The Free Press article begins:
Detroit will train up to 100 new firefighters, move fire stations and place new equipment in them and redeploy firefighters across the city. . . .
Edward J. Plawecki Jr., the former judge hired to help craft the plan, said his work is a direct response to a dangerous reality: Detroit has fewer than 800 firefighters, 40 operating fire stations and only 20 ambulances.
Riley quotes Plawecki, a consultant hired by Orr, as saying new hiring "depends on the number of stations left open and potential vacancies.” That probably means "about a hundred additional firefighters," he adds, using the same figure announced last month.
The newspaper says the consultant spoke "at Orr’s request in response to the question of whether the city is safe after losing more than a fifth of its firefighters.
“The city is safe,” Plawecki said.
His restructuring plan comes in mid-September, Riley writes.
Plawecki offered few details about the report but did say that the city will get 40 new ambulances — 20 in August and 20 in October. Additionally, six to eight private ambulances will continue to be in service daily.
Cover of a recruiting flyer announcing an application period that was to start July 19.
Union leaders are working harmoniously with the retired judge, according to the article. Dan McNamara, head of the Detroit Fire Fighters Association, tells Riley the city is listening to firefighters for the first time in decades.
“The union has been asking for years to be able to be part of the solution, and it’s turning out that we’re being heard,” McNamara said. “The emergency manager and his team have reached out to us and want to see a plan from us, and we want to give them one because the safety of the residents is most important."
A day earlier, though, McNamara sounded surprised by the abrupt recruiting delay. "We have thousands of people who were getting ready to get their application,” he told blogger Steve Neavling.
The union leader also criticized a move by Fire Commisioner Don Austin to outsource agility training for new recruits to Schoolcraft Community College in Livonia, which Neavling said awaits certification for that role. (Two reader comments below this article challenge that claim.)
Riley's article doesn't mention that issue.
Saturday afternoon article:
Once again, a Detroit city department manages -- or mismanages -- to turn a forward march into an about-face.
Instead of accepting applications Monday to pick 100 fire fighting trainees, as the Detroit Fire Department announced earlier this summer, there's an indefinite delay in filling any vacancies.
Word of the abrupt announcement Friday was spread Saturday morning on Facebook by Detroit Firehouse and reported about three hours later by blogger Steve Neavling at Motor City Muckraker.
Dan McNamara, president of the Detroit Fire Fighters Association, tells the former Free Press reporter: “We have thousands of people who were getting ready to get their application.”
Recruiting is suspended because of a decision by Fire Commissioner Don Austin "to outsource a major component of the training and exam that prospective firefighters take to determine whether they are fit for the job," according to Neavling.
Firefighters respond in Southwest Detroit four months ago. (YouTube image/Blake Arnold)
For its part, the authoritative Detroit Firehouse page says:
Money has been set aside for hiring. They know you have to have public safety as a building block for the city. There are rumors as to why it was canceled, so we will wait until truth is known, but money is not the issue.
In his post, Neavling provides background and commentary:
The Detroit Fire Department is so dangerously understaffed that the federal government awarded the city a record $22.5 million grant last summer to hire new firefighters. . . .
On Friday, the administration quietly announced it would not begin taking applications for new firefighters on Monday, as planned, and placed the hiring process on hold indefinitely. That means the city’s aging, understaffed force will continue to operate without enough firefighters to handle more than 20 fires a day, many of which are deliberately set. . . .
Austin’s plan is to outsource agility training to Schoolcraft Community College in Livonia, a move that starves the city of an estimated $300,000 or so in much-needed revenue, which would come from nominal fees charged to applicants. The school, it turns out, is not properly certified yet to handle the training.
As Neavling sees it, "moving the training to Livonia, which is a 20-minute drive from the Motor City, makes it difficult for many Detroiters to participate at a time when the city has staggering unemployment rates and few job opportunities." On his blog's Facebook page, he comments: "Even when the city has the money, it drops the ball."
Union leader McNamara's viewpoint is presented in the Muckraker post:
“Our academy has the ability to continue doing what it has in Detroit by raising revenue for the city of Detroit. . . . In this financial crisis, every penny counts as we try to keep money in a fire department that is in critical need of revenue.”
