The head of one of the unions representing D.C.’s firefighters is blasting a quote from an unnamed aide to Mayor Vince Gray that firefighters are “fabricating” claims about fire trucks being out of service.
The quote in question appears today in Harry Jaffe’s column in The Washington Examiner. In the article, Jaffe reports that the board of directors of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 36 decided earlier this week to call for a vote of “no confidence” in D.C. Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe at a union meeting later this month. The union, which has long been at odds with Ellerbe, is concerned that the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services’ fleet is hamstrung with out-of-service vehicles. The issue has gotten to such a point, that firefighters currently have no reserve ladder trucks to call up, says Ed Smith, president of the 1,800-member union.
“It’s offensive and irresponsible,” Smith says in an interview. “The men and women of this department are doing the best with what they have day in and day out.”
According to documents FEMS submitted to the D.C. Council for an oversight hearing last month, the department lists 29 ladder trucks in its fleet, 16 of which are on front-line operations, with the remainder in reserve. But Smith says only 15 are actually in functional service. A press release from IAFF includes a photo of a ladder truck that, while listed among the fire department’s reserve units, features in its front window a sign stating it has been out of service since October 2010.
In particular, Smith says the ladder truck meant to be housed at a fire station in Brightwood has been out of service for some time and is being replaced by a rotation of in-service trucks from other stations. Currently, he says, the truck belonging to the Shaw fire station is filling that role, while the trucks officially listed as reserve units either are not or cannot be put into active service.
“Where’s the rest of them at?” Smith asks. “They play a shell game.”
But an aide in the mayor’s office says that the union routinely uses equipment failures as a method to attack Ellerbe, who the aide says Local 36 is “hell-bent” on breaking. The Gray administration also notes that in recent years, more emergency calls have gone out for medical assistance than fires, which is why Ellerbe is attempting to recruit former U.S. military medics as the next classes of paramedics and emergency medical technicians.
Members of IAFF, however, “refuse to adapt” to D.C.’s shifting needs, the aide says.
And the city is also questioning why some emergency response vehicles are taken out of service. At a press conference last week following a recent incident in which a D.C. police officer who was struck by a car was picked up by an ambulance from Prince George’s County, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Paul Quander said that some of the D.C. ambulances that were unable to respond to the injured officer might have been removed from service for “inappropriate” reasons.
