DIDINT i ALREADY DO THIS??:)

And having seen things, y'know, I do pause to wonder, if, perhaps, it might be worth it, value wise, to pay the municipality to not provide me with their 'service'.

Just this week we received a mailbox insert that said, basically, "We may be messing up your natural water supply, but don't worry, if we do, we will pay for the test that says we did." yet, y'know, not the least mention of what next-step steps might be should their test come back and say sorry there mate, seems we've peed in your pool there so to speak, if you catch my drift. I will admit they do roll a mighty fine road in these parts, comparatively, all things considered, but beyond that, do I really want to be the brunt-end of their well-intentions?

And to be fair, thems some mightly fine pieces of yellow foolscap they've commissioned with my tax money. It's lined and everything, well worth the $60,000 or whatever, at least as much bang for the buck as many things now hanging in the National Art Gallery, only, y'know, it seems to have slipped my mind here where those things done got put on display ...

In April the beach was full of driftwood and I could get an armful and heat the cottage for a couple of days every time I took a walk. Victoria weekend it was positively antiseptic. You would think someone was preparing ground for a subdivision by denuding everything with a rake. Is this someones concept of more bang for the buck? If so I don't need it. I bet they spent $25,000 just so the beach wouldn't look natural.

I came in Friday night at 11:30 and there were three cruisers and three civilian cars around the main street. Two of the cars were pulled over. The third cruiser must have been the ranking officer he was driving between cruisers. Expense acounts and four days overtime might be a fun weekend for some OPP but send them home early if the weather is bad and the crowds are a no show. One ride check is fine but four or five a day is harrassment. Is this more bang for the buck? If so I don't need it.

The campers got rained out and the cottagers had a great weekend. That was free. Had my mountain bike out and I walked through the dunes-not through one of those meaningless access points. That was free. We just gave Friends of Sauble Beach $10,000 so they could put more unatural stuff in the north end for people there who don't want it anyway. Is this more bang for the buck? If so I don't need it. Preserve our natural beach for the rake? Too much bang! Let the grass grow on the beach. It is free.

Both of these services are now under scrutiny. The volunteer fire dept needs to run within budget and if it cannot then drastic action should be taken by Council to get things under control. I am depending on the people I elected to do whatever is necessary to run this basic service at reasonable cost and that includes staffing at an appropriate level. If Council has to fire someone to get accountability then I support that.

Economic development is not a basic service and the residential taxpayer gets next to nothing for the full time position it supports. The position title ends up being "festival coordinator". It is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars because there is no business case for the position and there are better alternatives.

With the fire dept I am still waiting for the whole story and I am not interested in the insinuations that are coming out from a few local agitators. These people will end up costing us all money at budget time if they get any traction at all. Let Council handle it. It is their job to deliver basic services and to do it well.

I want to see Council eliminate the EDO position and give consideration to contributing money to the Bruce County Tourism Dept which is the method used by North Bruce Peninsula. Some years ago North Bruce was asked to share the cost of a full time EDO with the Town of South Bruce Peninsula and they wisely declined. My hometown has a population of 142,000 and that supports one full time EDO position.

"if" over budget, "if" it cannot run under budget. "still" + "waiting" for the full story.
"local agitators" is this the people directly involved asking questions?
Who are you waiting on to tell you the full story, If you get the full story, let us who are involved know, and also the local agitators referred to must fall under the group of individuals known as taxpayers who are being denied the right to ask questions and have them answered. I remember the pipeline issue when it was discussed here and being a "local agitator" was touted then as the those exercising their rights to ask questions then. Now these people's actions are being cast in a negative light.

So in answer to my question, after some number crunching the F.D. coverage to to have trained 1st responce medical teams respond with and ahead of ambulance ( which is 20 minutes away) almost 300 times a year accounts for AT MOST $10.00 per household and I am being liberal about that figure.
So if I can get an accounting for the other roughly $2,090.00 that I spend on taxes, we can pick away and break it down this way if it easier...
And plus all the medical equipment (that is carried on the truck the firefighters bought out of our own money)has been purchased with monies donated by citizens and taxpayers. other wise known now as local agitators.

