PHILLY POLITICIANS: PIGS AT THE TROUGH

While the recession plods forward and the City of Philadelphia asks its workers to swallow no salary increases for the next four years, all elected officials are up for 5 percent raises Tuesday.

Annual cost-of-living-adjustments, or COLAs, are due to the mayor, City Council, and row officers on June 30 under the 2003 law that set current salaries.

Mayor Nutter will give back his 5.13 percent increase, as will 19 cabinet members and commissioners who are scheduled for the increase, a spokesman said yesterday.

Nutter slashed his $186,044 salary 10 percent in November in announcing budget cuts to deal with the worsening financial crisis. The COLA amount is $9,544, for a total giveback of about $28,000. Nutter is also taking a 2 percent cut in the form of a one-week furlough this year – five unpaid vacation days that he’ll most likely work through.

The Nutter administration has asked the four unions representing the city’s more than 20,000 blue- and white-collar workers, whose contracts expire Tuesday, to accept four-year contracts with no raises. In that light, Clarke said, it may be difficult for Council members to accept an increase in their $112,233 salaries.

I didn’t post this for a couple days because I worked through the holiday weekend. In case anyone wondered Independence Day in Philly, especially where I work is a mad house. Hundreds of thousands of tourists pile into the city for the festivities. With the recent fire department cutbacks and closings we are being hammered with calls.

Amid Philly’s never ending, dismal financial situation we get this sickening story of our world class, greedy politicians. While the city is asking the rank and file workers to take ZERO pay increases (While the cost of living by their own admission has gone up 5.13%) draconian work rule changes, and benefit cuts, they are getting a 5.13% INCREASE! Can you believe it? Only in Philly.

Now many of the recipients are stating they are “giving back” the raises. Well that’s up for debate. There is no mechanism for a city employee to refuse their pay. You work, they have to pay you. What you do with that money is up to you. But since this pay raise is automatic, like the greedy Harrisburg politicians, City Council and the rest of the bureaucrats will get their pay raise.

Most like Mayor Nutter and Council will probably write a symbolic check to the treasury for the amount of the raise. This year. But what about next year when no one is looking? While he and City Council may donate the money back to the city, their base pay has gone up on paper. The increase will be there every year from now on. That means their PENSION will go up as well. They will also pay taxes on the money as earned income correct? Or will they? Will they find a loophole as some sort of charitable donation where the raise stays in effect, that way they can collect on it later? No one seems to have answers to those questions. Nor is the MSM asking them. LINK

City Controller Alan Butkovitz said he would not accept the increase “because the city is still in severe financial crisis, the budget is not resolved, the city workers are being asked for substantial sacrifices, and city taxpayers still look like they’re going to be asked for substantial sacrifices.

Butkovitz said he would keep his take-home pay at its current level – his $115,627 salary minus 5 percent, a reduction he volunteered for as part of budget cuts. Register of Wills Ronald Donatucci also gave back 5 percent of his salary.

Donatucci said he would accept the COLA, which will move his salary from $112,233 to $117,991, then give back 5 percent to the city as he has done for the last six months. So, in effect, Donatucci breaks even and will take home about 5 percent more than he has for the last six months.

Aside from the COLA, the eight Council members who gave back 5 percent of their salaries over the last six months have to decide whether to continue that act. Those who took the cut – they had to accept the money in their paychecks, then hand it back to the city – were Verna, Majority Leader Marian Tasco, Frank DiCicco, Wilson Goode Jr., Bill Green, Curtis Jones Jr., Jim Kenney, and Joan Krajewski.

Kenney is the only one who has officially committed to the cut for fiscal 2010, beginning Wednesday, according to the President’s Office. Green said he would also take the 5 percent cut in the form of payroll deductions to the Friends of the Free Library. Last year, Council passed Green’s bill that created such a payroll deduction.

