New Bedford MA City Council Puts Objection to Fire Department Blackout Policy 'On Record' Firefighters

NEW BEDFORD, MA—The City Council is going on the record against the Fire Department's blackout policy.

At Thursday night's council meeting, 10 of the 11 councilors voted to approve a motion "That the City Council go on record against firehouse blackouts throughout the city and further that the City Council and Mayor work together to address and end blackouts. This is an obligation to the taxpayers of the city to provide fire safety for all throughout the city."

The city's blackout policy leaves one fire department vehicle unstaffed for a shift on a rotating schedule in order to save money.

Councilor-at-large Linda Morad was the only councilor to vote against the motion saying, "As I stand here today, I don't know how we pay for that and for that reason I cannot support the motion as written."

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Morad said she knows there's not money in the budget to pay for an end to the blackouts, but she did agree "that it's time for us to sit down and chat about this issue."

Ward 3 Councilor Hugh Dunn put the motion forward along with another motion that the administration, the CFO, the chief of the Fire Department, and the New Bedford Firefighters IAFF 841 brief the City Council on the current logistics of the rolling blackouts of fire stations and any plan and timeline to cease the practice.

The council voted unanimously to refer the latter motion to the Committee on Public Safety and Neighborhoods.

On Thursday Dunn said, "Over the past several years we've had four fatalities while stations were blacked out, since October we've had two fatalities in my ward, in Ward 3, while the station was blacked out. Enough is enough we can not continue to do this. The residents of the city are scared that (if) they have a fire, the truck, the crew won't be able to respond in time."

In recent months two elderly residents have died of their injuries following fires in their homes, but the Fire Chief Paul Coderre said that in both cases the fire department's response fell within national standards for response times.

Dunn admitted that while he doesn't know how to manage a fire department or the logistics on how to respond to a fire, "I do know that we have facts that we have from a 2015 FACETS Consulting's Fire & Emergency Medical Services study, 75 grand we paid for this study."

"It says quite clearly any closure of any station is inherently dangerous and reduces the level of service for someone," Dunn said.

Councilor-at-large Brian Gomes questioned why officials have said blackouts will end when the new Public Safety Center in the South End opens, but they can't end the blackouts now.

"You tell me that once you consolidate all these stations the blackouts will end, why can't they end today? It's the same amount of apparatus that you are talking about," Gomes said.

Gomes was referring to three vehicles, two engines and one ladder truck, moving to the Public Safety Center once it opens.

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