"Brothers Forever"

e are retired from “The Job”
And gave what firefighters are giving
We may have fought our last fire
But we proudly go on living !


till part of "New York’s Bravest"
All know, we are one of a kind
And if called on by another
We’ll always lighten-up that line !


et us never forget one thing
Which separates us from others
Whether active or now retired
We’ll forever be known as “Brothers” !


© - 1992
John R. Gilleeny

View My Guestbook                      Sign My Guestbook

06/14/2001
Buildings Dept. Plan Under Fire
by William Murphy
Staff Writer - Newsday

The Fire Department has assigned 10 captains and three civilians to help inspectors at the Department of Buildings, an agency with a decades-long string of corruption scandals.

But the move, along with other proposed changes in building inspections, has raised concern from fire unions and from the City Council leadership, which plans a news conference on the issue today.

The union representing senior fire officers objects to the move and is considering a lawsuit, according to Capt. Peter Gorman, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.

"I could walk into a building and give a summons for fire-safety violations. I can't give a summons for a construction problem," Gorman said.

One of the 10 captains, according to Gorman, is assigned to accompany Department of Buildings workers on elevator inspections.

Following the latest round of corruption indictments in the Department of Buildings, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said in March that he would have the Fire Department take over greater inspection responsibility.

In documents obtained by Newsday, the Fire Department said it would use its citywide network of firefighters "to supplement and enforce the DOB's inspection responsibilities." Ladder companies, which do rescue work, and engine companies, which pump water, would be responsible for monitoring construction sites around the city to ensure that no illegal work was being done.

"I can see a crack in the foundation of a building and think it's unsafe, but you need a person with an engineering or architectural background to perform an inspection and declare it unsafe," Gorman said.

The Uniformed Firefighters Association, which represents rank-and-file firefighters, said it was studying the matter and might join the officers union in a lawsuit.

The fire unions said the change in their duties should be negotiated as part of the union contract, not imposed by management.

They also argued that it would take time away from their primary job of fire inspections.

June 12, 2001
Lawsuit Cites Contradictions in a Rare Retirement Benefit
By KEVIN FLYNN - NY Times

For thousands of retired police officers, firefighters and correction officers in New York, the city's most oddly structured and awkwardly named retirement benefit — the Variable Supplement Funds — is a fruit of maturity more valued than early-bird specials or afternoon naps.

Since 1970, the funds have provided some retirees with annual lump sum payments in addition to their regular pension checks. The payments increase by $500 each year, and this year recipients are each getting $9,000, on which they do not pay state income taxes.

The benefit is so attractive that many of the vast majority of city employees who do not get it have lobbied and sued for years to gain the benefit for themselves. The city has successfully beaten back 29 lawsuits that challenged the funds.

But recently, a lawsuit was filed that again challenges the funds, not by asserting that they are distributed unfairly, but by maintaining that they violate the federal tax code.

If the lawsuit, filed by a group of retired correction officers, is successful, it could force the city to overhaul the way it has structured its pension system. But city lawyers said they were confident that this lawsuit would fail like the others.

"Now that they have been rejected on every other theory," said a lawyer for the city, James Dwyer, "they have glommed on to this new theory, which we believe will also be rejected."

In the new lawsuit, filed in April in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the retirees say the variable supplement system threatens the tax-exempt status of their $39 billion pension fund because it is financed through excess earnings from pension investments.

Under federal law, municipal pension money must be spent for pension purposes. The suit contends that the city violated that law by funneling pension earnings into the Variable Supplement Funds, which are defined as nonpension benefits in the state statutes that created them.

"We're worried that, if this fund is not really a pension benefit, it may throw the entire pension system out of compliance and we may be subject to taxes on it," said Anthony Arfi, one of 400 plaintiffs in the suit.

The city says that for federal tax purposes, the funds function like part of the pension system, even though they are called nonpension benefits under state law. "We're not taking money out of the pension fund to paint the Brooklyn Bridge," Mr. Dwyer said in a hearing this year. "We're taking money out of the pension fund to pay service retirees."

Kevin Fitzpatrick, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the city cannot have it both ways. "They can't say it is black under state law and white under federal law," he said.

The way these funds are set up is rare among municipal pension systems, and has led to some paradoxes. Like pension income, V.S.F. income is not taxed by the state. But unlike pension income, V.S.F. income is not distributed in divorce settlements because a state appeals court has ruled that the funds are not pension benefits.

Even the city seemed confused in 1988 when, with permission from the affected unions, it took $75 million from the Variable Supplement Funds to help balance its budget. Several pension law experts said that if the funds were part of the pension system, as the city has contended, removing money for nonpension purposes would seem to have violated the federal tax code. "Dipping in is not a good thing to do," said Harvey Katz, a Manhattan lawyer specializing in pension law.

A former city official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said the city believed the money could be removed because it had not taken proper interest credits on earlier transfers into the funds.

The Variable Supplement Funds were given to retired police officers and firefighters 31 years ago when the city sought permission to invest their pension funds in the stock market. But state law forbids reductions in pension benefits, and the city was unsure it wanted provide the benefit forever, so the new funds were defined as nonpension benefits in the state laws that created them, officials said.

More than 20,000 retirees now receive the benefit, which was extended to transit and housing police officers in 1988, and to correction officers in 2000. Retirees who left those jobs before the benefit was granted, like Mr. Arfi, are not eligible. The city has said it was too expensive to extend the benefit to those retirees or other unions.

The lawsuit contends that if the pension systems lose their tax-exempt status, active employees will have to pay taxes on pension contributions made on their behalf each year by the city even though they do not get the money until retirement. But city lawyers have said there is little chance that the Internal Revenue Service will make such a ruling.

"We have presented all of the details of the V.S.F. to the I.R.S. and answered all of their questions," Mr. Dwyer said, "and they have concluded that, for the purposes of the I.R.S. code, the V.S.F. and the pension are one unitary structure."

An Internal Revenue Service spokesman said that the agency, by law, did not discuss matters involving taxpayers.

"Regardless of what the I.R.S. ultimately holds," said Norman Stein, a professor and pension expert at the University of Alabama, "it does seem that the city acted with minimal regard to the tax consequences when it created this fund."

Those who are entitled to the V.S.F. benefit are not happy with Mr. Arfi and the other retirees.

"I think they are acting very irresponsibly and selfishly," said Norman Seabrook, the president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association. He characterized the lawsuit as a frivolous attempt to "take away from present members something that we worked very hard for."

But Edward Ranieri, a retired transit police officer who helped organize the new challenge, said the suit was not an effort to hurt anyone. "If there is deceit here," he said, "they can thank the people who were supposed to make sure that the pension system was in full compliance with the law."

Leaving in Blaze of Glory
Clem Richardson - NY Daily News

If you are ever pressed to prove the cliché that military service can make a man, I suggest you need look no farther than Deputy Chief Vincent Dunn, who retired in 1999 from the New York City Fire Department.

Several, perhaps dozens, of firefighters would probably be dead today — and many more severely injured — if the teenage Dunn had not decided to turn his life around.

"Men come up to me all the time and say something I wrote kept them from getting killed or hurt," Dunn said.

Dunn, 66, lectures nationally on fire and firefighter safety, drawing on experiences gained during his 42-year career with the Fire Department. He's been an adjunct professor at both Manhattan College and John Jay College, and has lectured at the National Fire Academy.

He has written three books: "Collapse of Burning Buildings" (1988), "Safety and Survival on the Fireground" (1992) and "Command and Control of Fires and Emergencies" (2001). The first two books and their accompanying study guides have become required reading in fire-safety courses around the country.

Before he retired on Aug. 12, 1999, Dunn wrote the Fire Department newsletter. He writes a column for Firehouse magazine.

Dunn also has done 13 training videos on fire safety for the magazine, and has his own Web site, vincentdunn.com. And he didn't start writing until he was 43.

Yet for all of his accomplishments, Dunn said he never wanted to be anything more than a firefighter, chasing blazes and being with the men who fought them.

