http://www.dailygazette.com

Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY COUNTY
Hazmat service area at issue Chief defends county coverage
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    Neither poison gas nor train derailments can stop the Schenectady County hazmat team — but the city’s budget just might.
    The county has slashed in half its funding for the hazmat team, made up wholly of Schenectady fi refighters. With a loss of $200,000 to deal with, one city official is questioning whether the team really has to protect the suburbs anymore.
    City Councilman Mark Blanchfield, chairman of the finance committee, broached the question at Wednesday’s budget review session. Fire Chief Robert Farstad passionately defended the team’s countywide mission, but Blanchfield questioned it again and again, returning to the topic at least six times during the hourlong review.
    “I’m just trying to understand what’s at stake for all the parties if we provide hazmat services for the city and nowhere else,” Blanchfi eld explained afterward. “What would it cost them to go without that service at all, or provide the service themselves?”
    Farstad’s answer: People would die.
    “You’d have to call outside resources in. Albany’s got a team, Saratoga’s got a team. But by the time they get there, it’s over,” he said. “If people are trapped in a chlorine atmosphere, by the time they get there either the people are out, or we’re doing recovery, not rescue.”
    Blanchfield wasn’t convinced. He suggested the volunteer fi re departments in the towns could each train hazmat members, forming a new countywide team.
    Farstad rejected that idea.
    “They tried. That team dwindled down. That’s why we took over,” he said. “They’re not going to get a group.”
    Fire chiefs in the suburbs wholeheartedly agreed with him when they were contacted Thursday.
    Most of the towns surrounding the city are protected by volunteer fire departments, which are often thinly staffed during the day. Making matters worse, the number of volunteers has fallen steadily, and chiefs say it’s diffi - cult to get newcomers to finish the required basic training, much less hazmat training.
    “In a volunteer department I think it’s not possible,” said Dave Galka, the chief of the Carman fi re department in Rotterdam. “Our firefighters are going through 78 hours of basic training now. And hazmat is more than that. With manpower these days, during the day, no.”
    Even the fire department at Stratton Air National Guard Base needs the city hazmat team.
    “We do have some trained [hazmat firefighters], but not enough to support anything like that team,” said Chief James Acors.
    Others said they couldn’t imagine Schenectady walking away from its neighbors.
    “If Chief Farstad were to say, ‘We’re not coming,’ I wouldn’t know where to go,” said Scotia interim Fire Chief Charles Keller. “Someone would have to pick up the ball.”
LIMITED SAVINGS
    Farstad argued that even if the city refused to answer calls from the suburbs, the city wouldn’t save much money.
    “You’re still going to have the same cost — the staffing comes from the current firefighters,” he said.
    The team answers roughly 75 major hazmat calls in the city each year. They also get at least one call a week from the surrounding towns and villages, but some calls turn out to be minor.
    Because the team may be at a scene for only a few minutes, Farstad has developed a method for minimizing the amount of overtime spent on the service. He has 30 trained hazmat specialists on the force, all of whom work regular firefighting shifts. When a call comes in, the team members who happen to be on duty respond. Their colleagues consolidate, taking just one fi re engine out of service.
    If it becomes clear that the hazmat team will be working for hours, others are called in to take their place on the fire trucks until the team returns, Farstad said. With that method, he thinks he can hold next year’s overtime to just $25,000. The team’s total budget would be $200,176.
    He insisted that the cost to the city is minimal since the county is still offering to pay $200,000.
    But Blanchfield offered a list of other expenses, including $32,000 in stipends to team members, overtime during each member’s weeks of annual training and the cost of materials used to control each incident. There’s also smaller expenses, such as wear and tear on vehicles used to drive to farflung parts of the county.
    “This budget is misleading to the public,” Blanchfield said, pointing at Farstad’s spending plan for the hazmat team. “This makes it look like less than it is.”
    Farstad responded as though Blanchfield were proposing to end the program altogether.
    “We would do a great injustice to our families,” he said. “[Without a team] I don’t expect anyone to keep their hazmat certification, which is very difficult. You’re going to lose that experience. All I’m saying is, our city residents need protection.”
    Blanchfield said later that he was willing to keep the team for city residents but was still considering whether to respond to out-of-city calls.
    “It looks like the other municipalities are getting this service for free,” he said.
    Not so, said county spokesman Joseph McQueen, noting that the county is still offering $200,000 for countywide service and will continue other joint ventures that save the city money.
    “All this mutual cooperation is definitely good for all of us and we all seem to be saving from it,” he said.
    He took heart from the fact that no decision has been made yet.
    “We hope as they go through the process, they’ll understand the value this gives us all,” he said. “We hope they’ll continue it.”

If anyone ever thought "consolidation" was going to work, this proves it won't

Doesn't the county pay for this program?

I SHALL BEGIN MY CAMPAIGN TO MAKE SURE BLANCHFIELD IS NOT ELECTED.  IF THE COUNTY CONTRIBUTES TO THE HAZMAT PRORAM, MR BLANCHFIELD IS WRONG IN HIS ASSESSMENT THAT THE TOWNS ARE RECEIVING THE SERVICE FREE OF CHARGE.  WE PAY COUNTY TAXES!!!!!!  If the county cuts the funding to the program entirely then Duanesburg doesn't have the right to gripe, it then becomes strictly a city owned and city run dept.  I am sick to death of defending the city of Schenectady.  I have frequently said if the only city in the county is not strong then the towns will not be either, but I am tired of being sacrificed for the city of Schenectady.

Quoted Text

Blanchfield said later that he was willing to keep the team for city residents but was still considering whether to respond to out-of-city calls.

Consider this Blanchfield......if the team is only going to respond to calls in the city then let the city pay for it in its entirety.  You cough up $200,000 from your city residents who will receive the service.  If the service is discontinued to the towns and the county is still funding the program with my tax $$ there will be hell to pay.  It would appear as though the county is funding the entire program so it had better be available to the entire county.

Question - didn't we have a board of stupervisors at one time?  What happened to that?

I remember hearing there was a Board of Supervisors years ago.  Maybe Benny can shed some light on it.

http://www.suny.edu/provost/missionreview/mou/SchenectadyCCC.pdf

Quoted Text

The County Board of Supervisors established Schenectady County Community College in January 1967.

I know I remember hearing about it when I was a kid, and it seems to me that there was a woman as "president" of the board of supervisors, but I can't remember her name (it was a "popular" name - like Burhmaster or something)

Let SI and GE and anyother businesses 'donate'.....didn't SI just get some kind of tax break....oh, yeah, and didn't GE 'win' their little tax b**ch fest?????