Missouri
Monday, October 27, 2008
South County Prepares to Vote
I was listening to Sarah Palin's speech yesterday about how Senator Obama was taking an upcoming victory for granted. We were told he was already measuring the White House for new drapes. Millions of Americans are worried how they'll pay their mortgage and we're hearing about drapes. I'm sure I laughed aloud. No, he's not taking anything for granted. He's been preparing for these last couple of weeks for at least a year. He's had people scouring our neighborhoods looking for old and young to join his team. This is what the ground game is all about. That's why he called his Grasso Plaza office last evening. He thanked everyone for all their hard work and challenged them to to complete the mission that they had undertaken together. Senator Obama's campaign has brought an unprecedented organization to the state of Missouri and especially here in South County. We'll be seeing them blanket our neighborhoods between now and election day. This massive Get Out The Vote effort will be fun to watch.
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28 comments:
I will be out there but it sure in hell won't be for Obama.
And that's what makes America great!
Not to chang ethe subject here but I recieved my tax bill and I saved a whole 24 dollars compared to last year on my Mehlville Fire tax!! I thought the Mehlville board was saving us $400.00 a year!
All this turmoil for 24 dollars!
The citizens of Mehlville got cheated and lied to by the tax reformers.
Everyone needs to remember to vote this November 4th! Make sure you do!!! As everyone knows, big lines are expected at the election polls. For this reason many will assume Senator Obama has already won because he has been doing so well in the national polls. Remember those national polls only reflect the feelings of the U.S. citizens, not their vote, lol. If everyone assumes Senator Obama to win and not vote, guess what??? McCain is your president! McCain is losing so big in the national polls because he's doing a terrible running his campaign. If he can't run his election campaign well, what makes you think he can run the country well? I can be fixed! So, please get out to vote!
What you saved can not be compaired to what you would have paid if the un desirables would have still been on the fire board.
The candy store givers would have sold the citizens out and made the so called employees rich when we are all in hard times.
6;42 Do me a favor. Support your comments with numbers. Go to the St. Louis County website and use my house as an example. Let's see what you get.
What 6:42 doesn't seem to get is his "reform" party has sold out the community in their own special way. They have trashed the quality of service by chasing away experience and competence and hiring in sub-standard replacements. Sad to say, we can no longer depend on the skills and judgement of all these men and women. Some still know what they are doing...some don't. Wonder which ones will show up at 6:42's house? And will he be able to tell the difference?
Talking about the fire service. After reading the Call newspaper and seeing what a member of the Mehlville union said about paramedic firefighters can not do the job. I resent that statement, I live in South County and I have a son working on one of the North County Fire Districts that is a paramedic firefighter and is a member of local 2665 and he can do the job like the other 1,500 members that are paramedic firefighters in the area. Maybe Mehlville should get away from the TV and start training and then they all could do the job.
I think you have more older people that can't do the job then the younger that are more educated and they are in the real world. Come on boys come out of the basement and realize that you are not the only supermen in the fire service.
12:32pm, I think 11:52am was referring to all the cuts in salary and benefits to the Mehlville Fire protection District. These cuts have driven away all the experienced and most knowledgeable candidates applying for employment with the MFPD. The MFPD was once one of the best places to be employed. Hundreds of applicants once applied each time a position was open. Now the MFPD has to take whatever shows up. The MFPD is a stepping stone to a better career in the fire service. It isn't comforting, but it is the fact. With that said, I am sure your son is very good at his job. I would encourage you to ask your son to apply with the MFPD and help correct the crisis facing the MFPD and the citizens of our community!
12:31 You've got to be kidding me. You still read the Call and expect to find anything close to the truth? You have to assume anything in there was written in a manner as to hurt whomever they're p/o ed at for the moment.
If you ask his son to come work here he would say "No way am I going to that hell hole!"
Tha is the truth of it.
Most of the "older" firefighters in the MFPD are not cross-trained. Almost every metro FPD hires only firefighter/paramedics. More than 85% of all calls in the MFPD are for emergency medical service, not fires.
The MFPD personnel who do not have EMT/P certification are "unqualified" by modern standards. I would like to see the evidence bantered about by Local 1889 that "experienced" personnel are leaving in droves. The truth is, that firefighters who are not paramedics could not find employment elsewhere for the rich salaries and benefits they now draw from the MFPD.
There is much more information on the workplace harassment perpetrated by the union bosses at Mehlville.