"It was always interesting, challenging and scary work," Dunn said. "The men were my role models. They inspired me. I wanted to be like them."

All this from a man who, as a teenager, was kicked out of one school before dropping out of another.

Former Deputy Fire Chief Vincent Dunn didn't start writing until he was 43, but he has quite a legacy — three books, 13 videos, and two regular columns about fire safety

Dunn was born on a kitchen table in a house off 48th St. and Laurel Hill Blvd., near Calvary Cemetery. He admits that he was not much of a student — his antics got him kicked out of St. Teresa Catholic School, and he dropped out of Queens Vocational High School. "I was headed in a bad direction — I was going down," Dunn said. "Then I joined the Navy. The Navy saved my life." He was 17. The Navy was home for the next four years, during which Dunn earned his General Equivalency Diploma — a high school diploma.

He was about to be discharged when his father suggested he take the city test, the exam for anyone who wanted a city job. It was 1956.

"The first test they were giving was for the fire service. My dad sent me this old test, and I practiced taking it over and over. I came out and took the test and passed it. It was the first test I passed in my life."

This is a recurring theme in Dunn's life. He's not afraid of a heavy lift.

"I'm not that smart," he said. "I just work hard — and I have a good memory. I learned a little discipline and applied it. The nuns at St. Teresa's would be amazed."

A year later, he joined the Fire Department.

He was in the right place at the right time. Twenty years earlier, the department's ranks had been dramatically expanded as part of the WPA project to combat the Depression. As Dunn was coming in, those men were retiring.

He started work on Feb. 1, 1957, assigned to the firehouse at 137th St. and Lenox Ave. in Harlem.

He also started attending Queens College, taking fire-safety courses courtesy of the G.I. Bill, which paid for ex-servicemen to go to school. Using that money, Dunn got an associate's degree, then a bachelor's and finally a master's degree in urban studies.

All along he kept taking promotional tests for the department, and moving up in the ranks.

Even though he lived in Queens, he spent most of his career working in various companies around Manhattan, except for a brief stint on Webster Ave. in the Bronx.

On Monday, Oct. 17, 1966, Lt. Dunn and the men of Engine Co. 33 reported to the chief in charge of a blaze at 6 E. 23rd St.

"He told us to go around the outside and keep the fire from jumping to the building next to it," recalled Dun. "He sent the other company, Engine Co. 18, inside."

Twelve firefighters died as a drugstore floor collapsed, plunging them into the fiery basement. It remains the worst loss of life in a single incident in FDNY history.

This was a seminal incident in Dunn's career. Even as he climbed the ranks to captain and then deputy chief, the drugstore fire stayed on his mind.

"I kept thinking about building safety," Dunn said. "I met this guy, Harry, who told me about a fire he had fought in the Bronx. I went up there, and there was a hundred-foot wall that had collapsed."

Dunn interviewed the commanders at the scene, then wrote an article for WNYF (With New York Firefighters) magazine, spelling out the duties each performed.

This was 1978. He was also working in the Bronx at the time, and the Bronx was burning. So there was a lot of raw material to draw from.

On Aug. 2 of that year six firefighters died when the roof of a burning Brooklyn Walbaum's collapsed under them. Dunn's article was suddenly mandatory reading.

Over the next 10 years, he wrote articles for WNYF magazine, many of them on building collapses during fires. In 1988, the information he accumulated researching his articles became his first book, "Collapse of Burning Buildings."

"All of my books come from experience," he said. "A lot of the stuff I wrote — I won't take credit for all of it — was stuff I experienced."

His articles — wife Patricia is his editor — have been reprinted in Israel, Germany, Italy, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The Dunns have two children, daughter Faith and son Carl.

6/07/01
Bravest Stand on Ceremony
By LISA L. COLANGELO
Daily News Staff Writer

The city honored its firefighters yesterday for heroic acts that show why they are New York's Bravest.

More than 50 firefighters, officers and marshals were cited by Mayor Giuliani and Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen at the annual Medal Day ceremony on the steps of City Hall.

Behind each medal was a story of courage: firefighters crawling into a partially collapsed structure to rescue a trapped victim or crawling through a blazing building to whisk a child to safety.

"It's very inspiring for me, personally, and it's very inspiring for the people of the city to see the acts of bravery," Giuliani said.

Firefighters in their dress blues, surrounded by family and friends, packed into City Hall Plaza. Their proud colleagues waved banners, sounded horns and cheered wildly.

"In this business, the time of your heroism is always a time of terror for those depending on your help," Von Essen, a career firefighter, told the medal winners. "Few things in this world are as terrifying as fire."

"You know the savage terrible power of fire; you've felt the innate urge to run from it. You overcame that fear and turned it into courage."

Firefighter John South of Ladder Company 44 in the Bronx won the James Gordon Bennett Medal, the highest honor, for rescuing a 33-year-old man from the rubble of a collapsed garage last May.

The roof had fallen almost completely to the floor — a condition firefighters call a "pancake" collapse.

After he and fellow firefighters cleared away the debris, South crawled into the wreckage to free the man. When the first victim was moved to safety, South went back into the rubble to find a second victim, who did not survive.

Firefighter Dan Perrella, also of Ladder Company 44, was honored with the Emily Trevor/Mary B. Warren Medal for assisting South.

The crowd roared when South stepped up to receive his medal with his wife, Sally, and children John Jr., 18, and Gina, 14.

"I am very humbled and honored," South said after the ceremony.

Firefighter Michael Cummings and Lt. Dennis Gordon, both of Ladder Company 120 in Brooklyn, were cited for rescuing five people from an apartment building fire last July on Livonia Ave. in East New York.

They searched the burning building and found two adults and three children in a 13th-story bedroom, huddled by the window. The children were barely conscious. Both men removed their masks in the smoky fire to get oxygen to the victims.

"I feel I've had a good purpose," Cummings said before the ceremony, holding his 7-year-old son Jack on his lap.

The following firefighters were honored yesterday:

BROOKLYN: Firefighter Michael Cummings, Ladder 120; Lt. Dennis Gordon, Ladder 120; Michael Brown, Ladder 110; Keith Johnson, Ladder 6; Nicholas Cicero, Jr., Ladder 111; Lt. William Croak, Ladder 170; Fire Marshal Anthony Scolavino, Brooklyn Base, Bureau of Fire Investigation; Thomas Casatelli, Engine 226; Thomas Davide, Ladder 123; Keith Loughlin, Ladder 132; Christopher Kane, Ladder 122; Fire Marshal Lawrence Pliska, Brooklyn Base; James Korzeniewski, Ladder 146 and Marine 3.

MANHATTAN: Lt. Robert Carberry Jr., Ladder 28; Keith Johnson, Ladder 6; James Kennelly, Ladder 16; Raymond Sessa, Ladder 28; Lt. Edward Tierney, Ladder 30.

QUEENS: Lt. Thomas Brady, Battalion 41; Robert Borcherding, Ladder 160; Lt. Edwin Camilleri, Ladder 167; William Esposito, Rescue 2; Lt. Richard Gonzalez, Ladder 136; Peter Konopka, Ladder 117; Martin Liptak, Ladder 167; Lt. Michael McLoughlin Jr., Ladder 138; Christopher Miller, Ladder 138; James O'Donnell, Ladder 136; Joel Pereca, Engine 275; Timothy Smith, Ladder 134; and Richard Tischler, Ladder 136. Six members of Ladder 138 were honored as a unit: Lt. Michael McLoughlin Jr., Stephen Corr, Robert Stanton Jr., Richard Jones, James Weisenburger Jr. and Joseph Taratini.

June 7, 2001
Firefighters' Union Raises Funds
for Hevesi From Pension Advisers

By ERIC LIPTON - NY TIMES

The city firefighters' union has gathered at least $16,000 in contributions for Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi's mayoral campaign, with much of the money coming from executives who do business with the union or investment advisers to firefighter and other city pension funds.

