Town of Braintree

Two bad fires in town this past weekend and what do we hear from our chief as printed in the Forum this week - ''we're understaffed and have equipment down and our pleas to fully staff our department are going to deaf ears''? If I am not mistaken, the fire department experienced two years ago 7 layoffs due to budget constraints. Over the year after, it was my understanding all seven were called back to duty? We should be at full staff right now except for possibly any recent retirees? We appropriated monies last month at town meeting to proportionally pay benefits to those called back to duty. How then can we be short staffed?
As far as being illequipped with Ladder 1 out of service and a pumper out of service, what's going on? We have a brand new ladder truck four years old (Ladder 1 can only be about 12 years old)and we purchased a new pumper replacement over the past four years as well? What the hell is going on? Yes, Braintree has had some tough fires, but to bitch and complain that our two ladder trucks must be dependable and ready for both to be called into action, well that is possibly something we can not afford 24/7-365? I thought the budget adjustments we gave the fire department in May fully funded their full complement of manpower and that we would have 17 man staffing more the norm than the exception as a result?

By Wally P.

lights are on but nobody home

wally you seem to have all the answers. to bad they're wrong. the seven layed off firefighters were hired back to replace those who retired. so do the math. fire dept is still short seven men, maybe more with recent retirees. you must be one of those who didn't get hired.

Wrong

Ladder 1 and the pumper are out of service not because of ''illequipped'', its because of understaffed. Read it again. By the way, didn't we just hire 5 cops? Why?

Yes, cops hired

The selectmen hired 8 cops in the last few months, but if you heard the chief correctly they won't be in the police academy for sometime and not good to the department until next summer some time. Why is it that everytime there is a fire all we hear about is the lack of manpower. I'm willing to bet that the day the fires occurred, there was at a minimum 17 firemen working. In most fires that big, you could have 50 firemen working and it wouldn't be enough. Stop your whining, go back to bed and be ready when the next fire comes about.

By Thin blue