I guess to answer your question Imagine if you will being a kid going to school, the bus pulls over and the driver gets up and say I just got a radio call and said I was fired, he gets off the bus and walks away. Leaving us on the bus sitting on the side of the road.... and then we are sitting there wondering who could drive the bus to get us there. And according to the laws of the land none of us has a drivers liscence and if we smash up the bus we are in deep caa then....Was it because we were bad kids the bus driver was fired, he always drove the bus ok so it must be because of us kids???? To say that it is unlogicial to ask questions when something like this happens is ..well.. unlogical

Now to this point I haven't been involved other than belonging to the association of firefighters wanting to know why the bus driver was fired. We put togethor a committee to look into this and they are responcible for its course of actions and I as a member of the association have left them to do their work.
I asked a logical question if we are getting our monies worth in Sauble for tax dollars charged. Dodge suggested that the F.D. be reviewed for how much it cost the community. No where did I ask for input on whether Hutch should have been fired or not.
I did however note that when the previous council made decisions that were unpopular or "secretive" there was committes formed, meetings held and advertising placed. Many were condemning council and its members how the community has a right to be involved in councils decisions.
Now another council comes in, they make a decision, some people don't like it, committees are formed, meetings held and advertising placed. now those same people who supported this sort of action in the past are now saying this is innapropriate responce and we as citizens should just sit back and let council do its job. ( I wish I knew how to link back to past posts)
Logically, thats what didn't make any sense to me and why i responded to Dodges post.

Of course in my next breath I have said in the past, and made an issue of how people do get involved in things that really don't concern them ...
In the back of my mind I thought this would be a good reason not to be on any committee or "successfully" put in anything directed at the issues....I really really wanted to ... but didn't. That explains the "disapearing post" Bub, so I owe you a guiness at the horn for that one
wt

Say its the Toronto Maple leafs playing a game, Harold Ballard comes down and fires the entire coaching staff half way through the second period. That means the Captain and the assistants have to be pulled off the ice and run the bench. So now your most experienced and or best players are out of the game, and the rest of us are left to fill the void. Like the bus driver the coaches were let go on the spot and the IMMEDIATE need to fill in that void was necassary but not thought out thoroughly before the termination . Like the kids on the bus, none had a drivers liscence. According to the fire marshall you can't have the stripes on the shoulder or act on a chiefs behalf unless you have taken the courses. Station captains may have a few extra courses but according the laws of the land you need someone in charge with the "tickets" to do the job. Cuz then you run into the wonderful world of liability issues if ( god forbid) something would happen to us as one example .
As for saying a hall captain could do the role, correct, on a fire call, but who is gonna do all the paper work and order the parts we need and take you aside and listen to your issues and solvethem, go before council ans then committe meetings, hire new recruits and train them, go to schools and do the PR work, and lets not forget about our crossing gaurds and running all over to tell people to put out bonfires and fill in fire permits and then again go to council to explain what you have done and on and on and on . When Hutch was hired as a Deputy chief we had a full time chief as well. To ask Hall captains , who have other jobs and lives to assume the roles and duties which were once covered by two people with credentials working full time + sounds like a politician saying even though in the big picture the FD cost very little per home, we could it do for less and less because we really don't know whats involved.
So yes hockey, the wheels on the bus are going round round round, for now, because as part time volunteers with other lives I for one am not going to try and fill the shoes of anybody, especially Hutch and Nickels, cuz I have seen what those shoes have had to walk through, even for a farm boy like me I had to go PHew

My apologies for going off topic.

I see a billboard in Hepworth, ads in the Echo, a letter in the Sun Times and word reaches me of a strong whisper campaign all insinuating that our elected reps have done something wrong. Agitation. Employment issues are out of the public domain and the elected folks cannot comment. They simply cannot defend themselves or state a position. You might as well tell people to call up their Councillor and talk about the weather.

I don't see this as fair to my elected Council. In other issues present and past the situation is a lot different when politicians can state their position, when all the facts are known when the Environmental Assessments are done and so on. Apples and oranges.

Some people apparently don't understand the difference.

I don't understand the discussion about the expense of pure medical fire calls. How is this related?

