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Dump FD and PD
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We should dump our pathetic little police and fire departments and sub out to Redondo and the Sheriff. All the PD ever does is embarass us. And the fire department costs too much. These are rediculous demands and we're being held hostage.
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Jim
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But would the new uniforms look as cool, when the firefighters are hanging out at the end of Pier Plaza?
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No Unions
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The only problems with "Public Safety" in Hermosa Beach is the UNIONS!!!!(While all cities have the same root problem, in Hermosa the little unions are tougher than the limp wristed city management.)
Hermosa Beach fire is a give away job.(Of course it could be really tough, your co-workers could call you nasty names. But not to worry, they aren't responsible, the City of Hermosa Beach and the taxpayers are.)
Out of 37 sworn officers about 1/3 of HBPD need to be fired, indicted or both. The current "face guy" for the department doesn't run things, he just blows smoke up everyone's ...(Maybe that's the skill that got him the job.)
Who runs this mess anyway?
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Fire Supporter
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The HBFD and HBPD have the fastest response times of any So. Bay agencies. No other agency will get to you faster when you call 911. Check the stats. When you are calling for help and the firemen and policemen show up to care for you, do you really care if they belong to a union? Do you really want to wait for a deputy to drive from Lennox when you call 911? When you are having a heart attack those few extra minutes waiting for the pair of medics to drive from Redondo or Manhattan won't really matter will they? Give it a rest Frank.
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Fast Response to Nothing
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Ok, one of the HBFire guys, sitting in his LazEBoy, has gotten his hands on one of the Department's computers and is posting as "Fire Supporter" at $100K per year AND 100% RETIREMENT, why wouldn't he be a "Fire Supporter".
To deal with the myth of "response time": 1) there is no published data,("Face Guy" at the PD doesn't believe in that, and the hermosa's heros are too busy relaxing and working on their side-jobs to count anything.) 2) The last big fire in Hermosa, Sharkey's, was put out by REDONDO! 3) Having "Dr. Death" show up for your heart attack, can't be a satisfying experience.
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Hermosa Resident
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My what an interesting discussion. I have a small suggestion. Why not solve the problem by "OUTSOURCING". There is a commercial company, RualMetro which provides contract fire services (with paramedics).
But if you don't like commercial (non-union) companies, let the union bid on the job. Why do we need "management"? If you want to have the HBFFA run the Fire Department, lets let them incorporate and be the fire serivce provider.(Same, Same, HBPD.) No Chiefs, Managers or whatever.
The city contracts with the providing organization for a flat annual fee. They take care of everything, from salaries to retirement. If the city wants to own the plant and heavy equipment, do so. Lease it back or whatever. While there may not be anyone in government smart enough to put together such a deal, there certainly are people who live in Hermosa who are that bright.
If the provider screws up, they get sued, not the city. If you harass your co-worker, you get sued, not the city. If you want to strike, cool, you're in breach of contract,(and unless you can get Loopy Lieu to make another law) you get sued and pay for it. Your houses, your retirement and your benefits. Your control.
And if you do that, no one will truely care if you have a union, glee club, or knitting society. But as it stands, this is a stupid game which has just about run its course.
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Quality No Money Yes
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Folks this is not about service, quality, or protection. This issue is about the HBFD getting higher pay and more full-time (FTE) positions. Hermosa like many of the South Bay Departments is too small to address any major incident. They all need mutual aid in a structure fire. Hermosa Beach wants to be like El Segundo, one of the highest paid fire departments in the State of California (sickening). If the citizens of HB fall for this cr@p, they will spend millions of dollars for their little HB kingdom. The firefighters don't live in the city, and until they are living in the city and paying taxes in the city, they should have NO say in how the city manages the fire department. They are visitors, spoiled rotten little brats who are taking millions and millions from the public trough and then complaining about it. The fire unions are greedy operations, and they want you money. They don't care about service, response times, or accountability. Never have, never will.
Why do these small cities feel the need to have so many little fifedoms? Why are there 5 individual city Fire Chiefs? A number of assistant chiefs, and all the repetitive positions, communications, and other unnecessary costs. The South Bay needs to consolidate the fire departments into the South Bay Fire Protection District, and terminate about 4 Fire Chief's and assistant Chief's and start saving a few million dollars a year on salary alone. These guys retire at $150,000 to $200,000 a year, and the costs continue to rise every year. In 5 years, South Bay taxpayers will start paying about $200,000 for every single retired firefighter (hundreds) as they retire and bankrupt our cities.
