At the Nov. 17 Van Buren Township Board meeting, Don Schoenberger read a Nov. 13 letter from Ethan Vinson, the township’s insurance/contract attorney, to the fire department’s union representative and others:
“As you may be aware, the Public Safety Millage Proposal was voted down in the recent election. As a result thereof, the township Board has decided to implement certain cost-reduction measures. One of which will be the elimination of the duty crew. However, before such a change is implemented, we recognize that we will have a duty to bargain about the effects such a change will have upon the bargaining unit. Accordingly, please provide me with dates you are available to meet as soon as possible.”
Schoenberger said the elimination of the duty crew because voters turned down the 6.5-mill tax is a scare tactic. He said the present millage is effective through 2016.
Schoenberger said the fire chief wants a part-time administrative assistant so you can call a secretary to say there’s a fire, but nobody will be available to go to the fire. He said the township board said it needs money, but in the new budget everybody gets a raise.
If the fire department goes back to only paid-per-call fire fighters, with nobody on duty at the fire halls, the response time will suffer, but the high blended-rate costs will be gone. Is that what needs to be done to get the budget under control? But, what about those who suffer in the process?
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There is only 1 full time fire position, that being the chief. And I don’t think you realize how much going to an on call fire department will reduce response times, not just for fires but for any type of call. While HVA may be doing the patient transport, there units are not always in the area. They do not have a unit dedicated to the area, which means sometimes the closest unit coming if from U of M hospital or Monroe County for example.
Look, this is just another scare tactic. The twp officials once again lied to the community. Best thing to do is get rid of every single one.
When did VBT go no full time Fiefighters? I can’t believe there’s only 1 full time position and that’s the fire chiefs position? If so who is the chief so to speak Chiefing over? Maybe full time Ff’s no chief? I’m pretty sure though there is full time ff’s, unless I missed something. Once again though they were warned the blended rate would kill the fire dept budget. Now look.
You know what, this is just another stupid scare tactic brought to you by our corrupt township officials. Not one of them belongs in the seat they were elected. It is time the township people take a stand against this corruption, clean house and actually elect people who are willing to put in the work to make a difference.
I moved to Belleville a few years ago from Ypsilanti to give my kids a better area to grow up in. I’m now searching for a different community because Belleville/Van Buren has become what I left. The township has evolved into a cesspool. It starts from the top.
I have removed the comment signed by Al D’Agostino because the real Al D’Agostino did not write or give permission for the comment.
Food for thought: your house is on fire, no more duty crew, hopefully there are firefighters to respond when the pagers go off, if there is no one, your house burns to the ground and your family who needed to be rescued doesn’t make it out…total loss…second scenario: your family member goes into cardiac arrest, waiting for the paid on call firefighters, no ambulance is available, because there is no dedicated one to the area, CPR needs to be initiated right away…so does a shock from an AED, this could prove to be fatal….third scenario: bad car accident on I94…lives could be lost with no fast response time like they have now…Losing the Duty crews puts our families lives in grave danger…someone needs to get statistics on average runs per day to see how bad this could become, depending on a few to run both the north end and south end of town is not good especially if you have medical or fire runs at the same time…what if there is a day when no one responds?? Think about that scenario….equipment breaks down too… No money no safety…
I just read an article online about a town similar to Van Buren. Close their fulltime department and moved to a paid on call department. Response times increased to 40 minutes on average.
You don’t have 40 minutes for someone who is choking or in cardiac arrest or having trouble breathing. I have a severe allergies that require an epi pen, but what happens when someone has a reaction that doesn’t have one? You can’t wait that long for help. I don’t have a problem paying for services that would help save lives. I do have a problem with the abuse of power and the negligent spending in the township. Hence the next 2 articles online here.
VBT Residents are fortunate to have a dedicated Paid On Call SCHEDULED DUTY CREW of mostly VBT residents. Minimum staffing at both stations is supposed to be two fire fighters per shift per station. Sometimes this does not happen, but we still have staffing on duty to respond to an emergency. There is only one FT FD position, that being the Fire Chief. However, there is a concern about FT presence in the station as the Chief is currently teaching classes at Schoolcraft College, and is also attending two classes at the College. A huge concern for our residents.
The Scheduled Duty Crew as currently staffed is the best scenario for our residents, also the most cost effective with an efficient response. and we have better response times than an on-call call out department. FF at the ready are much quicker than a FF who has to respond from home and go to the station, put on their equipment and then drive the fire truck out for response.