The comptroller is set to be endorsed as soon as today by the Uniformed Firefighters Association, a 17,000-member group that has long backed Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. But the donations, part of which would be banned under legislation pending before the City Council, show that this endorsement has long been in the works.

Mr. Hevesi and Michael Carter, the union's vice president, are both members of the New York City Fire Department Pension Fund board, which oversees the investments of the employees' $5.7 billion pension fund.

City campaign finance records show that Mr. Carter was an intermediary for donations made to Mr. Hevesi by executives at Alliance Capital Management and the Cypress Group, both New York City companies that collectively handle tens of millions of dollars in city pension funds.

Mr. Carter and a campaign spokesman defended the so-called bundled contributions by Mr. Carter in 1999 and 2000, noting that they are entirely legal. He said the union had sponsored three fund-raising events for Mr. Hevesi's campaign. "And should the law ever change," Mr. Carter said, "we would absolutely do what is required by law, as always."

Hank Morris, a spokesman for Mr. Hevesi, said there was no correlation between city pension fund investments and donations. Mr. Hevesi has raised almost $7 million from 7,000 contributors, Mr. Morris added.

The total amount contributed by executives from pension fund advisers is small — $1,000 each by two executives at Cypress and $1,000 by a senior vice president at Alliance Capital. But similar donations would be prohibited by legislation now before the City Council that Mr. Giuliani proposed to try to prevent any political considerations from affecting pension investment decisions.

Almost $2,000 more in donations arranged by Mr. Carter for the comptroller included money from a law firm that represents the union, from executives at financial planning and prescription drug companies that work for the union and from an Ohio company that provides protective gear for city firefighters.

Last of the Fire Matrons
FDNY housekeeper celebrates 100th birthday
By BILL BELL
Daily News Staff Writer

It was a Catholic priest who spilled the beans, several weeks ago when he took Communion to the apartment where Georgiana McMenamin has lived for the past 69 years. He told her he was sorry he could not go to her big party, because he was returning home to India.

It was okay. McMenamin had been around long enough, seen and heard enough, to suspect that something special was coming up.

And it was — the city's only surviving fire matron, an extraordinary, now extinct profession dating to about 1865, celebrated her 100th birthday Saturday.

Cheers rang out and cameras clicked away as the tiny, frail great-grandmother entered a reception room at Durow's of Glendale, in Queens. Among the guests were 25 firemen, a few old enough to remember fire matrons, the rest mature enough to appreciate what they were.

It was an honorary title, with real duties, and a salary paid by firemen, who imposed a weekly tax on themselves to help the widows of colleagues who died on duty. The idea, in the days before Social Security, was to augment modest pensions paid to firemen's beneficiaries — in 1932, when McMenamin became a fire matron, that pension was $50 a month.

"[Her job] was like housekeeper, really," said McMenamin. "The boys cooked their own meals and polished their own brass, but I washed and ironed and sewed and dusted."

There were fewer than 100 fire matrons over the years, according to department historians, but by the time she retired, in 1991, there was one — and she was it.

She spent 60 years as housekeeper for Engine Co. 40 and Ladder Co. 35, on Manhattan's upper West Side, about 20 blocks up from her apartment in Chelsea.

McMenamin took the job shortly after her husband, James, died of an allergic infection. His pension was her only income, and with three children — ages 2, 4 and 7 — to raise, it was a struggle.

In keeping with a tradition that, as far as history shows, dates to the Civil War, she was offered a job as fire matron by James McMenamin's firehouse colleagues.

It was no sinecure. Georgiana walked or rode the 10th Ave. trolley to the firehouse five days a week, doing laundry, repairing torn curtains and linen, ironing, cleaning and making the beds. Her mother baby-sat the children when she was at the firehouse.

"I remember her saying the hardest job was cleaning the towels firemen used to shine their boots," says daughter Dorothy Donohue, 77. Her brother James, 75, a retired mailman, and sister Josephine Rella, 72, remembered other things.

"She was paid $12 a month," Rella said.

"No, it was $13," McMenamin said.

By the time she retired, firemen were doing many of her chores — folding linen, stripping beds, etc. — but, she still dropped by the firehouse to perform a few light chores.

The daughter of a Bronx brass fitter, Georgiana met James McMenamin at a basketball game in Madison Square Garden — "the old one," she said. They had been married only eight years when he died.

The party at Durow's lasted four hours, with tributes that included a letter from the mayor and a second birthday bash — for McMenamin's niece, Jean Blanchard. "It really is her birthday," McMenamin said. "Mine isn't until June 17."

The guys at Engine Co. 40 and Ladder Co. 35 never have forgotten, and in appreciation for her long service, they continue to tax themselves — to pay her a pension, $100 monthly, since her retirement.

"It's only a couple of bucks a month," said retired Capt. Bob Wolyniec. "Everybody kicks in, and one guy takes it to her. She is really something."

June 2, 2001
Union Feuds Are Hurting Chances of Law on Wages
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE - NY Times

An awkward division within New York City's labor movement is hurting a campaign by several unions to secure a law that would raise wages for more than 75,000 workers employed by companies that get tax breaks or contracts from the city.

The dispute pits the city's two largest unions against each other. District Council 37, the largest union of municipal workers, with 125,000 members, opposes the proposed "living wage" legislation, which would require city contractors and many other companies to pay at least $10 an hour plus health benefits or $11.50 if health benefits are not provided.

The union is upset about a provision requiring that the city pay private companies millions of dollars to help them afford the wage increases.

But the largest union in the city, 1199, the 200,000-member health care union, has championed the proposal, which 1199 officials hope will raise the pay of 45,000 home care attendants to $10 an hour from their current $7.14.

This feud has not only caused proponents to delay pushing the bill forward but also could ultimately keep the proposal from being enacted, several supporters of a living wage said.

This feud, several union leaders said, shows that New York City's giant union movement is again suffering from a lack of unity and effectiveness. Unions are badly split over whom to endorse in this year's mayoral race, while tensions erupted within labor last spring over whether to oust Sheldon Silver from his position as speaker of the State Assembly.

Supporters of the living wage proposal include the Communications Workers of America, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, the Community Service Society, the United Way, the Working Families Party and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"We support the living wage bill because we support the struggle of all workers to earn a decent wage," said Bob Master, political director of the communications workers in New York. "That's an essential role of the labor movement."

One result of the living wage dispute is that the New York City Central Labor Council, the umbrella organization of the city's unions, has refrained from endorsing the proposal. The council is seeking to broker a compromise between 1199 and District Council 37.

The living wage bill would cover companies or nonprofit organizations that get city contracts to, for example, provide child care, do laundry for city hospitals or care for the homebound elderly. The bill would also cover companies that get city subsidies or tax breaks to create jobs, keep jobs or build in New York.

Concerned that a living wage requirement might drive some companies or nonprofit groups out of business, the bill calls for the city to pay its contractors $60 million more each year to help them afford the wage increases.

But District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was upset by this provision, unhappy about seeing government funds going to private companies or agencies.

"Obviously, we fully support a living wage for all workers, but we are concerned with a provision in which organizations would get city funding to help pay for this living wage," said Chris Policano, a spokesman for District Council 37.

"We believe those costs should be borne by the city contractors. It shouldn't cost the city extra money to do business with these organizations."

This feud points to a simmering dispute between the city's public- sector and private-sector unions. District Council 37 opposes having public money go to private employees when that money could finance new jobs or raises for municipal employees. But private-sector unions like 1199 say the city's money should be used to assure that all workers employed by city contractors earn enough for a decent living.

"We have tremendous respect for D.C. 37 and we believe that the public employees of New York City deserve the wages and benefits their union has negotiated for them," said Jennifer Cunningham, New York State political director of 1199's parent union, the Service Employees International Union.

"But we don't believe the city budget should be reduced to a zero- sum game where home-care workers have to be treated like second- class citizens."

