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No Anne
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Anne wrote: 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. Sorry, you're wrong. The reason you're wrong, is that with the "civil service" regulations and the unions, the city governments have effectively NO CONTROL over their employees. The practical application of this stuff has put the unions in control. City government never really "manages" anything.(True for almost all government.) Can you find a web site for Hermosa Beach or any city or goverment agency which actually posts real live performance statistics, goals and actual activity. There isn't one, because bureaucrats don't really measure anything. Now, given that there is no way to control employees and that the government "managers" don't know how to measure or manage anything, why would giving them any sort of employees be a good idea? By forcing contracting, we can force performance measurement and comparisons accross multiple cities. The publication of that data will allow managers to be rewared for actually insuring that serivces are provided.(It will also have the added benefit of making the policy makers specify exactally what they are providing.) Look around, the old model doesn't work. We've reinvented "guilds" and put them in control of our lives. We can't afford them any more.(We never could, but just watch, we really won't be able to afford them soon.)
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Fire Supporter
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How is that Rock Star career working for your kid?
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What Heros
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About as good as "fire fighter" works in Hermosa.
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Walker
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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. That was good ! Because everyone on Pier Avenue knows where this wacky criticism of police and fire comes from. Your local locksmith - who wouldnt have ever been hired by the police or fire departments. He needs to get real. Younglood.
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Walker
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Fire Supporter wrote: How is that Rock Star career working for your kid? Not good as his ids in an out of jail.
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Sam Edgerton
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Dump FD and PD wrote: 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. 3 No way jack ass!
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Council Watcher
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Why Sam, Is that public profanity I see with your name on it. Tisk, Tisk, Tisk, but typical from the town's biggest blowhard.
Who knows, life could be different in McPherson Beach.
Oh, btw: You don't have to be a locksmith to think that HBFire and HBPD are a waste of space.
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Breeze Reader
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Walker wrote: <quoted text>
That was good ! Because everyone on Pier Avenue knows where this wacky criticism of police and fire comes from. Your local locksmith - who wouldnt have ever been hired by the police or fire departments. He needs to get real. Younglood. Here's another guy who must be a Democrat, he can't discuss an issue, he can only make personal attacks. Typical.
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Kate
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HB needs to outsource the fire department to the LA County. Hawthorne did it when we lived there and everything got better in fire and paramedic. City saved a fortune every year since. LA County fire department will customize their engines to say Hermosa Beach. They do Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates, Rolling Hills gated area too. County will use same fire house on Pier. Merge HB into Redondo Beach is smarter idea. Call it Hermosa Beach district of Redondo Beach. Get rid of all the managers and redundancies and that joke of a city council. Use the money for improving the town and schools. Get rid of the good old boy mentality in HB. So much waste in Hermosa Beach. Trying to be all things is expensive. That's Econ 101. But all the union folk will claim sky is falling when u try to do anything making it better for the folk living in HB. Get rid of that downtown plague too. Who's idea was it to line the streets with bars? Dumb.
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Outsource FD
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HB needs new city management. Same people have run town into the gutter forever. Mostly a bunch of drunks or drunks associated with alcohol business. Fire dept and police dept are stretched thin. City is broke. Outsourcing the fire department would be a first step to cleaning up the mess in HB. Merging city with Redondo Beach is a good idea. Clean sweep of the house would then be possible. Prohibiting anymore alcohol, upscale, downscale, anyscale would be another. All upscale alcohol in HB turns into downscale alcohol in a 5 year period.
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HB Resident
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How sad to read this string of posts when there is a real chance for the community to come together to make a valid attempt to solve disparities within our city. Our Hermosa Beach Fire Department serves close to 20,000 residents, all packed in a 1.3 square mile radius with 20 staff and few reserves. Their trucks are old, the building is old and aside from an annual pancake breakfast, twice yearly "Boot Drive" and a few educational stops at our two elementary schools, the community residents have little to no idea about the services they provide, outside of 9-1-1. As a public health professional working in the public and private sector, I have had the honor and privilege to work with departments like the Hermosa Beach Fire Department on disaster preparedness, emergency response programs and other communications campaigns. What you see as "moaning" and "whining" are real issues for these folks who - as a group - are an entirely different animal than you or I. As one mental-health professional said to me, "Firemen are not about what they do... it's what they're prepared to do." It takes an incredible amount of ego-strength to run into a building ablaze. Aside from a psychological component, there's the physical conditioning required to carry a 300 pound unconscious victim down three flights of stairs in the dark. Training to resuscitate, group skills to evacuate and suppress the fire and then - stick around to clean up the mess. Having worked with hundreds of staff of fire departments, I can say there is an underlying thread of courage and humanity that strings these folks together, and it's unlike any other sector - public or private that I've worked with over the last 25 years. Community support for our Hermosa Beach police and fire department is at a record low. Threads like this do nothing to solve a problem of lack of funding, community support or overall awareness of the department's capabilities but highlight the disparity between civil services and the public they serve.
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Fergie
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HB Resident wrote: How sad to read this string of posts when there is a real chance for the community to come together to make a valid attempt to solve disparities within our city. Our Hermosa Beach Fire Department serves close to 20,000 residents, all packed in a 1.3 square mile radius with 20 staff and few reserves. Their trucks are old, the building is old and aside from an annual pancake breakfast, twice yearly "Boot Drive" and a few educational stops at our two elementary schools, the community residents have little to no idea about the services they provide, outside of 9-1-1. As a public health professional working in the public and private sector, I have had the honor and privilege to work with departments like the Hermosa Beach Fire Department on disaster preparedness, emergency response programs and other communications campaigns. What you see as "moaning" and "whining" are real issues for these folks who - as a group - are an entirely different animal than you or I. As one mental-health professional said to me, "Firemen are not about what they do... it's what they're prepared to do." It takes an incredible amount of ego-strength to run into a building ablaze. Aside from a psychological component, there's the physical conditioning required to carry a 300 pound unconscious victim down three flights of stairs in the dark. Training to resuscitate, group skills to evacuate and suppress the fire and then - stick around to clean up the mess. Having worked with hundreds of staff of fire departments, I can say there is an underlying thread of courage and humanity that strings these folks together, and it's unlike any other sector - public or private that I've worked with over the last 25 years. Community support for our Hermosa Beach police and fire department is at a record low. Threads like this do nothing to solve a problem of lack of funding, community support or overall awareness of the department's capabilities but highlight the disparity between civil services and the public they serve. We need to clean house at the City level. Get rid of Burrell and JENKINS. They need to go.
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Judge it!