The firefighters are not heroes, there are greedy leeches who are sucking the lifeblood out of our communities. You want heroes - look at our Soldiers who are fighting on minimum wage paying jobs in Iraq - they are heroes, not a bunch a spoiled millionaire cry babies.
You try to take something from the firefighters and their true colors always show. These folks signed up for dangerous jobs, they want to risk their lives. There are thousands of people who want these firefighter jobs, I say fire them all and hire people who are willing to earn $60,000 a year and start taking back our communities from these greedy and self-serving firefighters, who don't live here anyways. Whenever we complain, all we here is you could die, and nobody but firefighters can provide emergency medical services, and that cr@p! There are hundreds of EMT and paramedics working in area that earn median salaries, and they can provide the services. You'd think the world would end if the fire department didn't exist - what a lie. I say turn the departments over to the private sector and start saving money. It can be cheaper, more reliably, and is proven - there are many counties in California that have accountable, and reliable contract ambulance and paramedic services. The Southern California Fire Model is a dinosaur, and so far out of reality with what is occurring in the rest of California.
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Yeah Quality
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Right ON!!!
Excellent points, well said!!
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Taxpayer
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How about you get your facts straight prior to wasting your fingers and our time writing such an incorrect statement. Go to these departments MOUs on the city web sites. These guys dont make 150,000 to 200,000 base pay. Some due when you add overtime, but these cities prefer to pay overtime than to hire additional people. These guys retire off their BASE pay with other incentives added. They do not even come close to your numbers. Now to clear up another matter. The people that are chosen for these public safety jobs are the best of the best. They undergo extensive testing and only a small number of them are chosen out of hundreds or thousands of applicants. These public safety people earn their money and as far as Im concerned, they dont make enough. It's easy to forget the fires of last year, the LA Riots, the dead fireman in Westchester just a few weeks ago and the two El Segundo Officers that we shot. I say thank you to these people for doing the job that keeps the rest of us safer. I recommend you check your numbers and your attitude and remember next time you need to call 9-1-1, just pause for a second and think about who is responding to your call. Hopefully after you see them arrive and handle the situation, you will develop a more positive attitude. We all pay taxes and I would rather see my money go toward public safety by hiring the best and paying decent salaries, than wasted on illegals and political projects.
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40 years in the South Bay
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These conversation threads are interesting. There are no published benchmarks in Hermosa Beach for response times (ie must respond to any call for medical aid in 8 minutes or less 93% of the time) nor any compliance oversight (response time CQI, reporting, publishing and corrective action) to prove wether or not response times are indeed appropriate. This is a "Red Herring." It shouldn't even be an issue in such a small response area that doesn't have any terrain issues other than the beach, but, I guess, in that situation L.A. County Fire is already on scene (Lifeguards). Maybe Hermosa Beach should look at how the City of Hawthorne or Gardena fixed their problems.(which by the way, are the same problems that are being discussed here) Citizens will save money, FD employees will have a better retirement plan and potential for upward inter-departmental mobility. Everyone wins.
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Walker
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If there is so much bitching about how to run the fire department does that mean that the city manager isn't doing his job? It all starts at the top.
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Another Tax Payer View
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"MOU"??? Hmm, me thinks that the taxes paid are those on your "fire fighter's" salary.
Here's the deal, instead of hiring more "fire fighters" each year and paying them more money and benefits, why can't we hire one outfit to provide fire services. The city isn't getting bigger, 1.4 sq miles is still 1.4 sq miles. With the zoning etc, you can't cram appreciably more people into that area? So why the constant need for an increase in personnel? Why do they keep getting more money? And why does the city keep getting stuck for their stupid food fights?
It's a bad system and bad management. It's got to stop!
