opinion of course but I think the chief in St Albans blows things out of perportion with the crime level.  I have heard it right from a St Albans Officer that he wished the had more bars in St Albans so they would have something to do on nights.  Seems to be pretty bored for "far and away the most crime-ridden city in the state of Vermont" give me break guys.  A couple 14 an 15 year olds that say they are in the crips lol.  Richford has the same problem they just don't have a police chief looking for a bigger budget.  St Albans has 19 Officers for around 8000 people!! The Sheriffs department has 16 fulltime Deputy's and 40,000 people to provide service to, and Sheriff Norris seems to be doing good.  Maybe it is an issue of leadership? I don't know, but if Chief Taylor can't handle it he should give the job of to someone that can. Don't get me wrong I think St Albans does have a drug problem but so do most towns in Franklin County. It makes me angry that no one is sticking up for the Firemen that work really hard to keep that city safe.  Hiring 5 more officers isn't going to make a bit of difference with out having some quality leadership and some new city ordinances. 1. Impose a curfew City wide if your walking around at 1100pm you are gonna get stopped  2. Instead of having the police sit up on Congress street and catch speeders all day.  Have them sit down bye the park and around the spots in the City with high drug activity. If they have such a large crime rate in St. Albans someone doing 35 in a 25 shouldn't be such a big issue. Oh and just a little fact for you Last month Fairfax had 6 or 7 Breakins St Albans city had 3 and if St Albans didn't count there over 60- 911 hang ups, suspicious persons and noise complaints every month there crime rate would be allot lower. Face it Chief Taylor is making St.Albans out to be Gotham city.  The city is 2 square miles I think 19 officers is more then enough. But That is just my opinion of course           

Oh and wasn't walmart going to pay some type of impact fees to the City when they get approval?  Those would be nice to have right now.

[PotterFXFD]

   As a Fire Chief and a someone that had a hand in recruiting and training 3 of the City Firepersonnel that started there careers here in Fairfax. It is hard to look at this with a open mind. But I can share what I have learned as a volunteer Chief. It is very very hard to try to give top quality emergency service with volunteers. It is hard to ask someone to go to 140 hrs of training to get started, it is hard to ask someone to show up for calls at all hours of the day and night, and of course it is hard to ask people to deal with burned up houses and bad car wrecks ( people we all know where involved freinds and family). Country wide departments are finding it hard to staff volunteer departments. Today everyone is very busy with work,(mostly out of town) family,(Thanks Brenda for understanding) and other commitments (kids sports, fund raising, vacation's, school). ask most volunteer Chiefs and we will tell you we hope any big call happen after 6pm when we can get a good turn out. During the days most volunteer departments hope we can get enough people to show up at a call to handle it.

 Nothing is better than a full time highly trained staff. Hopefully the powers to be in St. Albans City can crunch some numbers and come up with a good plan for all in the long run. That will work for all involved Tax Payers, Fire , Police and Ambulance.

 Chief Dean Potter , Fairfax Fire Dept.

[NorthFairfaxBoy]

For Gosh Sakes people ITS PUBLIC SAFETY!!  Instead of fighting staffing and equipment issues for emergency services, stop the YES votes for the really uneeded ballot items.  I also started in Farifax as an EMT with the Rescue Squad (almost 20 years ago...) and currently as a firefighter/engineer in Waterbury and instructor with the state fire academy.  I can remember Justin as youngster hanging around the station with his dad...

Good Luck my St. Albans Brothers!!