Guest MINDSETTER™ Tom Kenney: Pare & Elorza Still Have No Clue About the Fire Department  

Guest MINDSETTER™ Tom Kenney: Pare & Elorza Still Have No Clue About the Fire Department  

It’s been over a year and a half since I first began publicly criticizing Providence Mayor Elorza and Public Safety Commissioner Pare about their lack of understanding and leadership of the Providence Fire Department. Although the Commissioner had been mishandling the fire department for a number of years it wasn’t until he, along with the blessing of the mayor, forced the last of any Providence firefighters from the Chief of Department and Command Staff positions and appointed himself as Fire Chief that I felt compelled to speak out against his reckless decisions.

The first thing Pare did when there was no real fire chief was to change the operations of the department to a 3 platoon system from the 4 platoon system that had been in place since the 60’s. According to Pare and Elorza this was done to save money in the operations of the PFD. Unfortunately for the taxpayers of the City this new system failed to save any money. It actually cost the city money. Not only that but it illegally forced the members of the department to work an extra 14 hours per week at about $5 per hour. The difference between this rate and their time and a half rate will have to be paid to these firefighters once the dispute is arbitrated even after the return to the 4 platoon system.

Just this past week the mayor and Pare negotiated a deal with Local 799 which actually may save some money in the long term, even if it sacrifices public safety as a result – and it does. How could it not when 2 Engine Companies and 1 Ladder Company, in the same geographical area (Rochambeau Ave., Humboldt Ave. & North Main St.) are simultaneously closed. The sad part of this is that PFD and union leadership (and I) told them from the very beginning that their plan would not generate the savings they were looking for. The mayor and Pare finally acknowledged that they were wrong about the savings and returned to the old system.

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I spent the last 5 years of my PFD career as the Fire Captain of Engine 5 (Humboldt Ave.) and the first 6 years of my career as a firefighter on Engine 2 (Branch Ave.) which is one of the companies that will now be the first-due fire company to much of the affected area on the East Side. Some response times will now increase from about 3 minutes to around 8 minutes, depending on the exact location. While this extra 5 minutes may not have any effect on many of the nuisance runs to which the PFD responds, it could mean a great deal to a person not breathing or in cardiac arrest.

I understand that you can’t have a fire station on every corner but to state that these closings will not have any effect on public safety is a downright lie. Is it an acceptable tradeoff to be more fiscally conservative? That is up for debate. The discussion, however, needs to be honest and factual. Councilman Zurrier recently sponsored a community discussion on this matter at Nathan Bishop School allowing citizens to put their concerns and questions directly to Commissioner (and Fire Chief) Pare. It is my understanding that about 1/3 of his answers were accurate and truthful. Of the remaining answers half were lies or exaggerations and the other half were beyond his understanding of fire department operations.

The success or failure of these closings will continue to be up for debate and will play out in real time over the next few years in both fiscal and safety terms, but for now they will remain closed. If anyone thinks that the firefighters in the City believe that these closings are for the betterment of a sound fire department you would be mistaken. I believe that none of the members who voted to accept this proposal from the City would have done so if they weren’t facing the ongoing struggles that they have encountered under the misguided 3 platoon system. They voted to accept this offer in order to get their personal lives back to some sort of normal existence – period.

There are still many challenging decisions to be made in order to bring the Providence Fire Department back to its once high standards and to leave Commissioner Pare and Mayor Elorza in charge of making these decisions is a dreadful mistake. Mayor Elorza needs to fire Pare, promote Command Staff from within the department and stand back and allow these leaders to make fire service related decisions without political interference.

Tom Kenney is a retired captain of the Providence Fire Department.