The New Rochelle City Council voted Tuesday to cut $800,000 from the proposed City budget which may mean layoffs for Police, Fire and DPW if their respective unions do not agree to across the board pay reductions. The City Manager has discretion in how to implement the budget cuts and is still negotiating with the unions who have resisted calls to re-open current contracts.
Fire Chief Ray Kiernen told the council that layoffs would mean closing one firehouse and have a negative impact on response times.
Some council members have expressed concern about the impact of reducing the number of firefighters just as more new high rise apartment buildings and condos have begun filling up in New Rochelle. Avalon 1 & 2 are nearly full and Trump Plaza is reportedly at 60% occupancy. At 420 feet tall, Trump Plaza is the second tallest building in Westchester County.
As if to bring home the point, last night there was a major fire in Chicago on the 36th floor of a 51-story building located a few blocks from Lake Michigan. The Trump Plaza New Rochelle is 40-stories tall and less than half a mile from the waters of Long Island Sound.
A towering fire in a high-rise condo building in Streeterville left a woman dead and a dozen others hurt, and required the use of about a third of the city’s fire equipment….the 5-11 alarm fire broke out around 12:50 a.m. in the 51-story Plaza on DeWitt condo building, at 260 E. Chestnut St. about a block east of the John Hancock Center. Fire crews arrived to find flames shooting out of the 36th floor of the building.
One resident died and seven were injured along with 5 firefighters. Hundreds of residents were evacuated including some from the roof including a man and his 6-year old daughter. Trapped for 40 minutes in shorts and pajamas, the pair withstood single-digit temperatures and winds whipping at over 20 mph. Windchill was about 20 degrees below zero at street level and, if you know Chicago, far colder up 51 stories with winds near Lake Michigan.
The City of Chicago sent about one-third of its equipment and over 300 firefighters to the scene.
The man trapped on the roof with his daughter was asked what was going through his mind as he waited to be rescued. “9-11”, he said.
The residents in these downtown high-rises are the beneficiaries of large tax abatements given by the New Rochelle IDA under which the owners of these buildings pay a tiny fraction of what they would pay without the abatements and pocket the difference. With the City required to provide services to these buildings and their residents, the resulting budget gap has strained City resources to the breaking point. New Rochelle’s high rise dwellers might want to consider whether they find their luxury lifestyle views as appealing when there are flames licking at their windows and not enough manpower and equipment to come get them.
Word to the wise to our downtown neighbors: if you have to run for your life to a rooftop, bring a blanket. You may be in for a long wait.
Firefighter and DPW Layoffs!
Here’s some more news on the Firefighter’s issue of layoffs- The City could have, but chose NOT to seek State Grant money that is available to save these 6 firefighter positions. In an email sent from Chuck Strome to Howard Rattner, Strome agreed that, basically, if they did receive the money, that the City would only have to lay-off the firefighters 3 years from now, and decided not to TRY!!!!
SO, having the opportunity to save these men for 3 years isn’t good enough on the City’s part, but having the Fire Union, who has a signed, negotiated contract, can deferr it’s raise, with NO gaurantee these firefighters will be saved after ONE year is??? Is something WRONG here???????? Can ANYONE see the bigger picture here?? It’s all smoke and mirrors when dealing with this City counsel and manager!
Wake up New Rochelle residents!
City Layoffs!!!!
The story gets better and better people of New Rochelle!
Here’s something new in the past few days between the City and Fire Union. The city counsel, suppossedly, has told the Fire Commisssioner which fire company to close! Rumor has it, against the Fire Commissioner’s recommendation to close the Drake Ave firehouse, that they will now close the ladder company at fire station 2 on Webster Ave. This will close the company, but give the impression that the firehouse is open and doing business as usual. You just have to really appreciate the efforts that the city counsel puts in when it comes to the concern of its citizens!
Why the Webster Ave. ladder company? Because the counsel knows that the area is filled with illegal immigrants and mostly lower income residents. Counsel is basically saying that the citizens of the West End of New Rochelle are the least likely to complain, so that’s the best solution. The recommendation of the Fire Commissioner is irrelevant! So, why have a Fire Commissioner? People, you have to get out there and just listen to what’s going on. I’ve lived in New Rochelle for 40 years, I have neighbors who are Cops, CPA’s and Firefighters. I have listened to them discuss City issues for years in the front of our houses and always listened as a concerned taxpayer. But after sitting down with these City workers and really listening to them discuss their issues, it really opened my eyes to just how rotten these employees are treated. AS a taxpayer, I gave the City the benefit of the doubt, UNTIL, I started watching the counel meetings on TV. Best thing they ever did was air these meetings. I have watched money being spent on items that are so rediculous, especially during tough economic times, that I have wanted to throw things at my TV screen. A quick example- over $100,000 of our money was spent to wash statues! Did we need to clean the pigeon crap that has been on these staues for years, now, during these tough times? Would it have been more economical to just have a City employee use a pressure washer and scrub brush? As far as layoffs go, did anyone notice how much time was spent deliberating cutting jobs? More time was spent discussing wether or not to let someone open a tattoo parlor on the top or bottom level of Main St.