This will be a PR nightmare that will sink them for good! We'll see how many Democratic elected officials, Mehlville School Board members and teachers will continue to support Mr. Strinni and Ms. Fleschert once the full scale of their actions have been made public. I predict that they will run for the doors.
You want to talk about disgusting unprofessional behavior?
Google "Timothy Moore St. Louis Police Department" and see what you find.
This is the piece of crap "investigator" Hilmer hired to ferret out harassment in the firehouses. What a joke. You think this guy didn't go into this with the clear understanding of what he was supposed to find and who he was supposed to lynch?
Typical slime confederate with whom Hilmer associates.
5:45 – The myth concerning the qualifications of the more senior firefighters and paramedics at Mehlville Fire District has been bandied about in this blog for some time and I think it’s time for a little clarity to emerge. In point of fact, each of the firefighters and paramedics of the District are very qualified for their positions by both law and district policy. The fact is the firefighters are working under the rules created when emergency medical services were added to Mehlville Fire in 1970. There was no requirement for the firefighters of the day to acquire an EMT license. When the service became advanced life support in 1974 only those individuals assigned to the ambulance (or anyone who desired to attend the classes) were required to possess a paramedic license. The board of directors who brought EMS to Mehlville decided both careers were too technical (and getting more complex as time went on) to maintain real proficiency and decided to maintain a two division system whereby the firefighters concentrated on those job tasks and the paramedics concerned themselves with field medicine. There have been a number of societal needs since then that have caused these two groups to step into each other’s areas of expertise. Some of these would include such things as hazardous materials mitigation, clandestine drug labs and terrorism.
The fact that that original board elected to follow a paradigm of separate divisions when many other departments and fire districts chose to cross-train does not make that paradigm incorrect. There are some on a national level who are re-examining the benefits of cross-training in an increasingly intricate environment. Over the years, the boards of directors found benefit in maintaining two divisions and, in fact, tacitly discouraged cross-training. For a very long time, the only way for someone to enter the St. Louis County Fire Academy was through sponsorship by a fire department or district usually as a result of employment. At Mehlville, if you were not already a firefighter with academy training, it was nearly impossible to be sponsored by the administration for entrance to the academy. The first two who successfully breached that policy were required to jump through increasingly difficult hoops in order to secure that training. They successfully graduated but were not welcomed by the administration. They were denied transfer to the fire division and, in fact, were required to quit the district and reapply for positions as firefighters without guarantee of employment. This situation also resulted in them losing any accrued benefits from their years as paramedics with the district. One of them stayed and one left for another fire district. Since then, the system has become streamlined and the paradigm shift that occurred in 2005 has allowed those who want to go to the academy some access. It is still far from a perfect situation. A firefighter desiring to attend paramedic school is now faced with a two year commitment to a program that includes a significant number of hours spent in clinical activities in hospitals and with other EMS or fire agencies. Most programs will not allow an individual working for an EMS or fire agency to perform their clinical hours with their own agency.
Are these people unqualified? No, not by a long shot. They’ve just been caught up in a policy shift and some very nasty politics. They want to do their jobs, the jobs they applied for long ago and have been proudly and professionally doing for years.
Here is a good question, if the straight firefighters and straight medics at the Mehlville Fire Department are so quailfied why can't they find jobs on other fire deparements. ANSWER they are not quaified:
Who is blogger 3:39 pm trying to fool all of us that no better. The Paramedic / firefighter has been around since 1970 and is working at all other fire departments in the metro St. Louis Area. The past board at Mehlville were operating in the dark ages with to concept of public services. Why was Mehlville the last fire department in the area to go to paramedic /firefighters. I truley believe these people were afraid of progress and did not want change for the better of the community. Blogger 3:39 you are dead wrong and surley do not want to see life saving up-grades in the Mehlville Fire Department.
I find it amazing that in these troubled times people are so excited about making this country as great as it was 10 years ago. I have 2 children that will be voting for their first time. They are both excited in the change that is going to come. Where people don't have to worry about if their jobs are in parole, health insurance is too much for families to afford or paying too much in taxes. In a world where people care about each other and help one another. Voting for hope and not fear. Where you are encouraged and not discouraged. These are exciting times!!!
We'll see you at the polls!
Any smart person that knows the fire service is fully aware that the EMS concept in the fire service does work and has been working for a long time. As an individual that has done both, it is a great thing for the community and does save lives.
