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IAFF Local 1799 president: Ogdensburg manager wants to have his way, no matter how unsafe or how much resistance he gets

Posted 1/8/21

To the editor: Ogdensburg City Manager (CM) Steve Jellie, who recently laid off five firefighters, wants desperately to have his way, no matter how unsafe or how much resistance he gets. Ogdensburg …

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IAFF Local 1799 president: Ogdensburg manager wants to have his way, no matter how unsafe or how much resistance he gets

Posted

To the editor:

Ogdensburg City Manager (CM) Steve Jellie, who recently laid off five firefighters, wants desperately to have his way, no matter how unsafe or how much resistance he gets. Ogdensburg Firefighters are UNANIMOUSLY opposed to running only one engine to all emergency calls. The CM simply won’t listen and is pushing us to implement his “plan”.

When given multiple reasons why the change should not be made, including actual scenarios we face, he simply shrugs them off. He doesn’t even try to justify or give logical reasons for the change, he just says, ‘oh well, it’s what I want.’ He’s obviously making this decision as City Manager, to suit his destructive agenda, not as a responsible Fire Chief.

Our department’s Assistant Chiefs provided a long list of concerns back in October and he didn’t even consider them. How is that leadership? No former Chief of our department would have even thought of instituting such a change after receiving unanimous opposition from department officers and firefighters.

One big concern we currently have, and shared with the CM, is the growing spread of COVID-19. In a NYS DOH online document titled, INTERIM GUIDANCE FOR FIRE SERVICE AGENCIES TO LIMIT POTENTIAL EXPOSURE TO COVID-19, it advises the opposite of the CM’s “plan”.

In a section titled, SPECIFIC MITIGATION STRATEGIES FOR FIREFIGHTING PERSONNEL, it says to; “Reduce crew size in each vehicle or increase the number of vehicles in a response, to the extent practicable."

So with this DOH recommended mitigation strategy and COVID-19 cases in our community on the rise, the CM wants to put more of our personnel on one vehicle. Does that make sense?

We currently respond to certain calls (including EMS) with a crew of two members on one vehicle. The CM’s “plan” is to now put a crew of four and sometimes five personnel on one vehicle for these calls. So he’s not simply disregarding the DOH strategy for limiting exposure, he’s making a change that goes completely against it, potentially exposing more of our members.

There’s so many reasons why his one engine response is a bad idea, and we will eventually pay the price for this thoughtless move. Responding to a structure fire with only one engine, with a backup engine at least 10 minutes behind, could very well have devastating consequences.

We’re at a complete loss for how and why this is happening. One man can ride into the city occasionally (he still doesn’t live here) and alone decide to put our members and the community at greater risk. And when he’s strongly advised against it, by DOH Guidance on limiting COVID-19 exposure and by our members who actually respond to emergency calls in the city (which he’s never done), he stubbornly refuses to listen.

We urge city residents to call your elected officials and tell them you choose public safety. We hope to stay safe, so we can safely help those in need. And please don’t forget that five firefighters are out of a job because of Steve Jellie. How much damage will we allow this one man to inflict on our community?

Sincerely,

Jason T. Bouchard

President, IAFF Local 1799