While we can’t keep our firetrucks on the street City politicos are getting raises. In my station three out of three trucks are in the garage for maintenance. Our ladder has been in for months and the brand new engine is down already. We got the ambulance back first day work only to have it break down on the second. This isn’t uncommon. There is virtually no preventive maintenance program fo our fleet. Millions of taxpayer dollars get wasted because basic mechanical issues go unresolved month after month. It’s sickening.

This story just reinforces the position that tax increases are absolutely the worst thing we can do. The only way to truely stop this greed is for City Council to pass an ordinance repealing the pay raises. I’ll let you know when that happens…

HOMELESS, COPS AND BIG CITY LIBERALS

The homeless man made his first emergency call to police at 6 a.m. Friday. From a call box in the below-ground concourse of the Municipal Services Building, he kept calling – and hanging up. Calling – and hanging up. After the 40th time, a police officer was dispatched at 8:25 a.m. to see what was going on. But what started as a response to disorderly conduct ended with two police officers fatally shooting the homeless man – the 12th person killed by police this year.

Police were withholding the identity of the 59-year-old African-American man, pending the notification of his family, said Sgt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman. Evers said the man had no identification on him and had to be identified using fingerprints. Both the Homicide Unit and police Internal Affairs are investigating the shooting. Both officers, whose names were not released, have been on the force for more than 20 years.

After arriving on the scene, the foot patrol officer was joined by bike officer. Evers said as the patrol officer approached the man, he was once again using the emergency call box. “He confronted him, saying, ‘What are you doing? You can’t do that,’ ” Evers said. A security guard inside the municipal building, who did not give her name, said she saw the officers chase the man through a tunnel leading to the concourse. Once he was outside near the bench where he often slept, the man pulled out a utility knife. Evers said the knife was the type used to cut dry wall or carpet. “The officer tells him over 50 times to drop the knife,” Evers said. Police said he lunged at the officers. They fired, hitting the man in the torso. LINK

They fired, hitting the man in the torso. That’s where we come in. I knew something was up when I saw the news helicopter hovering around the City Hall area. With no real traffic on this long holiday weekend there wasn’t much of a rush hour this morning. So a hovering news helicopter in that area of town is out of the ordinary. Just as I was noticing the hovering helicopter, our engine and medics got the call for a shooting, just yards from city hall. Mystery solved.

We had no idea that this was a police-involved shooting. When the engine returned they told us their tale. There was a man down with dozens of police officers swarming the area. The police had shot a homeless man in the subway after he attacked them with a box cutter. It wasn’t long before the story hit the local airways. It’s amazing how wrong news reports (especially initial reports) often are. The final story bears some resemblance to what really happened. What the news didn’t mention is that the security guard they quoted is a prior convict with a bunch of convictions. ‘Nuff said.

The medics tried to save the man, but there wasn’t much that could be done. There is a trauma center about three blocks away but even that wasn’t enough. Our guys did confirm that the man still had the box cutter clenched in his hand when they arrived. It’s not uncommon for the homeless to arm themselves with knives and box cutters. Their violent world is up close and personal, and a box cutter in close quarters is a savage weapon.

There is a bigger issue here beyond this confrontation, though. It is simply a tragedy that didn’t have to happen. Since the courts have ruled that homeless, drug addicted,  mental patients are allowed to roam our streets freely and terrorize law abiding citizens, we have to put up with people who are in desperate need of institutionalization and treatment. Some argue that putting them in mental homes where they belong costs money we don’t have. That is a false argument. It costs a boatload of money to let them constantly drain law enforcement, emergency services, and hospital resources right now.

This is a glaring example of judicial activism and its implications for society. It is also an example of how a liberal city chooses not only to ignore a social problem, but foster it at the same time. The city refuses to clear the underground passages around the subway system, despite there being at least four shelters in the immediate area. After dark, the subway often resembles a scene out of a science fiction movie – where zombies have taken over the planet. I would not go down there unless I was working. Nice, huh?