The best line I have heard yet, stated by a firefighter, to sum up the Fire Department, is this- The Fire Department is considered, by counsel, to be a financial burden on the City because they do not generate revenue ( write tickets like the cops, etc.) The Fire Department has been looked at as an insurance policy by the Counsel, one that they hate to pay for. So, to sum up this firefighters quote, he said- The Fire Department is Geico or Allstate. The Counsel is the policy holder. Nobody likes to pay for insurance, everyone thinks that they will never need it and always complain about their insurance rates, but the bottom line is this- you need insurance. And when something really bad happens to you, you thank God you have it!
Think people!
Why have a fire commissioner
Why have a fire commissioner indeed! Time to do what White Plains does, put one man in charge of emergency services, saving the city some 200,000+ per year.
May I suggest Patrick Carroll for the time being, until a suitable replacement can be found. The police commish has BOTH the schooling and experience to do both jobs.
I’m tired of hearing all the
I’m tired of hearing all the civil servants complain about everything. I hope we get the consessions from the unions and then we lay off a bunch of them. Would that bring our tax increase to 0? If it did, then I’d favor it. Sadly though, our mayor and city council choose only to borrow from our future in the form of Bonding to lower this years tax increase from 8.9% to 5.9%.
And why do the cuts always have to come from the police/fire? What about Parks/Rec? I’m sure there are other departments that could be downsized rather easily just nobody wants to make the call. Maybe instead to laying off police/fire we implement a system of charging per response/call that way we can get the abated (Trump/Avalon)/non-profit/religous (Iona) properties to start contributing to our great city.
Complaining
Hey, Fifth Ave. Guy, you should really talk with facts when discussing a topic.. Do you have any idea of the consequences of laying off firefighters and closing a fire company are?? Ask your City Manager and Counsel Members about the city’s ISO rating, and what affect it has on commercial insurance premiums. Ask the Fire Commissioner which firehouse he’s going to close. Maybe it’s the North End Fire Company! Its the slowest Firehouse, makes sense to me.
This isn’t about civil servants complaing, it’s about a mis-managed City that Civil Servants have to foot the bill for every time money issues arise. If Capelli and all the rest of the large corporations paid their fare share of taxes, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Firefighters, Police and other City workers are paid to do a specific job. They are not paid to manage the City. How do you keep a fund for, as quoted by Counsel Member Stowe, a “rainy day”? That’s like telling your mortgage company that you can’t make your payment, but you are keeping $3,000 in your savings account JUST INCASE you need it!!!!! Can it get any more rediculous with this City???
Givebacks with no promises of saving jobs
Here’s something I just found out- The City wants to take back raises, that were negotiated 3 years ago (4 year deal that the city wanted!) and STILL not say that City employees can keep their jobs! What type of bargaining is this?? This money was already budgeted for the coming years! The Union’s have given the City numerous alternatives to layoffs, but the City doesn’t want to negotiate! Ask any Firefighter or City yard worker! Can more than 200 employees be lying about how the City negotiates?
I ask the Citizens of New Rochelle to go out and ask the employees of this City about how the Union’s TRIED to make other cuts and TRIED to negotiate for raise deferrements. The City Manager and Counsel Members JUST DON’T CARE!!!
So here’s a scenario for you- You are asked to give up, FOREVER, not defer, a pay raise, without ANY guarantee that your fellow employees wiil remain employeed, and knowing the City has implemented a pay freeze for at least the next 3 years. Add to this the fact that your taxes were raised 5.88% by the Counsel members this year (God only knows what they will be next year!), your schoool taxes… well thats a given, they ALWAYS go up dramatically, water company looking for 6% for the next 3 years (thats 6% per year people!) and then add fuel prices, home heating prices, MTA taxes, County taxes…etc., etc.
Would you give up your raise given these facts? I didn’t think so!
EDITOR’S NOTE: This comment was edited to comply with our “no ALL CAPS” policy. I know we have a lot of new readers who are not aware of this policy so I edited this comment rather than delete it. Please observe this policy at all times.
policy
thanks, i was unaware of the policy.
Close the North End Fire
Close the North End Fire House?? My, my isn’t that where the Mayor and the City manager live? Of course it is!
Who is doing the complaining?
