Finally someone who speaks thier mind! Lets get these hippies out of office!

Dennis,

I worked on a Tower Ladder and had a hydraulic line blow during an occupied structural fire. What people have to understand is that fire equipment must be continually serviced and must work at all times as lives depend upon it. A Tower Ladder and pumper are specialized pieces of equipment and if that piece of equipment fails some night at 2 A.M. it could cost lives. Safety must come first.

Secondly too often people do not appreciate the volunteer. I've noticed how some board members have become arrogant towards those who put them in office.

I asked the current Mayor to have DPW shovel out the exit in the municipal lot near COH elementary school for the safety of the parents and kids who use it. Do you know what he did? He had DPW affix 2 x 4's blocking the exit to the parents and children who now must exit and enter the same way as the auto's. All that to avoid a 5 minute shovel job.

Without Vatter & Edsal the board would continue playing with boulders and worrying about what steps we'll take due to "Global Warming". 261 is a number that will evaporate by 2 come March I can tell you that much.

How shameful that the fire department is again under attack by the village board. Thousands of hours a year as volunteers, thousands of hours given to the community and here we are back to bashing the fire department. Perhaps the mayor and trustee positions should become non-salaried and volunteer. After all, every little bit will help! $164,000 (2010 budgeted) for 14,000 fire department hours in 2009 is a bargain ? do the math. The 14,000 hours does not include all the additional hours the officers spend doing what their positions require. Blacktop the parking lot ? it is in bad shape and would probably save money in the long run. Oh, and doesn't the village own it? And doesn't the community use 2/3rds of the lot as needed? The ceiling in question is literally falling down and does not need to be replaced for aesthetics. This is a safety issue before it collapses and injures someone. Let's skip outside maintenance? Maybe the fire department should bill the village every time it snows and we shovel out up to the bay doors and the access doors. Ridiculous? Absolutely. But we do it and we don't charge the village because that would be absurd, as absurd as the undertones are that the fire department spends without care or thought. The illusion that the FD doesn't need a mechanic really does the community a disservice. When the FD mechanic is working on a repair a 7PM, I would venture to say that it would be more costly to have DPW work overtime or worse, not do the repair when needed. We are passionate about what we do and passionate about the community. We are also an extremely frugal department, making do with what we have. For a fire department to exist in the 21st century on such a low operating budget is to be commended, when for example you consider that to outfit a single firefighter head to toe costs in excess of $2000, and gears wears out. SKE#2 has also managed to continue to grow in membership despite the trend to the contrary in other communities. And we are very thankful to the community for their continued support. But I guess for the village board it's "let's bash the fire department, encore performance, year two.?

Nancy Bryan
Member SKE#2

The facts are the facts. Our local VFD has a far smaller budget that most if not all of the VFD's south of Storm King. There are outfits I that buy new engines and ladders every five years! How old is the SKE equipment?!?

From what I understand Thier rescue is from 2002 thier newest engine is from 2004 then a tanker which is from 1994 then another engine from 1989 and a beloved tower ladder from 1973! I talked to some members of Cronomer Valley firehouse in Newburgh and they just bought 2 new engines and 1 new tower ladder that was over 1 million dollars! also they are looking into building a new firehouse. I think people in this village really need to start thanking OUR VOLUNTEERS! who save this village as much money as they can, so cut them a break!

Tom,
SK has a 37 year old Tower Ladder. This is an antique and too risky to keep in operation without having it rebuilt or replaced. I was actuaally astonished to find out the Tower Ladder was a 73. Now if we eliminate the Mayors salary along with the trustees and eliminate the village we should have enough to start saving for a new TL or have the existing one rebuilt.