Needless to say, this was the main event of our day. Since the man died, both the engine and medic unit crews had to be interviewed by detectives. Of course, we fed them lunch and cooperated with their investigation. Often when the police are involved in shootings people claim to be witnesses who are not. It is not beyond some people to make up stories and flat out lie to investigators just to take a police officer down. The detectives seemed pretty happy to have reliable witnesses for a change.

To a man we were glad it wasn’t a police officer being transported to the trauma center this time. Sooner or later, the politicians have to wise up and come to terms with the fact these feel good liberal attitudes and policies are failures. Until then, we will continue to see deadly confrontations with these urban zombies.

And the wheel goes round…

OFFICER PROBED IN GUN DISCHARGE

PHILADELPHIA – Philadelphia police investigate an officer firing her gun inside the 12th District building.

It happened at 65th Street and Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia Wednesday morning.

Police say it looks like an accident and no one was hurt.

Internal Affairs is investigating. LINK

Next door to my old firehouse. Same building. Oh yeah, black female – Sgt. fired off a round during roll call. Apparently unable to clear a handgun properly. Let’s hear it for diversity. You can’t make this stuff up.

JASON OGLESBEE – AMERICAN HERO

PIC OF THE YEAR:

THIS SHOT HAS MY VOTE FOR A PULITZER

There are few things more inherently dangerous, more certain to kill you in this world, than hydraulic dams. As emergency service professionals, we are acutely aware of the dangers involved in these life or death situations. That’s because in the past rescuers  have lost their lives in exactly the same situations. LINK

So I tip my hat to Jason Oglesbee for his heroic rescue of a woman trapped by such a dam after her boat went over the falls. To illustrate the point, her companion drowned. It’s one thing to knowingly take risks you are trained for but something altogether different to put your life on the line in a gamble.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts and training we fail to save someone. We take that personally. In this case, initial efforts to get to the woman did fail. It was due to quick thinking construction workers who used a nearby crane that this woman is alive today. It takes a lot of skill to pull that off.

So remember that the next time you pass a construction site. Real heroes come from many different walks of life.

PHILLY FIRE OFFICERS WIN REVERSE DISCRIMINATION CASE

The City of Philadelphia this year quietly paid out $275,000 to settle claims by five white firefighters that they had been discriminated against in the promotion process.

Not only did the city pay five lieutenants between $30,000 and $40,000 each in the January settlement of a 2007 federal civil-rights lawsuit, but the Fire Department also agreed to address the officers’ complaints that the promotional exams they took in 2005 were skewed against them in favor of minority candidates.

The settlement suggests that the city gave some credibility to the officers’ claims – including one that the city purposely brought in minority officers to administer the tests.

The settlement was marked “confidential,” but the city released it to The Inquirer under the state Right to Know Act.

The settlement allowed the city to avoid a lengthy litigation and appeals process such as the City of New Haven, Conn., experienced in a 2004 lawsuit by 20 white firefighters who challenged their city’s promotion process. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor.

The Philadelphia case underscores a similar, ongoing racial tension in the department in regard to promotions and how the tests are given and scored.

Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers could not be reached for comment. Everett Gillison, the deputy mayor for public safety, said he was not familiar with details of the lawsuit and would not comment until he had reviewed it.

The Philadelphia lieutenants – Francis J. Hannan, Joseph Lee Jr., Gerard Kots, Michael Wellock, and Thomas G. Leonard – sued the city in September 2007, claiming that they had been “systematically or otherwise downgraded” because of their race during the oral portion of the July 2005 fire captain’s examination.

None of the five was promoted at the time – Hannan and Lee made captain in subsequent promotion rounds.

In the suit, the men alleged that the “raters” – fire officers from other cities brought in to administer tests, a practice in most departments – were told before the tests that the department “was ‘in dire’ need of minority and female fire officers,” according to the complaint.

Of the 14 raters brought in for the 2005 captains test, 10 were African American, some of them members of the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters, which has advanced the cause of blacks in the firehouses nationally, according to the complaint.