In the past, and I do not have current knowledge on HVA, but a HVA Unit was stationed in the township, and when answering a call, another unit would move closer to our township. This was also in reverse, as the adjoining township unit responded to a call, out unit would move to the west side on the township to help cover emergency calls. A HVA Unit was housed overnight in our fire station, Again, HVA did not cost VBT Residents any tax dollars, as HVA charged the patients insurance for assistance. An agreement between VBT and HVA allowed the emergency response for our residents and coverage for payment. HVA usually was the first responder to a medical emergency call.
The blended rate is certainly an issue and puts intense pressure on the FD Budget, but, do we cut our nose off to spite our face to resolve the problem. Absolutely NOT. We will pay for the blended rate, BUT, if the elected officials do not allow additional Blended Rate FF in the future, this issue will resolve itself as the current Blended Rate FF retire or move on. Just an unnecessary issue from about 2007 or early ’08. Under NO condition should this be a reason for discontinuing FF coverage in our fire stations. I was presented with about 7-8 applications for blended rate FF when I first took office, and I emphatically said no. About 5 days later, about 12 applications were presented (non-blended rate applications) and were sent to the Fire Chief for evaluation.
As one poster stated, this is a scare tactic to try to approve another increase in the PS Millage, and we can expect another attempt at the next election date, (May 2016) in order to create a “Segregated Fund to pay the Visteon Bond”, and if the Scheduled Duty Crew is eliminated, therefore jeopardizing our residents safety, health and welfare, then every elected official voting to eliminate the Scheduled Duty Crew should be voted OUT of office in the next election
If the current Board really wanted to be fiscally responsible, The 2016 General Budget is a proposed $14,368,353 million dollars. The 2012, 2013 and 2014 average Audited Budgets were $12,602,261. The Board is spending almost $1.8 million dollars more in 2016 than past averages Save the $1.8 million and a millage increase will not be needed. Managerial Budget oversight is grossly lacking currently by our elected officials.
Be knowledgeable residents, on the use of our tax dollars, and hold our elected officials responsible on fiscal policy. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ELIMINATE OUR SCHEDULED DUTY CREWS. The health, safety and welfare of our residents is PRIORITY ONE !!!
Paul White , Former Van Buren Township Supervisor.
Besides endangering the citizens, what about the men and women trying to provide for their families? It’s tough in this day and age to not have two jobs to get by…this will hurt many who rely on an extra salary besides their outside jobs…also FFs require continuing education and when the Chief is not there, there are other officers to help in decision making. Do you want an educated Chief or someone who doesn’t know what they are doing….I seem to recall Chiefs in the past doing the same thing…hhhmmmm….the biggest issue is repairing the old trucks, getting gear, safety of our citizens and our firefighters…
Yea but this particular fire chief isn’t the right person for the job. He may be “educated” but that is only a portion of what makes a great leader. He lacks operational experience (ask him how many structure fires he has commanded), he lacks a good leadership style (lowest morale in the history of vbt) and he uses the buddy system to get what he wants. Anyone can call themselves a chief (or whatever his title is now) but it takes someone with good intentions and heart to make a difference in the community. Go ahead and ask a Firefighter in vbt what they think about the current situation.
I work for the Fire Dept. Mr. White is correct there is only one full time position being the Fire Chief. There are 50 part time (paid on call) fire fighters that make up the department. 5-7 of those being your blended rate firefighters. Minimum staffing at its best is 2 FF’s at each station for 36 sq miles. Most of the FF’s have full time jobs elsewhere, however alot of the younger FF’s make this there full time job and are usually the ones doing most of the day shift which run 6a-6p before a new group comes on. We do our best to provide the twp and citizens with the best coverage possible however some board members do there best to make us fail. No one in the dept beside the blended rate ff’s receive benefits or a salary. Its all hourly wages comparable almost to fast food workers. To eliminate us to save money because there worried about Visteon is ridiculous and unfair to the citizens and visitors of the twp and area. VBFD has been responding to all most 3,000 year for the last 5 years, which is busier than some of the surrounding full-time dept, yet we are doing it only with 4 part time FF’s which is not enough for the amount of area and call volume we have. We respond to all EMS, Fire, Hazmat, Car accidents, all Belleville Lake emergencies, mutual aid to Romulus, Canton, Belleville, and Ypsilanti Twp. HVA is spread very thin to where your left waiting 10-15 minuets for an ambulance. That just doesn’t cut it when its a life and death situation. Having us respond on medicals make the difference in alot of situations since were usually the first arrive and we begin to provide care until HVA finally shows up. I would feel really sorry to the citizens if we lost what we have now. A part time fire dept doing a full time depts job for cheap. I love my job here and I know we are doing our best to fight this battle with twp hall to make sure we can still give the residents a quality service.
