A response by Alan Shaw to the article titled: Belltown department sues over budget, By Stephen P. Clark, Staff Writer & published in the Stamford Advocate on April 16, 2008. Response is in the red rectanges.

After losing nearly 90 percent of their funding in Mayor Dannel Malloy's spending plan for next fiscal year, Belltown Fire Department officials are taking the city to court.

Belltown filed a lawsuit this week seeking an injunction that would force the city to fund the department at an operational level.

Taking the city to court was never our first option. Throughout this process we have still held out hope that the city would do the right thing and fund our operation like they did before and during our management agreement. Sadly this optimism has been apparently misplaced and we have had to seek a legal remedy in order to provide the same high level of protection to our residents that we have since 1928. This is one more example of neighbors helping neighbors.

Malloy set aside $20,000 for the department in his budget after Belltown fire officials refused to join the city's consolidation plan, which would have merged Belltown, Glenbrook and Turn of River volunteer fire departments with the paid fire departments. Belltown received nearly $160,000 this fiscal year and sought $203,000 for 2008-09.

This drastic cut has never been explained, nor has the fact that the city’s smallest fire district (Glenbrook) has been allocated $163,881 for fewer calls, fewer members and fewer square miles than Belltown. The city’s largest fire district (Turn of River) has also been subjected to the Mayor’s political games, but at least they have been told they will get their money if they give up and do as they are told.

Because the city is no longer required to fund Belltown's operations after a management agreement expired last year, Malloy said $20,000 would be enough to pay for fuel costs. Belltown fire officials accused the mayor of trying to put them out of business.

The misinformation being provided is that somehow the end of the management agreement is the same as the end of the Belltown Fire Department. The management agreement was never about the operating budget, it was all about supposedly saving money from the salary, benefits and overtime budget for the career Firefighters at Belltown. Despite the city proposing this agreement in the name of savings, and taking over responsibility for managing these funds, they later claimed it needed to be dissolved in order to save money from these same budget areas. The agreement clearly stated that if the agreement was terminated, that the Belltown Fire Department would continue to operate as a Volunteer Fire Department. We had no reason to believe that this operation would be funded any differently than it was before or during the agreement.

The complaint, filed in state Superior Court in Bridgeport, charges the city with trying to replace the fire protection offered by Belltown firehouse with Stamford Fire & Rescue.

The City Charter limits the Stamford Fire Rescue district and the authority of the City Fire Chief to that district. The so-called consolidation plan is in direct violation of the City Charter.

"Without intervention by this court, the Belltown Fire Department will not survive," the complaint contends.

The court filing also states that Malloy administration officials are violating the City Charter by siphoning tax revenues intended to support Belltown Fire Department and charging residents more money for fire protection from Stamford Fire & Rescue.

The “mere pennies” that were added to our residents property taxes in anticipation of this consolidation plan, has obviously not been used to fund the lack of a complete plan proposed by the city. More residents should be asking where the money is going.

Malloy scoffed at the lawsuit.

At least Mayor Malloy is finally being honest about his disdain for Stamford Volunteer Firefighters.

"It's a little bit like a person murdering their parents and then claiming they should have mercy because they're an orphan," he said. "The bottom line is they created this situation."

There is no need to be insulting. How can you possibly compare a group of people who selflessly donate their time to protect life and property to cold-blooded murderers is beyond me. Despite this insult, the simple fact remains that the Belltown Fire Department did not create this mess; this situation was created by the Malloy administration and perpetuated by the Malloy administration.

Malloy said that it is unknown whether Belltown residents will pay more for fire protection, because the Board of Finance does not set the mill rate until next month. But he said they are now getting improved fire protection.

As with all aspects of this issue, Mayor Malloy attempts to shift blame towards someone else, this time the Board of Finance, another group of people who don’t get paid for their service.

"Let me assure you that the residents of Belltown are receiving their money's worth," Malloy said, noting that Belltown fire officials admitted they could not guarantee a daytime response to fires by their volunteers. According to the paid firefighters union, only one Belltown volunteer responded to emergency calls and fewer than one at Glenbrook. Volunteer chiefs did not dispute the union's estimates.

Since January 2, 2008 the Belltown Fire Department has responded to every call for service we have received. How anyone could think that response statistics for Volunteers that were provided by the paid Firefighter’s union could be valid, is beyond me. We must remember that this is the same union that has a policy stating that a career firefighter may be reprimanded, fined, removed from office, suspended, or expelled for “advocating or encouraging any labor or any other rival organization, or acquiring or maintaining membership in any such organization including volunteer fire departments or associations.”. Even if the Volunteer Chiefs disputed these numbers publicly, it is doubtful that they would have been published by the Advocate since they dispute what the Mayor and the union say.

"I'm not going to let people in Belltown die or let their houses burn down because they cannot guarantee a response," Malloy said.

There has never been a single case of a house burning down or someone dying because of a lack of response by The Belltown Fire Department. This includes our time as a volunteer fire department from 1928 to 1949, our time as a combination fire department from 1949 to 2008 or our recent return to an all volunteer fire department in the beginning of 2008. The Mayor simply wants the public to think they are getting substandard service so he can justify violating the charter, if such a thing is even possible.

The city funds all of its five volunteer fire departments, but the charter gives volunteer chiefs the authority to operate and manage their firehouses. The charter also requires the city to generate enough revenue in the tax districts covered by Stamford Fire & Rescue to support its operation. The city must also raise sufficient revenues in the tax districts covered by the volunteer fire departments to support the "city's contributions for all costs incurred in the operation" of them.

Leon Rosenblatt, the Belltown Fire Department's attorney, said the city is "ripping off the citizens of the town. They're having to pay more money for fire protection than they ought to.