Fifth Ave Guy, you need to get your facts straight. Who are the civil Servants are complaining? You seem to be the one complaining. You should have taken a test or got a good enough grade to get hired. When the economy was “booming” and people were making money hand over foot, nobody was “complaining”, as you are now, about civil servants. In fact the number of people taking civil service tests was at a very low number. I admit there are some things that can be made better with the system, but this is the way it has been set up and negotiated over many decades by the local and state government and between their unions. The government takes things away every chance they get as they are doing attempt to do now.
It is very difficult for any of the unions to even get a contract from the City of New Rochelle when their contract expires. It usually takes 1-2 years after it expires and the city gives you very little and usually tries to take something away, but it is expected because historically that is what has happened. So when you do have a raise (that is not much after the taxes go up) you should get it, it was negotiated, planned for, and earned. The City should not hold your fellow employees livelihood over your head regarding to giving up a raise for the rest of their life (not even to “defer” until better times). The city were asked the unions to come up with ideas to save money which they did, but they were barely considered and dismissed with no discussion. The ideas would have easily saved more money than the proposed layoffs.
The city has treated all of the unions terribly during this last city budget process. They used a strong arm approach in threatening layoffs to make up for their own mistakes and poor judgment. The council members should be ashamed of themselves, except for Mr. Trangucci. Explain how 2 council members vote one way on adopting the $800,000 cut in the budget for layoffs/salary freeze and then vote a different way when it’s time to adopt the budget? It makes absolutely no sense, especially when there was still 3 weeks to fine tune the budget. Why does Mr. Tarantino change his vote on the 1.1 million dollar loan which needed 5 council votes to pass? Originally he voted “no” then changed it to “yes”. He originally wanted the entire “loan to go to lowering the tax rate and not 1/2 of it to go the savings fund. I guess he made some type of behind the scene deal during the dinner break and he figured the citizens who view the meeting have no right to hear his reasoning or don’t pay attention. I lost my respect for Mr. Tarantino when I saw him pull those shenanigans. During the year the city council spent more time deliberating over tattoo parlors and bike signs to nowhere, than they did about firing city employees that provide vital services. The city has money to spend on paving parking lots, putting in new parking meters, and cleaning monuments that were neglected for who knows how long (which is a good idea to clean, but not now maybe during the good times they brag about during the election year).
When a resident’s basement or street floods because there are fewer DPW employees to clean the sewers, then residents can point their finger at the city council. When someone is having a serious medical condition on Pelham road or there is some type of fire in one of the many large buildings on Pelham Road, then the city counsel can explain to the residents why it closed the firehouse on Drake Ave and that it took a firefighter / EMT 10 minutes to arrive instead of 3 minutes which could be the difference in averting a bad situation. But they can tell the people that there are clean & shinny monuments, bike signs to nowhere, and pretty high rise buildings that were given tax abatements.
Anyone living in New
Anyone living in New Rochelle should be concerned as this City has been stretched pretty thin even a few years before they started building 39 story towers.
The New Rochelle fire code was written around much smaller buildings and has existed more so for low rise buildings. I am sure changes were made to the Fire Code but are the stringent enough? NYC has a fire code that exceeds what we see used in Westchester Country. Your 60% ocupancy is probably missleading as it gives the impression that the building is somewhat a success. Actually most of the 60% are owned by Cappelli and they are now rentals. They may have sold less than 20% of the units which is more telling about the success of such a project, and the potential of success for a Lecount Project.
Moving around this the Fire Union and the Police Union have a right to bitch about man power but some could argue that they have an obligation to consider pay cutting to preserve those jobs but we know that won’t happen. New Rochelle has been in a bad way, has been poorly managed during the good times and now we see that it is even worst during bad times.
In the end the ballance is way out of wack because the Residential Tax payer is footing the bill for the stupidity that the City Council, Mayor and City Manager has procided over. The tax base is shrinking while services simply can’t without some clear foresight I think the City will come down even a few more steps. We are watching the City Manager, Council and Mayor fiddle while the City is about to burn. Once the Tax payers have had enough they will cut and run further destroying whatever values remain in Real Estate. Its the Stupid leading the Blind. Do you smell the smoke?
The Unions should not
The Unions should not reopen/give back anything. Anyone laid off would be rehired within a year or so, there’s a number of men retiring soon. Coming back to a job with the same wages/benefits that you left with is much better than coming back to a job with a 0% increase that just compounds year after year. IOW, each and every member loses that raise forever, for the career of each employee, and will never make up the money.
The City never bargains in good faith, who knows if layoffs won’t come anyway.
Never sell out the whole for the interests of a few, because those interests will affect everyone,including the few, for years to come.
Should have added that the
Should have added that the Unions signed a 4 year contract, not knowing if the deal would be good for them. The City bungled their finances leading to this fiasco, a couple years ago they were flush with cash. Now the employee is to blame?