No one is trying to fool anyone, although I am still trying to work through the syntax of the first sentence of 7:42 pm’s post. You guys really have to read all of what is written. I wasn’t saying the firefighter/paramedic concept was flawed. I WAS saying previous boards of directors of Mehlville Fire had elected to follow a different paradigm. These boards made it very difficult, if not impossible, for employees of either division to cross-train and would not allow movement between the divisions if someone was cross-trained. It is not the employees of Mehlville who were resistant to change. It was the earlier boards of directors. I think to accuse those senior firefighters and paramedics who worked within that system of being unqualified when they are perfectly qualified to do the jobs they were hired for is disingenuous and panders to a politically divisive group apparently bent on destroying the fire district. I would also say to 7:42 that firefighter/EMTs were around in 1970. The firefighter/paramedic position didn’t come into being in the St. Louis area until 1974 with most of those first paramedics coming out of the program at St. John's Mercy going to Mehlville and Creve Coeur fire protection districts. I would also offer this as an aside. It would be interesting for all of the readers of this ongoing discussion to find out for themselves how long a newly hired firefighter/paramedic in districts surrounding Mehlville is required to maintain his/her paramedic licensure after they are hired. In many of these districts, the firefighter/paramedic is allowed to drop their paramedic licensure and maintain an EMT licensure after a certain number of years (usually 5-10).
This is pathetic! I stopped into a Mehlville Firehouse this A.M to ask about there flags at full staff. In case you didn't know a police officer and a firefighter were gunned down in the past week.
Turns out that no one can get ahold of the Chief so he can make a decision! What are they paying this guy for! Where is he that no one can get a huge decision like this made! What kind of administration are they running up there! Pathetic!
First of all it has not been officially declared to fly the flags at half staff and second of all the fire chief does not have the authority until it has been declared.
Blogger 6:41 am, Don't give me that shit you stopped by the fire house at 6:41 am and no one notified the Chief. I called an individual from the fire house and they said the chief did not get in until 7:30 pm.
I drove by two of Kirkwoods fire house to day and neither one had there flags at half staff.
Regardless, the Chief SHOULD have the authority to have the flags lowered. The fire district is not a state entity that requires permission from the state to lower the flag. They can when they feel it is necessary. Why it was not done is easy to figure out....Aaron won't allow it because he hates firemen. Apparently the Chief knows what happened because he posted a message on the Crestwood blog today at 10am telling everyone to say a prayer for first responders. Nice to see he woke up from his nap. My heart goes out to the St. Louis Fire Department.
I take exception to refering to Jim Silvernail as "Chief". He is nothing more than a free loader that should have stayed "retired". I hear he was a stand up guy at one time. That is very hard to believe now. I could not believe that he would be blogging at 10am on a work day. That is usually when you find him sleeping at his desk (not a joke, seen it for myself many times) or out driving who knows where with the Lemay "Chief". I had to see it for myself and sure enough it was true. I wonder what would happen to a member of 1889 if they were on a blog site while on duty and Aaron Hilmer found out. The IAFF would be filing another suit to get a firefighter's job back is what would happen. Anyway, Jim Silvernail has become nothing more than a free loading, media whore glad hander. His son must be very proud. Its a shame that he is tarnishing his kids image too.
Has anyone seen the latest blog in the Truth Spot (Same old Propaganda) This blog is very true and tells it like it is. By the way Unicom is presently being investigated.
Have a good day and remember last place is not so bad.
8:58 You really don't want to go there. In three years, Hilmer and Co have hired politically connected cronies for every level of department business you can name starting with the position of chief which was filled ten minutes into the first meeting Hilmer presided over..after first proclaiming himself king, of course.
Silvernail, who once commanded and deserved some level of respect, was a lame duck joke from the get-go. He is in place (when he bothers to show up)to schmooze the press and backslap everyone else.
Investments have been re-directed to Mike Leara to his very definite financial advantage.
Marty Becker, the brother of Republican money shuffler Mike Becker happened to find employment under Hilmer. Wow, what a coincidence!
The list is much longer.
As for the TruthDegrader blogspot, as usual all evil begins and ends with the school district, the teachers and the firefighters' union.
Stonebraker is quick to brand fire union officials "disgraced" but has nothing to say about the head of Metro Security, the half-ass investigative firm Hilmer brought in to lynch the union. Timothy Moore resigned from the SLPD in disgrace after coercing fellow officers into framing his ex-wife for lewd conduct. What a prince!
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