Anonymous, Thank You for your post. I support our FF 100% and will fight to keep our Scheduled Duty Crew. Keep up the great work and the residents are supporting our FF.
Why are new fire positions posted and one for approval if the board wants to cut duty crew? I’m no rocket scientist but that seems contradicting.
I have to say the township had reached an all time low for service. The board is doing a terrible service to the residents. The duty crew does not need to be cut, they are just being lazy! They don’t want to work hard to come up with a solution to stop the bleeding. I’m tired of bailing them out. I’m tired of them abusing my tax dollars.
What a joke this is. Last month they had money to staff the stations. The current millage does not expire for 13 months and now they have to cut? Liars, scare tactics. They just do this so people will get out and campaign and vote as they put it on the ballot again and again until it passes just like the HS.
One full time employee, well until they hired the fire marshall, right after they decided they don’t have any money. Oh and the part time fire inspector they are hiring, again where is this money coming from if we didn’t pass the millage and now they are broke? They are doing this so they can put it on the ballot again and cry poor and cuts in service.
When are we going to hold our Twp Trustees, Supervisor and Dept head accountable for a realistic budget? Not one that is supported by millages and tax increases to fund their pet projects. As long as we continue to allow money to be wasted by giving more we will continue to have a fire chief with two vehicles, cops with take home cars, a fire chief, police chief AND public safety director? What do they all do???
Don’t forget the library will be back for another millage, the Public Safety Millage will be back again (and again and again) and the Visteon debacle. I don’t know about you but I can not continue to just throw more money at a Twp that refuses to make cuts, Not even hard cuts, reasonable, cuts to stop the waste.
All commenters and residents, if you think this is bad, be sure to read the Independent tomorrow, (Wednesday, because of the holiday) for more disturbing news coming out of VBT Hall. This is a firestorm flowing from township hall.
What else could go wrong Paul? Did they actually start laying people off now?
Meredith how often is an HVA rig coming from Monroe Co? Many times when I drive the fire station there is an HVA rig parked in the station. So how many times is your hypothetical issue really an issue?
Yes there is ONE full time position, give it a few weeks. They have hired a full time fire Marshall. Are you saying that is false?? It’s not….
If it is for Belleville, why is it not ok for VBT? I believe we are in a very good place to know what it will do for response times, we border and know what happens in Belleville, their response times aren’t killing people.
Stop with the fear mongering, it is so old…..
The reason you always see an HVA rig inside the fire station is because there allowed to house an extra ambulance there. That ambulance is not staffed. So they are coming from Monroe, Jackson, also since they are so spread thin. Belleville fire takes usually 5-15 minuets on certain calls just to go on en-route do you really want that for VBT
BFD’s average time from tone out to arrival on scene is 8 minutes, This includes non emergent calls . HVA’s average time is 11-13 minutes from tone out to arrival on scene with several taking 15 minutes or more because they are coming from Huron Twp, Scio Twp, their base on State St. and some even coming from Monroe County.
Make some cuts in the police dept aka smaller vehicles n less patrols in Belleville rd
Paul White’s post above puts things in perspective and tells us how very much we need our duty crew. Our current supervisor is on a leave of absence and she allowed Mr. Bevins water to remain turned off violating his civil rights and costing the township $650,000. The 3 full time elected officials at township hall are responsible for what happened to Mr. Bevins even though they pretend they had no idea. Budd has more power than Combs so she knew but continues to hide. These are the people making a decision about our duty crew fire fighters? The residents have lost all confidence in their ability to make good decisions. Budd and Leon wanted raises? Budd makes nearly $100,000. per year, can you believe that?
To all VBT residents: Support & Defend our VBT Firefighters we need them more than we need the Visteon 3 (budd,jahr,hart). The 4 mills is still intact, this threat of eliminating the duty crew is retribution for voting down the millage increase. Mr. Schoenberger is correct in that this is a scare tactic and it’s vindictiveness. Mr. S. says he “loves” budd this shows how little he really knows her. Wake up Mr. S. she is part of the problem we need someone that can be part of the solution. Don’t forget she has earned her nickname “big bully budd”.