So, having been asked about the propositions and the Chico City Council, I thought I would speak to both separately. First, the State propositions. While I have an opinion, there are others too. So I have included perspectives on the propositions from the largest organization of peace officers in the State, PORAC (over 63,000 peace officer members), the California Police Chief's Association (which represents over 300 municipal police chiefs in California) and the California Sheriff's Association (which represents the State's 58 sheriffs). For additional local perspective, I have included the typically conservative Chico Enterprise-Record endorsements and the the liberal Chico News and Review endorsements (they call themselves "progressive," but that word makes me gag in this context). Finally, I have included my opinions about the propositions. Here they are:
In addition to several perspectives on the propositions, I have some thoughts about the Chico City Council election. I have included the Chico E-R, the Chico News and Review and my own endorsements for your consideration:
An important thing to note about my thoughts on the Council...elaboration on the small print...I think the City is facing very dire circumstances as far as public safety is concerned. My endorsements reflect MY BIAS for public safety, and my observation that these candidates are supplementing their bigger picture perspectives with a prioritization of public safety, and policing in particular. In good conscience, I can only unconditionally endorse two candidates: Schindelbeck and Morgan. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are four candidates we need to avoid at all costs: Stone, Ritter, Rudisill and Kelley. In the middle are: Donnan, Evans, Coolidge and Schwab.....choose from among them at your own risk....all seem to have some favorable qualities, but I do not have the confidence that any one of them is a solid, well rounded candidate. Oh ya....there's some other person who hasn't bothered to really involve herself in the campaign...her conspicuous absence from the process makes her unworthy of me even trying to investigate and find out what her name is.
There you have it folks. If you want to know more about what I think about each of the Council candidates, you can check my last two postings...
Good Morning Chief,
ReplyDeleteI read your post last night and enjoyed your thoughts on the candidates and issues before us. I just wanted to point out a couple of things to you and your readers...
First, Chico Fire has ran on medical aids in the City of Chico for over 30 years. I know you have been here longer than that so your comment holds true, Kinda. Before we started rolling on all medicals our department responded to just the major medical emergencies, vehicle accidents and cardiac events and the like. It was the fire department that volunteered to take on the role of medical first responders. We are after all trained as EMTs and we are staffed for fighting fires, and as you know we dont have fires every day. My question to you and all the others who question why we respond to emergencies, especially Donnan is what would you have us do if we only went to fires? It costs the city nothing to have us respond to medical emergencies! You even pointed out that we save lives, but is it worth it? We as EMTs are trained the same as those on the ambulance, but like you pointed out in your arguement that low pay keeps the revolving door moving, and that is true with every field that we see and work with. I will boldly state that the EMTs that work for Chico Fire are better experianced than those on most ambulances because they have been doing it for years. To me, you as a public safety leader have opened the door, causing further doubt for the public to question the operations of the entire fire service, not just in Chico, but across the nation. Chico is one of thousands of Departments that use their EMTs as a front line. Some departments run an ambulance service, Chico could certainly do this... buy 6 new ambulances, hire 12 paramedics, build new stations to house them, and we're in business! But you need to understand, which you and most people dont, and Donnan refuses to see, is that we would go anyway! ANYWAY!!! Why? Because two people on most calls is not enough to do the job safely. Maybe we could send police officers as extra muscles when the two female medics cant get the wet 400lb guy out of the shower on the second floor because he fell and broke his hip. Does this happen every day? NO!, but it happens more than you think.
My point would be this Chief, let "has been" baseball players whine about whatever they want, but to give them credit for having ideas that only make sense on paper to a few people who havent really looked into what the real operations are is counter productive. I know you have been given "wonderful ideas" by members of the public, not all of them are possible. Please give the Fire Chief more credit for running his department. It costs the city nothing to have us doing a job that makes everyone in the city safer, and increases everyones chances of survivability. Thanks for all your years of service.
Ken Campbell, Chico Firefighter
Hey chief! My name's Ben Mullin, I'm the news editor at The Orion, and I'm trying to get in touch with you today for a story about the Chico Police Department's reorganization. Can you please give me a call at 898-3138?
ReplyDelete