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by Michelle Charlesworth
(New York-WABC, March 25, 2004) — A controversial new proposal may unlock the doors to firehouses closed by Mayor Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg wants the six firehouses to remain closed, but the City Council wants to re-open them.
Today, City Council members announced a proposal to unlock the doors at firehouses in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, and the council says it has the money to do it.
Michelle Charlesworth reports from Harlem with the story.
The firehouses in question are:
Brooklyn Firehouses- Engine 278 ,Engine 204 ,Engine 212 ,Engine 209
Queens - Engine 261
Manhattan - Engine 36
So far the mayor says, "no deal." And the fire department defers to what the mayor is saying.
And Speaker Miller says now that we know that it's taking fire companies longer to get to fires, we need to reopen these houses.
Gifford Miller, (D) NYC Council Speaker: "It's very obvious. We should re-open these firehouses."
Miller says New Yorkers are all for it. In leaner times, the mayor closed the six fire houses to save money. But Miller says now that the city is doing better, they should be reopened.
Gifford Miller: "What the mayor is saying is it's not about the money, we're just going to close the fire houses and we're going to have less public safety. Well, that doesn't make sense to me, because public safety should never be about money."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg: "The firehouses that we closed, we didn't lay anybody off, we moved people to where we could better use them. And we're not going to, at this point, revisit that."
What do firefighters say? Rudy Sansilippo has been with the fire department for 16 years.
Rudy Sansilippo, FDNY: "We've had supportive politicians earmark money to the department specifically to either increase manning or reopen firehouses. And that once in the hands of the department or the city, it has just been spent in other ways."
In East Harlem, the Uniformed Firefighters Association says that because trucks come from farther away, three fires there were worse than they should have been. One killed a woman in January, another took out a church and a business, and another hurt five people.
According to the speaker, medical emergency response times across the city are up by 30 seconds in those six neighborhoods. And city-wide response times are up 13 seconds.
Steve Cassidy, Uniformed Firefighters Association: "The department continues to use a response time that says when one unit pulls up in front of a building, the New York City Fire Department is there, and everything is OK. That's absolutely false. When your house is on fire you need a minimum of two engines and one ladder company to be there, to begin operations."
Miller does not say specifically where the $8 million to reopen the firehouses will come from, but he does believe the mayor will come around.
Gifford Miler: "He said he was going to eliminate the recycling program, we changed his mind. He said he was going to close child health clinics, we changed his mind. We're going to have to change his mind this time."
The speaker says specifics on where that money will come from will come out in about three months, closer to city budget negotiations.
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