The bill's supporters are debating whether to press the City Council to enact it this year or next year. One concern is that Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani will veto the bill. He has opposed previous living wage bills, saying they would raise the city's contracting costs and arbitrarily reward workers without regard to their skill levels.

This living wage dispute has prompted some labor leaders to urge the city's unions to work harder to achieve unity.

"You often have private-sector and public-sector unions at odds on issues like this," said Greg Tarpinian, president of the Labor Research Association, a consulting group to many unions. "The real question is, is the city's labor movement as united on its key tasks — organizing and politics — as it needs to be to grow and rebuild its strength and influence? The answer is no."

Complaining about a lack of solidarity, some union leaders say the city's labor movement has provided only token backing to some longtime disputes, like the two-year effort by the hotel and restaurant employees' union to organize 95 restaurant workers at the Metropolitan Opera.

In another major dispute, 1199 has refused to pay dues to the New York City Central Labor Council for the last year because 1199's president, Dennis Rivera, was so angry at the council's president, Brian McLaughlin, for bucking most of labor and supporting an effort to oust Mr. Silver. Mr. McLaughlin, an assemblyman from Queens, joined the Queens County Democratic leadership in backing Assemblyman Michael J. Bragman's efforts to replace Mr. Silver.

Officials from the New York City Central Labor Council and 1199 said they were working to patch up their differences. One of the council's leaders insisted that the feud between District Council 37 and other unions over the living wage did not point to a major schism in New York labor.

"We don't feel there are principled differences at all," the official said. "These are only tactical differences on how to get to a living wage."

Firehouse.com

May 31, 2001
PALS HELP MAKE FDNY VET'S DREAM COME TRUE
By KIERAN CROWLEY - NY POST

An ex-city firefighter found out "it takes a village to make a movie" when 40 of his Sea Cliff, L.I., neighbors - including actress Patti D'Arbanville - helped quench his burning desire to become a filmmaker.

The result is "The Chumley Factor," a 24-minute short that will premiere tomorrow night at - where else? - the Sea Cliff firehouse and at Costello's Pub, where much of the film was shot.

Mike Lennon, 46, started pursuing the dream of seeing his name on the big screen after an injury forced him to leave the FDNY.

A professional who read the screenplay advised him to try making the film.

Lennon recruited "actors," brewed the coffee, lugged the props - and was able to convince soccer moms to play hookers, and enlisted dozens of other upscale Sea Cliff residents to play barflies, junkies and other roles in the 24-minute short.

"Nobody wanted a dime for anything. It takes a village to make a movie," chuckled Lennon, who began filming in January.

D'Arbanville, who is currently seen on NBC's "Third Watch" and just wrapped up the film "Enter Fleeing," said she was pleasantly surprised at Lennon's script - and energy.

He "was always ready to roll," said the TV and film star, whose children attend the same school as Lennon's.

"It was a town project - he grabs people. He did things instinctively that seasoned directors do because they've done it.

"I saw it today for the first time, and I got teary. It was so sweet, you want to hug it. It's a labor of love and it shows in every frame."

Lawyer John Canning, a former GOP legislator with a distinctive upper-crust voice, said he jumped at the starring role in the film.

"Ronald Reagan went from acting to politics and I thought I'd try it in reverse," Canning chortled. "I really enjoyed doing it. From my experience in government, I was used to the delay on the set."

Canning plays the title character, blueblood Darryl Chumley, who discovers he was switched at birth with another baby named Chumley - whose parents are blue-collar workers from The Bronx.

D'Arbanville plays Stella, a wisecracking Queens bar owner who teaches Chumley how the other half lives.

Canning lamented the lack of a love scene with his sexy co-star.

"Patti was great but there's a no-nudity clause in my contract - it's the first time a studio has insisted on it," Canning joked. "I'm a Republican, and I don't take off my clothes."

http://leginfo.state.ny.us:82/nysleg/menugetf.cgi

A08416 Summary:

SAME AS No same as

SPONSOR RULES COM

COSPNSR

MLTSPNSR

Amd SS13-191, 13-192, 13-194, 13-271, 13-281, 13-385 & 13-395, NYC Ad Cd Permits retired New York city employees who are receiving variable supplements benefits to receive COLA payments.

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A08416 Actions: 04/10/2001referred to governmental employees

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A08416 Votes:
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A08416 Memo:
TITLE OF BILL : An act to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to benefits payable by the variable supplements funds

PURPOSE :

The bill would permit retired New York City police officers and firefighters who are receiving variable supplements benefits to receive COLA payments.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

The proposed bill would amend the administrative code of the City of New York, in relation to benefits payable by the variable supplements funds (VSF), i.e., a bill that would permit New York City employees who are receiving variable supplements benefits to receive COLA payments pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 125 of the Laws of 2000.

JUSTIFICATION :

Many New York City police officers and firefighters will not receive the benefits of last year`s historic COLA legislation which for the first time gave an automatic cost of living adjustment to retired public employees. Due to provisions of the New York City Administrative Code, however, New York City police officers and firefighters will have the amount of VSF payments they will receive as a result of previous negotiations reduced by their COLA payments. In many instances this will result in little or no COLA adjustment at all.

The VSF legislation that was enacted in 1970 resulted from a compromise reached during collective bargaining. The original demand that gave rise to this compromise was that the benefit based upon the first 20 years of Police or Fire service be increased from 50% of final pay to 60% of final pay. Therefore, since the VSF is rooted in a demand for an increase in the basic benefit, rather than an increase in retiree supplementation, there is no real rationale for offsetting VSF benefits by COLA.

In addition, the assumptions underlying the VSF agreements between the City and its uniformed organizations have not been borne out. Based on these erroneous assumptions, the police and firefighters representatives agreed to waive the right to "open-ended skims," and to have the VSF offset by retiree COLA. However, the value of these "givebacks" has been many times greater than was initially assumed. Eliminating the COLA offset of the VSF benefits would be a small step in the direction of restoring equity to the uniformed employee organizations.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :

None.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :

If this bill were to be enacted in the 2001 Legislative Session, the cost to the City in fiscal year 200 1-2002 would be approximately $15 million

5/29/01

1,000-lb. Woman Rescued It takes medics 4 hrs. to free her from apt.

By RALPH R. ORTEGA and CORKY SIEMASZKO Daily News Staff Writers

Firefighters rescued a bedridden Harlem woman weighing more than 1,000 pounds by placing her atop a body bag and dragging her to an ambulance yesterday.

As more than 25 firefighters struggled to pull Jean Stroud out of her sister's apartment in the Polo Grounds Towers and down the narrow hallway to the elevator, paramedics kept close watch on the 56-year-old woman's vital signs.

"Are you there?" one of them asked.

"Yes," Stroud gasped from behind an oxygen mask. "I am."

Moving inches at a time, it took firefighters more than four hours to get Stroud from the 16th-floor apartment to the waiting ambulance.

Throughout the ordeal, Stroud kept her composure.

"I never dreamed I would get to this point," she said. "Even though I diet, I can't lose the weight."

One paramedic who treated Stroud said he was impressed by her quiet courage.

"She actually had a strong heart and conviction," he said. "We put her through a lot of hell during the last hour."

Stroud was in stable condition last night at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, where doctors were trying to drain large growths that covered her legs — and made walking impossible.

"This is a disease," Stroud said. "I just want people to see that not everybody gets fat from eating. They have other problems, like my legs."

The rescue at 155th St. and Eighth Ave. began a little after 6 a.m., when Stroud, whose weight ballooned from 700 pounds to more than 1,000 in recent months after she was immobilized by the growths, told her sister she couldn't take the pain.

"My legs are killing me," Stroud said. "They feel like there's a faucet in them and it's constantly on."

Paramedics found Stroud in her lavender-painted bedroom, sprawled on her back on a queen-size bed, where she spent her days watching television. A Fire Department doctor gave her morphine as other firefighters began dismantling the doorway of her sister's apartment.