You asked for scrutiny and justification of the fire budget, and if it is out of line you support the termination of someone. I highlighted medical calls for the following reasons
Imagine if the public works department had to have fundraisers to buy new snow ploughs and graders. Their spouses kicked in and had bake sales and yard sales to buy new shovels and lawnmowers. Community groups donated money to buy sand and salt for the roads.... and then we had the winter of all winters ands the guys were slugging it out with Ma nature 15 hours a day to try and keep the roads open. When the spring came the CAO and council went to the manager of public works and said your overtime payouts are way outta line so you are gone. And after all the fundraising and extra effort the crews be up for scutiny and accusations of abusing the system.
Medical calls make up the vast majority of what we do, therefore the only thing that can be scrutinized is the amount of money paid out as wages to those responding to medical calls.
When the pager goes off at 4 in the morning, you go, plan and simple.
They haven't come up with the technology that I am aware of to say Wayne you don't need to go on this one cuz so and so is home and he is closer, and so and so is on his way back from work and closer to the hall, and so and so is already in his car and another guy is already at the hall... or.... so an so is at his girlfriends and so and so is visiting his parents this weekend and so and so's pager isn't working, so you should go to this call. . No damnit you go and you see what transpires.
I have used this before where I or one of my family is in distress at 3 am and the last thing I want is a bunch of people raisng thier heads off the pillow and grogilly going, Naw I aint going on this one cuz there must be someone else around to go on this one. Because I want people responding because its me or my family I am talking about here
So here is the 2 options when the pagers goes off
One, go back to bed and hope people aren't thinking the same way I am at that moment.
Or two, having a screeching pager go off, sit bolt upright, throw on something to wear, sweep snow off the car, crank up a cold engine, gun it, and punch through the snow bank at the end of the lane way, plough through a foot of snow and go to the hall. 90% of the time I go with the second option.
Since I started the number of medical calls a year has easily gone up a 100%, so as a F D our "winters snow days " are getting worse and its been getting snowier every year
And then according to some I have the nerve to be pissy when someone in the newspaper says I am abusing the system when I get paid for these times I aint fast enough to make the truck....
So you can scutinize away, since I have been on the department I have responded to nearly 2400 calls, and I can't remember a call when somebody either didnt say thankyou, or I walked away knowing I helped someone .... Thats all the scrutiny I need, and I will continue to "Abuse" the system until either the Thankyous stop or the Powers That Be come up with a solution that actually works in the real world and not on a ledger..

The traditional reasons for maintaining a fire crew have always been to respond to fire and vehicle emergencies. Add to that the ability to handle industrial emergencies and any rare and common accidental situations that put people in peril.

These traditional roles require a crew or a trained team to address the problem.

People who live in rural or semi rural areas make choices about the kinds of services they will receive and in the case of ambulance services they don't get big city response times.

Slowly and insiduously the fire department has gained the status of first responder sometimes with capability that arises from donated equipment that ends up expanding the responsibilities of a firecrew.

The paradox lies in the fact that something that is seen as good in the way of a service ends up being bad as in expensive and redundant. Controls are needed even though not everyone will be happy about it.

Two highly trained organizations respond at the same instant to a medical emergency. The ambulance can run with a crew of two well trained and well equiped individuals. The fire crew is well trained and equipped but the number of paid responders is out of control. The ambulance arrives 6-15 minutes after the firecrew and becomes a transport vehicle if required.

Redundancy and waste or a necessary service? The question is should the fire dept stay in it's traditional role for which they are equipped with heavy and expensive purpose built equipment and well trained to work as a crew or should they branch into medical services. Should they play a medical role were the cost of responding will equal the response cost in the more traditional role? It comes down to the question of how do we keep a lid on costs if we are responding fire crews to medical emergencies and how do we justify paying for fire crews to offer what constitutes a redundant service.

The volunteers are not at fault they are doing what they are supposed to do. Yet medical calls make up the vast majority of call outs and everybody gets called out. It gets expensive.

Probably the best policy is to attempt to manage the fire fighting service in it's traditional roles and downplay new responsibilities. It is not a perfect world.

I personally think that 5-10 dollars a year is not a lot to pay for extra medical coverage. But this is my biased opinion and that is very transparent
The term medical assist is used far more than 1st responce around here. Some of the other benefits to sell the point are things I have done time and time again on a call.
Shovelled a lane way or walkway to get the gurney into the house. Carried someone down a flight of stairs. Rode in the back of the ambulance to continue CPR so the ambulance driver can drive and the other can attend the patient we me. Went with the ambulance in the case of a voilent patient, but they usually send one of the bigger guys for that one...Talked to the family to if nothing else keep them informed and gather other documents and information so the ambulance crews can expediate their work.
Played with the children and amused them to keep them away from the scene they really don't need to see. Covered the backs of the ambulance crew in one of those mob scenes we have around here occasionally.
I guess in a nut shell alot of the time I can tell ambulance what is going on as they are coming into the house so they don't have to start from scratch and do stuff that takes time and sppeds up the process of getting that person to the hospital...
And on a personal note the money I make from fire calls covers my tax bill, so from an accounting stand point it is "cost recovery" for the Town for services provided...
So we differ on whether we are getting bang for the buck for the 1st 10 dollars (or 0.5%) I spend on my tax bill.
What does the other %99.5 goes towards and is it well spent.