The five white lieutenants lost points for such things as lack of “appropriate eye contact,” mistakenly addressing a female rater as “Sir,” and for “being too wordy,” according to the complaint. LINK

I am well aware of this lawsuit and settlement, but until it hit the open media I have withheld my comments. Now it’s plain to see that the problem of reverse racism is alive and well in major American cities like Philadelphia.

If you thought New Haven was an isolated case, think again. Institutional reverse racism has been a growing problem for many years. It is fostered by the Left in their never ending quest for “Social Justice” and “Social Engineering.” It is often disguised by terms like “Diversity” and “Awareness.” It is force fed to us by zealots in personnel departments and used to cover the inequities of “Protected Classes.”

I have been through the promotional process about five times in my career. I have found it to be arbitrary, subjective and biased. I have also worked hard to overcome these issues by being 100% as professional and knowledgeable as I can be. In other words, when it comes to firefighting I have to make sure I know my sh*t twice as good as other people in order to leave the raters with no excuse to pass me over.

Others have not been so lucky. I know every one of the men mentioned in this article. To a man, they are the cream of the crop and should have been treated fairly. The City of Philadelphia’s admission and settlement is proof positive that racism is alive and well in our department, and I suspect many others as well.

For years while liberals have preached level playing fields and diversity they have worked behind the scenes to exclude the best and brightest – often by illegal methods. Right now four of the top five command positions in the PFD are held by minority officers.

These are not new allegations. The administration of the PFD specifically asked for and got the testing firm they wanted last time around, even at a higher cost to taxpayers. You can draw your own conclusions as to why a city in dire financial straits spends more money than it should just to administer a promotional exam. The personnel department makes up the written test simply by flipping through a textbook and picking random questions. How difficult is that to comprehend? It is the oral portion of the exam where all bets are off.

This issue has serious implications for me, as I am waiting on the test date to be announced for the next Battalion Chief’s exam. I have to prepare myself not only professionally but socially. I have to worry not only about the exam questions but the raters’ impartiality as well. These issues simply have no place in our supposed colorblind society. Does anyone think I could do my job if I took race into account every time I answered a call? I spend every shift serving the PEOPLE who call us. Everyone gets the same standard of care the situation warrants, without exception.

It’s time we start waking up and demanding an end to racial preferences and quotas of any sort. There is simply no reason in this day and age to justify using someone’s race, gender, ethnicity or any other non-job-related criteria in hiring or promotion. It is time to make sure the best, brightest and hardest working PEOPLE are rewarded.

MY APOLOGIES

A quick apology for my lack of posting lately but I have a feeble explanation. A few months ago we had an addition put on the house. It is the second phase of a project that involved some major work like the new driveway we had put in back in December. Unfortunately my untimely injury threw the schedule way out of whack.

Since money is always a consideration it was decided to have the contractor build the addition and finish the exterior and I (with the help of Fireboat John) would finish the inside thus saving a boatload of cash. Since I was unable to work at full capacity what should have been a month long project dragged out over five. Now that I am back to work (at about 90%) things are headed into the home stretch. Today is paint day and it’s all hands on deck. That leaves only the floor and it will be time to shop for furniture. Ugh. Does it ever end?

Anyway a few issues that I’ll be thinking and posting about in the near future: As of midnight last night all Philadelphia city employees are working without contracts. Cops and firefighters can’t strike but the other major city unions can and it looks as if this Mayor is looking for a showdown. Stay tuned.

In August I’ll be heading to Switzerland for a family vacation. The kids and the Oberfrau are heading to Italy in about two weeks to vacation with her sister and their family. I’ll be meeting up with them later. This should be the kind of vacation I really need- no possibility of working overtime or around the house. Just R&R with some tome to let my aching back muscles heal.

Our immaculate President has decided that he couldn’t interfere in Iran (our sworn enemy) where their people demonstrated for freedom but has no problem interfering in Honduras when it comes to propping up a left wing regime. Go figure.