Stroud's sister, Lois, 59, said her sister had always been chubby but really began putting on weight in 1985. She said Stroud's obesity made her unable to hang onto her job as a computer operator for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

"What she really wants is to walk again," Lois Stroud said. "She'll be really happy with that. It would answer her prayers."

05/29/2001

Linore Simmond, Among First Female Firefighters
Bobby Cuza - Newsday

Linore Simmond, part of the first group of females to join the New York City Fire Department, died last week at 52.

Simmond, who had retired from the department just two months ago, was one of seven women who became the city's first female firefighters in 1979.

Although she was laid off from the department just two years later, Simmond was reinstated after winning a court judgment and went on to a distinguished 22-year career.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Simmond fancied herself a firefighter even as a child, but ended up an overworked social worker in the city welfare department for 11 years. When she saw an opening in the fire department, "she took a shot at it, and she made her dream come true," said son Allen Gillison.

In 1994, Simmond was honored by the nonprofit 100 Year Association of New York City for her work in recruiting minorities and women to the fire department.

Plagued by high blood pressure, Simmond suffered her fourth stroke earlier this month. She died Thursday at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn.

Simmond is survived by eight children and 16 grand- children. A wake will be held for Simmond at Woodward Funeral Home in Stuyvesant Heights tomorrow, and a funeral will be Friday.

05/25/01

Partial letter to Mr. Cuevas,
City Clerk and Clerk of City Council,
from Mayor Rudy Giuliani:

Pursuant to sect. 37 of the NYC Charter, I hereby disapprove Intro # 580-A, in relation to health insurance for city employees, city retirees and their dependent. The bill would require the City to fully reimburse retired City employees for the cost of their Medicare Part B premiums. While I acknowledge and support the City's committment to assisting retired workers to meet the cost of their premiums, I cannot approve this illegal and financially reckless bill.

By refusing to adjust the Part B reimbursement rate with a new dollar figure, the Council is prepared to surrender the small amount of cost-control that the City enjoys in this area. A precise dollar figure grants both the mayor and the Council necessary financial flexibility. As premium rates rise, both sides of City Hall, along with the public employee unions, can decide exactly how much the City can afford to reimburse Part B retirees. Depending on the City's fiscal health and budgetary priorities, there may be times when we cannot responsibly raise the reimbursement rate. This bill's full reimbursement mandate would needlessly destroy our discretion and remove the only semblance of control that the City has over Medicare Part B costs.

I cannot, therfore, approve a measure that violates the State Taylor Law and the City Collective Bargaining Law, and that would foolishly tie the hands of the Mayor and the Council by forever eliminating their discretion over the use of hundreds of millions of dollars.


For all the foregoing reasons, I hereby disapprove Intro # 580-A

Sincerely,
Rudy G.

5/15/01

Firefighter Saves Baby After Crash
By RICHARD WEIR and LEO STANDORA
Daily News Staff Writers

An off-duty firefighter saved the life of an 18-month-old girl mowed down with her mother, baby brother and two other people yesterday when an out-of-control car jumped the curb at a Harlem streetcorner.

"She had a pulse when I got to her but she wasn't breathing," said William Hroch, 39, who was heading to work when he saw the accident at 126th St. and Lenox Ave.

"I finger-swept some mucus from her mouth, gave her one good breath and that was it. She coughed, started to breath and started to cry," he said.

Hroch, who was headed to Ladder Co. 40 on W. 125th St., sprang into action when he saw the pedestrians "get tossed" by a car that cops said ran a red light, smashed into a sport-utility vehicle and plowed onto the sidewalk.

Witnesses said the pedestrians were hurled 10 feet into the air and one man wound up pinned beneath the car.

The tots hit the pavement near each other, about 5 feet from their mother, Cisreta Swaby, 23. The impact had torn the girl, Shania, from her mother's arms and shot 4-month-old Tyrique out of a baby pouch his mom was wearing.

After Shania was revived, police drove her to Harlem Hospital in a radio car rather than wait for an ambulance. Doctors said she was in critical condition with multiple fractures of her right arm and other injuries.

Her mother and brother were taken to Harlem Hospital. The mother was in stable condition while the boy was in serious condition.

The SUV driver, Joseph Gonzalez, 36, and pedestrian Jack Simmons, 51, were treated for minor injuries at Lincoln Hospital. Harold Lee, 29, was brought to St. Luke's, where he was in stable condition with neck injuries.

The 71-year-old woman who police said was behind the wheel of the speeding Dodge Spirit was taken to North General Hospital with chest pains. She also was stable, police said.

Witnesses said the accident occurred at 5 p.m., when the Dodge, speeding west on 126th St., ran a red light, struck the SUV heading south on Lenox Ave. and jumped the curb.

"It was crazy, like a demolition game," said Jahn Dewalt, 13.

Hours after the accident, Dr. Arthur Cooper, chief of pediatrics at Harlem Hospital, told Hroch, "that little girl would have died if it weren't for you."

05/14/01

5/14/01 Fire Vet Falls Ill at Blaze
Michele McPhee - NY Daily News

A decorated 39-year veteran of the Fire Department collapsed while battling a Queens blaze yesterday, fire officials said.

Chief George Eysser, of the 35th Battalion, collapsed around 3:30 p.m. while fighting a two-alarm blaze at 53-36 Metropolitan Ave. in Ridgewood, said FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon.

"He was actively working a fully involved fire when he said he wasn't feeling well, then he fell," Gribbon said.

Paramedics, concerned 61-year-old Eysser was having a heart attack, rushed him to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, where emergency room doctors conducted tests.

Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen and Mayor Giuliani rushed to the hospital, but found Eysser in stable condition, Gribbon said.

Doctors are still uncertain what caused him to fall ill, Gribbon said.

"He's in stable condition," Gribbon said. "We're waiting for further testing."

Two homes were destroyed by the blaze.

John

Maybe we should also change things by say, allowing non qualified heart surgeons to operate on patients just so there will be more minorities as heart surgeons.


Sounds dumb, but that's what some groups are trying to do with the FDNY and other jobs. The FDNY doesn't need, want or is able to afford firefighters who can't do the job. We all relied on our brother firefighters, no matter what they were, and they in turn relied on us, no matter what we were. When the chips were down, we, all of us, were there for our brothers. To change that just for political correctness is to me, the end of a great job and who will suffer?, the people who rely on the FDNY for help in a time of great distress.

It's hard to think this is what might be in the future of the FDNY.

ED...._______

05/10/01

To all FDNY Active & Retired members:

An e-mail was received from a Bill Schmidt (FDNY218RET) claiming to have worked in E-218 & E-252 and stating that he retired in 1986. He asked for help from us and, of course, we responded immediately by sending out his plea for assistance.

I was cautioned yesterday (5/08) by the E-218 "Historian" that he never heard of a Bill Schmidt. I immediately E-mailed Mr. Schmidt and asked for some sort of confirmation or assurance that he was telling the truth. He has not responded to me. I contacted both the UFA & UFOA to have them check their records and both responded negatively.

Even if "Bill Schmidt" wasn't a retired FDNY member, I know we would have tried to help him or his family, because we're always ready to respond to that kind of call. Unfortunately, since "Bill Schmidt" has failed to meet the requirements we all hold so dear to us, I must sadly pull his request for assistance until I can obtain the truth. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
John Gilleeny, ret. FDNY

TO: Bill Schmidt Bill,
I'm very much confused. I have been in touch with a brother retiree and he states, for a fact, that you were never a member of Engine 218 in Bklyn.
I have gone out on a limb to help you and your mom and would like to know if you are giving me the facts and the truth, otherwise I will have to contact all active & retired members to ask their forgiveness for being an unwitting player in some type of scam.
Please say it ain't so,
John

John:
The whole thing with the Vulcan crap, a Muslin chaplain, falling ranks of black firefighters and their demand to BI pass testing, as that does not indicate job performance.
I told you the dam tail on the dog has gotten so huge the dog is now a windmill.