First of all the city raised taxes to supposedly increase fire protection in Belltown, then the city decides cut the budget that pays that same fire protection. Yet the city continues to blame the Belltown Fire Department for starting a situation we never asked for. Then the city claims that despite the increased taxes they don’t really need to provide services at al and Belltown should raise our own operating funds.

"The city district is not supposed to get the benefit of the fire taxes. And what's happening is the residents of the town are subsidizing the corporations that reside in the city," Rosenblatt said.

City Attorney Thomas Cassone said he doubts Rosenblatt understands the charter.

"There's no violation," he said, arguing that the charter "doesn't say anything other than we have to make contributions. The contribution is set by the budgetary process, not the fire company."

The Belltown Fire Department has never claimed that we set our funding level. For the upcoming year’s operating budget we did exactly what we have always done and exactly what every other department that receives city funding does. We prepared a budget request. In the past we have received reasonable cuts to these requests similar to those made to other department budgets. This year we received a draconian cut based on nothing more than a biased political agenda. There certainly has been a Charter violation, but this is nothing new for the Malloy Administration.

Cassone added that the city hopes to resolve the matter without going to trial.

"Our objective isn't to win lawsuits," he said. "It's to provide fire services to the city in a safe and efficient manner."

The City has the ultimate ability to resolve this without a trial, simply fund The Belltown Fire Department at an appropriate level, and stop trying to strangle us out of existence.

Rosenblatt said the department is open to mediation.

"We would be happy to mediate and settle this," he said. "The city doesn't need this kind of nonsense. But the city has this 'My way, or the highway,' approach, and when your back is against the wall, you have to fight back."

Of course the City has never been willing to mediate before, even when ordered by a Judge to mediate their dispute with Turn of River. They eventually did mediate but those talks broke down when the Mayor introduced his strong arm budget tactics. Mediations would be nice, but it is doubtful that it would happen in good faith if at all.

The city has been fighting for control of the volunteer firehouses since last year, when officials cut $2.4 million from the Office of Public Safety, Health and Welfare for the current budget. Malloy proposed a consolidation plan that was designed to save the city more than $500,000 and improve fire coverage by sending more paid downtown firefighters into Belltown, Glenbrook and Turn of River to respond to emergency calls.

Has this plan saved even a third of the $500,000 that is was supposed to? When you add in the renovation needed at Glenbrook’s fire station, the increased fuel and maintenance costs of apparatus responding greater distances, sometimes as far as from the west side to upper Newfield Ave, ,I highly doubt it has saved anything. By returning to being a volunteer fire department Belltown has saved 100% of the salary, benefits and overtime expenses incurred last year. This is in addition to the money we already save simply by volunteering our time.

But those three fire departments answered with lawsuits contending that the volunteer fire system was unfairly targeted and the consolidation violated the City Charter and a 1995 management agreement between them and the city.

Belltown and Glenbrook lost their court battles and five paid firefighters to layoffs in July. Turn of River, however, won an injunction to block layoffs. Glenbrook eventually agreed to the city's plan, but Belltown became a strictly volunteer fire force after the city terminated the management agreement in December, and eight of its last nine paid firefighters joined Stamford Fire & Rescue. The ninth retired.

These court battles were not about our budget, as we did not yet know the way we would be unfairly targeted in the new budget cycle. This court battle was in fact aimed at keeping the Career Firefighters in place at Belltown. The Belltown Fire Department fought to save the jobs of the laid off Firefighters but lost. Those firefighters were later rehired, and additional firefighters were also hired after the union voted for a contract the city wanted them to. In doing this the city negated any savings they claimed to have made by laying off the Career Firefighters.

The eight firefighters were among 34 assigned to volunteer firehouses who voted for a new labor contract that makes them employees of Stamford Fire & Rescue.

One need only look at the operating budgets of each of the fire departments in this city to see how Belltown was unfairly targeted. Throughout this whole situation the City has maintained it was their right to terminate the management agreement, yet also continues to blame Belltown for breaking that agreement. Glenbrook took the deal and has been fully funded, while having fewer volunteers, responding to fewer calls and having a smaller district. This just doesn’t make sense.

Belltown, which has 20 active volunteers remaining, is now the second volunteer fire department with a pending lawsuit against the city.

To say that we have a number of members “remaining” shows the Advocates bias against us, by making it appear that our membership is shrinking. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since July when the City chose to lay off three of our career Firefighters we have had 12 new members join the department. We have 31 certified Firefighters, and 8 Probationary Members who are in the process of completing a State of Connecticut Firefighter I class which is being conducted by our own volunteers who are certified by the State as Fire Service Instructors. We also have 3 new members who joined after the Firefighter I class started so they will wait for the next class. We also have 2 Junior Probationary Members both continuing family traditions of service to the Belltown Community. Our total active membership as of today is 45 Volunteers.

The other, Turn of River, is in mediation with the city. To cover fuel needs, Malloy allocated $40,000 for Turn of River - $20,000 for each station - but set aside $288,000 in funding if an agreement is reached. He requested $164,000 be budgeted for Glenbrook Fire Department.

This is a shining example of how the City will likely mediate, once again it is “do as we say” and you will be funded, buck the system and you will be
    punished
.

The Board of Finance left the allocations untouched. But the Board of Representatives can make reductions when it votes on Malloy's budget next month.

There really wasn’t much left to cut after the 90% reduction by Mayor Malloy’s hand.

Belltown Fire Department launched a Web site, www.savebelltown.com, and is collecting signatures on a petition asking that Malloy restore funding. According to the Web site, more than 1,300 signatures have been collected.

This figure has recently increased to over 1,650 of our neighbors who see the injustice in the Mayors actions. This includes homeowners and renters, as well as employees of local businesses, public schools and libraries. The members who are working on the websites and those who are out collecting these signatures are also volunteering their time.