Anyway I should get back to more normal posting as soon as I can swing it. See ya.

IRON MAIDEN TUESDAY

Be Quick or Be Dead.  Up the irons!

FIREFIGHTER VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Plaintiff (Frank Ricci) in the Ricci case. In essence, they have upheld this firefighter’s complaint of REVERSE DISCRIMINATION in the promotional process!!! This is a GIGANTIC, stunning victory for hard working firefighters all across America. This opinion reaffirms that skin color shouldn’t be a factor in the promotional process when there is an otherwise level playing field.

This kind of discrimination has plagued fire and police departments for years and was a factor in a Battalion Chief case in Philly a decade ago. In nearly the same scenario, the Battalion Chief’s promotional exam was held up nearly eight years due to unfounded allegations of cheating by white firefighters. For eight years, no Chiefs were promoted – destroying the careers of quite a few.

This is also a stunning rebuke and further evidence of Sonia Sotomayor’s lack of qualification for a seat on the High Court. In essence, the majority of sitting Justices have turned back a decision she upheld. What is even more disturbing is the fact that that FOUR Justices – Ginsberg, Souter, Stevens and Breyer – found merit in reverse discrimination! This is a very dangerous situation when four supposedly neutral judges consistently make their rulings based on ideology, not the law. It is also a rebuke of the International Association of Firefighters who support Sonia Sotomayor against the interest of all its members.

How in God’s green Earth can you say that given a fair test, equal access to study material, an open competitive exam and on and on, that there is discrimination involved because some people didn’t study as hard as others? There is ZERO evidence of discrimination involved. Yet there is TONS of evidence that the plaintiff put in a superhuman effort to get promoted. What did Sonia Sotomayor see, other than her hatred of white men, that allowed her to make the ruling she did? Her neutrality and ability to deliver fair and impartial justice is now seriously in question.

I work with some very sharp people. I also work with some stone dopes. They come in all colors and ethnicitys. It’s funny, the rank and file know who is worthy of promotion. When the promotional lists come out everyone knows automatically who is deserving of promotion and who the frauds are – black, white or otherwise. The fire ground is the great equalizer. Either you lead from the front or you chase kinks. The men know.

My one fear now is that Personnel departments in cities across our land will make the tests so Mickey Mouse simple that everyone gets high scores and then they will use some other grading scheme (like “Random” numbers) or (”Composite scores”) whatever they are, to manipulate the lists to get who they want. These social engineers aren’t finished. They will be back. For now all we can do is savor the victory!

Congratulations to the soon to be new Lieutenants of New Haven. Stay safe and God bless!

S.C.O.T.U.S. FIREFIGHTER CASE

Stand by for live blogging on the Supreme Court’s decision in the New Haven firefighter discrimination case. This case will directly impact my life and career, so I am waiting on pins and needles. Ironically CNN has nothing on this case on their web page. Duh.

BILLY MAYS DEAD AT 50

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50.

Tampa police said Mays was found unresponsive by his wife Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m.

There were no signs of a break-in, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn’t answer any more questions about how Mays’ body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner’s office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

Mays’ wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators that her husband had complained he didn’t feel well before he went to bed some time after 10 p.m. Saturday night, Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

“Although Billy lived a public life, we don’t anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days,” Deborah Mays said in a statement Sunday. “Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times.” LINK

Since work had me strung out this week, I did virtually nothing on the rash of celebrity deaths. Well, it looks like I’m out front on this one. DRUDGE REPORT is reporting that TV pitchman Billy Mays has died. Like him or not, Billy Mays was great at what he did – pitch everyday products to millions of Americans. Thanks to him, I have dozens of empty OxyClean bins in my shed with all kinds of assorted nuts, bolts and nails in them. I’d be lost without them. It looks like we are stuck with Vince the ShamWow Guy now. In all seriousness, 50 years old is too young for anyone to leave this Earth and I’m sure his family is devastated.

My condolences go out to them.