John:
Can you believe what the Vulcansare up to in Boston.
The very same crap you have been sending me in about NY.
They already have 39% of their force black or hispanic because they have to appoint one black or hispanic for for one white regardless of the list.
Some whites have gone to court but I'll bet in Mass the land of the liberals they will get the shaft I can see the day real close at hand when if its the police, fire military or any other protective service the people in the force will say screw it why risk my neck and then the whole ball of yarn un winds

Hi John:
I just got on the computer and saw your email on the Vulcan Society. Thanks for sending me these articles I find them interesting.
Its still the same old story, people want the job with out working for it.

John:
I dont care what color you are, If you went to high school as I did, studied for the FIREFIGHTERS exam as I did, took the exam as I did.....you'd be on the job already. I took the test 3 times and after I scored well enough, it only took 7 years to get on the job.
Purple, green, yellow, white or black, Color makes no difference!!!!! If you want this job, get an application, fill it out and take the test.
IF you dont want it, dont take it.

John:
When I was a Captain in E. 65 - a very elite, desireable company, with a great name and history located on west 43rd St. midway between Fifth Ave. and Avenue of the Americas in the heart of midtown and the midtown Hi-Rise luxury Office bldg. and Hotel area (First due at Rockefeller Center), I had six (6) black firemen, and three (3) or four (4) spanish firemen -- that was in a count of 24 members - the years part of 1972 thru part of 1976.
Certainly that minority percentage shows an example of non-discrimination.

Reader link:
Vulcan Society Considering Broad Lawsuit

John:
IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY A FEW YEARS BACK THE FIRE DEPT. WENT OUT OF IT'S WAY AND SPENT a lot OF MONEY TO RECRUIT IN THE BLACK HOODS.
THE RESULTS WEREN'T TO GOOD .WHY SHOULD WE DO IT AGAIN.
CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW I CAN JOIN THE 500 WHITE MAN ORGANATION.
SO WE CAN CRY 5 TIME LOUDER THEN THE VULCAN'S

05/07/01

Brothers,

Disclaimer: Caution the attached column may cause nausea!

For you lucky guys out there that don't have to see this idiots column each Sunday, here's a sample of the garbage he spews each week.

"More" Payne feels that the NYC Fire Department is rift with nepotism, tribalism, and cheats minorities out of "merit points." Don't ask me what ethnicity has to do with merit points. He also goes on to say that the Department doesn't go out of its way to recruit minorities. Well the I have news for him, the Department never went out to recruit me, much less go out of its way to do so.

When I entered the quarters of Engine Co. 82 and Ladder Co. 31for my assignment to L-31 I was greeted by a group of distinguished minorities from tour to tour. Representing black firemen were: Severn "Red" Addison, Horace Brewer, Willie Davis, and Eddy Montigue. The Hispanic brothers were represented by: Hector Fabrelle, Richie Rodriguez, Filiberto Vargas and none other than Carlos "Charlie" Riviera who, as all know, went on to become the Department's first Hispanic Commissioner.

I guess Mr. Payne thinks that the job needs to walk the streets of Harlem, "Bedstye," and Washington Heights, tap minorities on the shoulder and hand them their badges and turnout gear.

I'll close for now, I'm getting sick!

Ken

05/06/2001
Blacks Decline in FDNY;
Group Considers Lawsuit
by Ron Howell Staff Writer - Newsday

The number of black city firefighters has declined steadily over the past decade, and if the new class of firefighters scheduled to begin training tomorrow is any indication, the trend won't change soon.

Of 100 new probationary firefighters, only one is black, according to Fire Department spokesman Frank Gribbon. Seven in the class reporting for training on Randalls Island are Hispanic and one is female.

Gribbon, responding to a Newsday request for figures, said there are 324 blacks, or 2.85 percent, of the 11,356 firefighters, as of March 31, the most recent numbers available. That is a decline from 331 on the job a year earlier, when blacks made up 3.04 percent of the total, according to figures supplied by Gribbon.

The Fire Department maintains it has been recruiting and hiring increasing numbers of minorities, but concedes any gains have been offset by recent retirements.

Officials with the Vulcan Society of black firefighters say the number of blacks has been falling steadily from a high of about 600 in the 1970s. That was a result of court action mandating that one out of every three firefighters hired by the city be black. The court order applied only to a hiring list that expired about 20 years ago, said Michael Marshall, second vice president of the Vulcans.

Now those firefighters are retiring and relatively few blacks are being hired to take their place, Marshall said.

"That decline is going to be accelerated as more of us retire," said Marshall, a lieutenant and 19-year veteran. He maintained the city is not doing anything to improve the numbers.

As a result, the Vulcan Society is considering a broad lawsuit like the one of the 1970s.

"If there's one of us in a class of 100, does that seem like anything is being done? There would need to be some drastic uphill change just for us to keep us even. The situation warrants some type of drastic action," Marshall said.

Three members of the Vulcans filed suit against the department last year, alleging they were unfairly blocked from choice assignments. The city reportedly has reached a tentative agreement giving those firefighters a total of $100,000 and promises of fair consideration in assignments of their choice.

But the reported settlement apparently does not address the issue of hiring new black firefighters.

Speaking for the Fire Department, Gribbon said officials have been trying hard to recruit minority groups, and more of them have been appearing on the hiring lists through the 1990s. While there is only one black in the new class, he said, there were five in the previous class who completed their 13-week training in February.

He also noted that the department initiated a Cadet Program to put members of the more heavily minority Emergency Medical Services on a fast-track promotion into the ranks of firefighters. The program began in late 1996.

Blacks have done poorly, compared with whites, on the Fire Department's written exam. Vulcan officials have argued the city should give less weight to the written exam in selecting firefighters, but the Fire Department has resisted those suggestions. The Vulcans say there is little correlation between high grades on the written test and performance on the job.

5/04/01
MUSLIM GROUPS RIP FDNY's BID TO HIRE DIALLO COP
By LEONARD GREENE and KIRSTEN DANIS - NY Post

Muslim leaders yesterday urged city fire officials to search their souls about hiring one of the cops who killed Amadou Diallo - and said a Muslim chaplain should help them.

The heads of several Muslim groups joined Diallo's father, Saikou Diallo, at the FDNY's Brooklyn headquarters to denounce the likely hiring of Edward McMellon, who fired 16 of the 41 shots at Diallo in the 1999 Bronx shooting of the unarmed African vendor.

They also called on Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen to recruit a Muslim chaplain to join the Christian and Jewish chaplains on the department payroll.

"It's an example of their lack of sensitivity," said Imam Al-Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid, the spiritual leader of Harlem's Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood.

"People have been singling out the Police Department. The Fire Department needs to be next."

Saikou Diallo, still reeling from the internal Police Department review last week that cleared the four officers of any wrongdoing, said the climate of "racial profiling" that led to the death of his son should be kept out of the Fire Department.

FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon said the department has offered to include a Muslim chaplain, but only on a volunteer basis.

Only a dozen firefighters are practicing Muslims, Gribbon said.

As for McMellon, "he will have a one-year probationary period to prove he has courage and qualifications to do the job," Gribbon said.

"He has to prove himself as everyone else does."

Gribbon said McMellon's only remaining hurdle was a required medical certification.

Meanwhile, Public Advocate Mark Green, in a separate news conference, rapped the Fire Department for having the lowest percentage of minority and women firefighters of all major U.S. cities.

Minorities comprise just 7 percent and women 0.3 percent of FDNY's 12,000-member force, said Green, who is running for mayor.

The city should create firefighting programs in at least two city high schools and at the City University of New York, Green said.

5/02/2001
Finest, Bravest
Get Hero Medals
By GREG WILSON
Daily News Staff Writer

They usually wait until after the World Series to honor heroes at Yankee Stadium, but yesterday a dozen of New York's Bravest and Finest were at the ballpark to be saluted for courage in the line of duty.

Daniel Perrella, who received a public service award, gets a kiss from his wife, Judy.