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Quality No Money Yes
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Taxpayer wrote: How about you get your facts straight prior to wasting your fingers and our time writing such an incorrect statement. Go to these departments MOUs on the city web sites. These guys dont make 150,000 to 200,000 base pay. Some due when you add overtime... Facts, the MOU's are clear. The base pay of $60,000 to $80,000 annually. Add 40% to 50% in MOU incentive pay drives these salaries to the $150,000 range quite easily. The paramedic differential $800 a month. Degree pay 5%, AED pay 5%, longevity - 1% for every year hired (average 15%), etc., by the time all these incentives are added, most firefighters are earning well over $125,00 average. Now lets talk overtime. These guys average 2-3 days overtime a month, at $500 a day, that is easily $1500 a month ($15,000 to $25,000 annually). 30-year El Segundo Battalion Chief's just retired out at over $180,000 a year. Captains earn more than BC because of overtime averaging $200,000 annually. Do a public records request folks and ask to see all of the city employees who earned more than $99,000 in the past 2 years, you'll see hundreds of South Bay firefighters in South Bay cities - better yet, why not have Andrea Woodhouse pull the information and write a story on how much the South Bay cities actually pay for public safety. You'd be amazed at what firefighters earn now, the millionaire jobs. Nobody is complaining about LAFD or cops. I am talking about a bunch of lazy, LAZYBOY reclining, leeches who get about real 2 structure fires a year and cry, and whine, and moan about pooor me! These folks make more the LAFD who actually fight real fires every single day. The South Bay is loaded with whiny, spoiled rotten FF brats who want the South Bay taxpayers to keep spending nearly 70 percent of the city budget on public safety. Enough!!!!!!! These folks signed up for the job. They are not special, they are not heroes. They are very well paid, and spoiled babies who keeping sucking the life out of our cities and enough is enough. Taxpayer implies that "calling 9-1-1 is some kind of privilege" - let me remind Taxpayer that calling 9-1-1 is a service, and a well paid service at that. A service that is required, so quit sounding the same old garbage of our heroes who respond when you call 9-1-1. You are public servants, not the other way around. You are paid to serve. The work is hard. The work is dangerous. Who cares, you got the job, now shut up and just do it! I'll bet I could find a thousand people who would fight fires for $15.00 an hour. They work in the federal fire system. They serve on aircraft carriers, and they are the heroes - our Armed Forces of America. If I ran the city, I'd fire all these whiny firefighters and cops, and make them sign annual performance contracts (remember the City of Vernon - did just that), and if you get fat and lazy, and sloppy, and whine, I'd fire your a$$ and find another person in two minutes who would take your special FF job and never look back. That is how special you are!!
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Taxpayer
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Oh my god, sounds to me like you are a reject from one of these departments. If these firemen are sitting on their butts on their lounge chairs, I dont care. As long as they get off their butts when someone calls for them and respond in a professional way. Which they do. That's when they earn their money, which is why we hire them. It's easy to go through all of the numbers and type them up to piss off people that read this paper and earn less. Let them try to get one of these jobs. Its not easy. Compare them to other private jobs that have no personal risk or danger and I dont have a problem with their salaries or benefits.
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Taxpayer
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Another Tax Payer View wrote: "MOU"??? Hmm, me thinks that the taxes paid are those on your "fire fighter's" salary.
Here's the deal, instead of hiring more "fire fighters" each year and paying them more money and benefits, why can't we hire one outfit to provide fire services. The city isn't getting bigger, 1.4 sq miles is still 1.4 sq miles. With the zoning etc, you can't cram appreciably more people into that area? So why the constant need for an increase in personnel? Why do they keep getting more money? And why does the city keep getting stuck for their stupid food fights?
It's a bad system and bad management. It's got to stop! It would be a great idea to join all of these small city fire and police departments. The cities would save money, but they dont want to give up control.
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60K is way low
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That's total crap that firemen only earn $60K. Most are well over $100K, some over $200K with overtime thanks to UNION rules.
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Walker
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Okay fellas, figure it out. Your complaing about the fireman. Not the problem. City management is what lets these things get to this point. Why is no one looking at that ?
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Anne
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I tend to agree that this is more an issue of city government than a union problem. Cities generally want control of their services. Having their own departments, rather than contracting with an outside agency, affords them more control over personnel and the "personality" of their employees.
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Fire Supporter
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Most normal kids grow up wanting to be a fireman. They want to help people. It takes a special person to be a fireman. I have never met any kids who wanted to grow up and be a locksmith.
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What Heros
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Fire Supporter wrote: Most normal kids grow up wanting to be a fireman. They want to help people. It takes a special person to be a fireman. I have never met any kids who wanted to grow up and be a locksmith. No, most kids grow up wanting to be Rock-Stars. But it does take a very special person to want to be a Hermosa Beach Fireman, lazy whining, backstabbing petty bureaucrat. There may be real firefighters out there, but they don't work in Hermosa Beach.
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Judge it!