Among the honorees were a firefighter who hauled a Washington Heights mom out of an apartment set ablaze by a burning Christmas tree, and a detective who, with his wife and 3-year-old daughter, happened upon a robbery at his mother-in-law's grocery store. With Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen on hand in the Stadium's Great Moments Room, the men were given sterling silver medals of valor in the 25th annual awards ceremony sponsored by the Yankees and New York Bus Service.

"I really didn't think about it, I just did it," said Firefighter John South, who with help from Firefighter Daniel Perrella, crawled under a collapsed garage to save a trapped demolition worker last May.

When a fallen candle ignited a Christmas tree in the Morales family apartment in Washington Heights, Firefighter Joseph Byrne raced into the burning home no less than four times, first bringing out Lilly Morales, 29, then going back for her children, a 4-year old daughter and an 18-month-old son. Tragically, the children didn't survive.

5/02/01
UFA Union Imposes Salary Penalty
Discourages city management jobs
by William Murphy
Staff Writer - Newsday

In a slap at the current fire commissioner, the firefighters union has voted to impose monetary penalties on any union official who takes a management job with the city.

Fire Commissioner Tom Von Essen had been president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association before being appointed commissioner in 1996.

But his relationship with his former union colleagues quickly deteriorated and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association passed a vote of no-confidence earlier this year.

At its April meeting, the UFA, a separate union representing the rank and file, passed changes to its constitution that would require members of its executive board to repay their union salaries if they took management jobs with the city.

"We want to deter any member [of the union] in the future from leaving here and taking a mayoral-appointive position," said William Mirro, the union's recording secretary and the executive board member who proposed the change.

"I told our members that this was the real vote of no-confidence," Mirro said in an interview yesterday. The motion passed unanimously, he added.

Asked who it would have applied to other than Von Essen, Mirro replied: "I believe you're correct. This is the only one. You could go back 35 years and you only got one." The president of the union is given a salary equal to his annual city pay, which he is also allowed to keep.

Other members of the executive board are given a payment that is 50 percent of their firefighter salary, said union spokesman Thomas Butler.

If union officials took management jobs with the city within three years of leaving the union, they would have to repay the union-funded portion of their salaries, Mirro said.

Mirro said the changes could not be implemented until next year's round of union elections. At that point, elected officers would have to sign a legally binding document saying they would have to refund the union portion of their salaries if they took management jobs with the city.

"I wouldn't wait," Mirro said. "If I could, I'd sign it right now." The Fire Department declined to comment.

May 1, 2001
NYC: On Kerrey, Diallo and Kinds of Heroism
By CLYDE HABERMAN - NY Times

HIS name is Phillip C. Arterbury. On May 10, 1968, he was Specialist Arterbury, assigned to the 25th Infantry Division in Cu Chi, South Vietnam. That day, he received the Silver Star, one of the military's highest awards for valor.

"To say the least, I'm quite proud of myself," he wrote to his mother, "but I'm no hero. Heroes are for the Late Show. I was just trying to help a couple of guys who needed help."

His words caught my eye on a visit yesterday to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which sits between Water and South Streets in Lower Manhattan. They got me thinking about Bob Kerrey and the thread that, odd as it may seem, connects his disputed Vietnam past and the fate of the four New York police officers who killed Amadou Diallo.

Specialist Arterbury's letter is etched into a glass wall that anchors the Vietnam memorial, now being remodeled. It is a wall of agony. It bears haunting reflections on war that Vietnam grunts set down in letters and poems. Specialist Arterbury's thoughts are far from the most searing. But what he said about the hero label rang true.

I was a soldier then, too. Fortune, however, sent me to an Army information office in West Germany while most others headed for Vietnam. The closest I came to a decoration for valor was watching one being pinned on another guy's chest and then writing it up for an Army newspaper.

But almost every time I interviewed soldiers belatedly getting medals for Vietnam, they said, to a man, that they had done nothing heroic. They sounded exactly like Specialist Arterbury. Nor did they seem to be falsely modest. All they did, they insisted, was what had to be done to keep themselves and their buddies alive.

After a while, I also suspected that quite a few medals had been hyped by those men's superior officers, perhaps to help sustain support back home for an increasingly unpopular war. That is why it was not surprising to learn that Mr. Kerrey, the former senator and new president of the New School University, may not have deserved a Bronze Star awarded to him in 1969.

Supposedly, he killed Vietcong. That was what the citation said, a claim that Mr. Kerrey left unchallenged all these years. Now it turns out that he and his men on patrol killed more than a dozen unarmed women and children. He admits it. The question is whether he executed those Vietnamese, as one man on that mission claims, or whether those Americans shot only after being fired on, as Mr. Kerrey and others who were with him insist.

Naturally, Mr. Kerrey's public brooding now fails to impress some people, coming as it has only as this dark episode was about to be exposed. But that's a separate issue. The interest for the moment is in the war-is-hell defense being built around him. A long line of Vietnam veterans, including some who are now elected officials, ask who are we to judge him. You weren't there, they say, so how can you possibly know what it was like? Let this man go on with his life.

MY bet is that this will be a typical reaction among the public. If that is the case, how is it then that so many New Yorkers refuse to extend the same consideration to the four officers in the Diallo shooting?

What they did was terrible, for sure. They killed an unarmed man. But no evidence has been produced to justify the cry of "murder" still raised by those pushing an agenda that the New York Police Department is an execution squad. They ignore the statistics showing significant declines in the number of civilians killed and wounded at police hands. There were 14 such deaths last year and 11 in 1999, including Mr. Diallo's. The figure for 1990 was 41. As for wounded, there were 21 last year; 1990 had 67.

Nothing has emerged to contradict the officers' insistence that they believed, however erroneously, that they were being shot at and that is why they fired. Does that situation sound familiar? Yet they are such outcasts that some deem them unfit even to race into burning buildings to save lives as firefighters.

Perhaps Mr. Kerrey, as a new New Yorker, has some thoughts on the subject. He's been there. So was a woman named Cathleen Cordova, who was in Vietnam in that era as a civilian working for the Army. A letter to her parents is also on the glass wall downtown.

"Most of the guys aren't concerned with issues, moral judgments or politics," she wrote. "Most of them are young guys who didn't want to come here, and they just want to get out in one piece.

"You can't blame them."

April 24, 2001
Perilous Blaze 24 Stories Up Waterside inferno injures 30
By DEREK ROSE and ROBERT INGRASSIA
Daily News Staff Writers

A bedroom fire in the Waterside apartment complex on Manhattan's East Side turned into a towering inferno yesterday, injuring 30 people — firefighters and residents — including a mother and her baby.

No one was seriously hurt, but the smoke that billowed from broken windows on two upper floors at 30 Waterside Plaza created a spectacle along the East River and the FDR Drive in the 20s.

Scores of residents fled down stairwells. Others huddled in smoky apartments with wet towels under their doors.

"I was almost sure I was going to die," said a pregnant Poupak Pourkay, 29, whose 31st-floor apartment filled with black smoke. "It was horrible. Thank God we're alive."

Fire officials said no one was in the apartment where the fire started. The blaze was under investigation yesterday.

FDNY officials credited a new heat-spotting camera with helping to save lives. Firefighters in smoke-filled hallways used the device, which they had received the day before, to direct water toward flames they couldn't see.

The fire broke out shortly before 11:30 a.m. on the 24th floor. The blaze quickly consumed a two-bedroom apartment, then spread to the floor above, sending heavy smoke into hallways and other apartments.

The first wave of firefighters rode up to the blaze in an elevator. Confronted with black smoke and hot spots of more than 1,000 degrees, they used a thermal camera to spot a ceiling of flame above them.

Fire Capt. Patrick Brown shows new heat-seeking device that Bravest used to fight flames they couldn't see deep in thick smoke at Waterside apartment complex.

"You can't see 6 inches in front of your face," Firefighter Mike Carroll said. "It's just black. Wake up in the middle of the night, keep your eyes closed. That's what it's like." A second group of the city's Bravest found the elevators shut down, so they scrambled up 24 floors carrying 100 pounds of equipment, a delay that put pressure on the crews upstairs. "You get nervous," said Capt. Patrick Brown, one of the first firefighters at the scene. "You're scared, and you've only got five minutes of air left in your tank."

Authorities said 20 people were treated at Bellevue Hospital and released: 16 firefighters, two cops, a woman and her 4-month-old.

Five other firefighters were treated at the Weill Cornell Medical Center burn unit and released. The other injured people were treated at the scene.

04/21/2001
Inflamed Over Chaplains Islamic Society files lawsuit against Fire Department
William Murphy
Staff Writer - Newsday

If the Fire Department can consider hiring a police officer who shot Amadou Diallo, it should at least show some sensitivity and hire a Muslim chaplain, the department's Islamic Society said Friday.

The society has been trying for three years to get a Muslim chaplain and has filed a federal lawsuit against the city alleging discrimination.

"What really blew our tops is hiring this police officer, this lightning rod, and the fire commissioner is not even going to consider our request," said Kevin James, a supervising fire marshal who is president of the Islamic Society of Fire Department Personnel. He was referring to Police Officer Edward McMellon, under consideration for employment in the department, and Fire Commissioner Tom Von Essen.

The Fire Department had said it plans to hire McMellon, who scored high on his entry test. Von Essen put that decision on hold earlier this week after strong criticism from Diallo's parents, the 300 black firefighters in the Vulcan Society, and the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights group.

McMellon and three other officers were acquitted of criminal charges last year in the death of Diallo, the unarmed West African immigrant who was shot in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building in February 1999.

James said the department has two Jewish chaplains among its seven paid chaplains, but the Islamic Society has to prove it deserves one also. "This is like the poll tax in the South. You're giving us a hurdle that you're not giving to anyone else," he said.

The department's Islamic Society has slightly more than a dozen members.

James said the department does not keep statistics on how many Muslims are in the department. He estimated there are between 300 and 500 Muslims in the department, including the personnel in the Emergency Medical Service, the city's public ambulance service.

The Fire Department has recognized the Islamic Society as a line organization, meaning it is an official fraternal organization. The Fire Department did not return telephone calls for comment Friday.

April 20, 2001
Man, 92, Freed From Burning, Cluttered Home
By DONALD BERTRAND
Daily News Staff Writer

Two firefighters teamed up yesterday to make a dramatic rescue of a 92-year-old man from what the Fire Department termed a "Collyers' mansion situation."

The firefighters from Rescue 4, faced with brutal heat and cramped conditions, pulled the man from his blazing home on 66th St. shortly before 8 a.m.

Upon arrival, Firefighter Jimmy Finnell raced to the side of the home and found two men. One was using a garden hose to try to fight the fire while the other man was lying on the pavement with serious burns.

The burned man, Donald Kukla, 60, yelled that his father was inside.

"I jumped up to the window and other firefighters got behind and gave me a push through," said Finnell, a 14-year veteran.

"It was a Collyers' mansion. There was stuff everywhere," he said.

He heard a faint sound 10 to 15 feet into the room. He crawled through thick smoke and found 92-year-old Joseph Kukla wedged between a sofa and a chair.

He had difficulty moving Kukla.

"I tried to get on my knees to get a better position, but it was just so hot," the firefighter said. "You could see the fire in the background rolling over on the ceiling. I gave one last go at it and was able to move him."

Firefighter John Gaine, a 13-year veteran, assisted him.

"Jimmy, with a big grunt, finally got him lifted, and then I passed him through the window," said Gaine, who quickly followed the man outside out.

He was followed by Finnell, who said he "just dove through the window. That is how hot it was."

The elder Kukla was brought to Jacobi Medical Center's hyperbaric unit, where he was in stable condition.

His son, Donald, was in stable but critical condition at Weill Cornell Medical Center's burn unit.

"I kept telling them to 'get out, get out;' there was zero visibility and fire and black smoke was coming out the rear and side windows, but they got the victim out," said Capt. Brian Hickey of Rescue 4.

Collyers' mansion refers to two brothers who became notorious in 1947 after being found dead in a Harlem brownstone filled to the ceilings with accumulated newspapers and other material.

April 19, 2001
Bravest Act The Part,
Saving Family of 3
By TOM RAFTERY and BILL EGBERT
Daily News Staff Writers

A child and two adults — one suffering from critical burns — who were unconscious and not breathing were rescued from a house fire in Flatbush early yesterday.

The fire at 411 Marlborough Road started about 1:27 a.m. The three victims were in a basement apartment when the fire started, but it wasn't until an upstairs resident of the three-story house smelled smoke that the Fire Department was called.

The other seven residents of the house, shared by three families, escaped without injury.

Firefighters had to rescue and resuscitate the family of three trapped in the basement at the source of the fire.

"You never stop searching," said Lt. Mike Irwin of Ladder Co. 147. "No one told us they were down there."

Irwin said he first grabbed a 24-year-old mother and her 5-year-old daughter from a bedroom in the three-room makeshift apartment.

"I passed the girl to Firefighter Josh Lomack. He did mouth-to-mouth on her and got her outside," a weary Irwin said.

"I passed the mother to Firefighter Lenny Tyrell of Engine 281. There was a man trapped behind the fire in the kitchen. He was in the worst shape," Irwin said.

The lieutenant said he went beyond the fire and got the critically injured 38-year-old man, who had second- and third-degree burns and damage to his air passages.

"When they left, we had all of them breathing," Irwin said.

Mother and daughter were in serious but stable condition at Kings County Hospital. The man, possibly the father, was in extremely critical condition at the Cornell Burn Center in Manhattan, officials said.

The names of the three victims were not released.

The homeowner, Errol Brown, 47, watched the rescue of the 5-year-old and said he was impressed with the speed and bravery of the firefighters.

"I was very happy she was out," he said. "I was just praying she was still alive."

Brown said the fire never spread beyond a small area of the basement, allowing most of the residents — which included two other young children — to escape unharmed.

"Only a miracle could have made it turn out the way it did," Brown said.

The Fire Department brought the blaze under control at 1:57 a.m. The cause was under investigation, but the fire may have started in a couch, officials said.

Fire Department officials said there were no smoke alarms in the basement apartment, and that the Buildings Department had been notified that it may have been an illegal rental space. It is investigating.

Thanks you.... I share your sentiments.
Washington is a racist!!
(that's LT. not George)

I wonder if Mr. Washington was hired off the 3 to 1 list or if he acknowledges it existed when he talks about the disparity concerning the hiring process for the job..i guess if you get acquitted as a white man you are still guilty but if you are acquitted as a black man then justice has been served..Since it no longer concerns me, i can't comment about the hiring process, but the Vulcan society is a racist organization that exists in the FDNY and their viewpoint is of no interest to me or the general public....
..jim

If Essen gives in it will be a sad day for the FD.
Black racism will never go away and for that reason there will always be serious problems.

Look at the claims of 15 wrongful deaths by those rioters, all 15 bogus and just thrown up to muddy the water.

During the riots in the City I saw what race hatred does and how rioters get away with murder because being black they get a pass for illegal conduct.

John

MY HEART GOES OUT TO KADIATOR DIALLO. BUT SHE NO RIGHT TO HOUND MC MELLON. I BEEN A FIREFIGHTER FOR 25 YEARS. I WOULD HAVE NO PROBLEM GOING DOWN A LONG DARK HALLWAY WITH MC MELLON. AS FAR AS WASHINGTON AND THE VALCAN ARE CONCERNED, THEY ARE BECOMING MORE RACIST THEN EVER.
_______________

What does one thing have to do with the other.....The tragedy that he was involved with has to do with the NYPD. He was "acquitted" at trial. What more has to be done? It takes an incredibly long time to become a Firefighter. { 7 years in my case} I think they should allow him to become a Firefighter and if by chance there are further actions needed to be taken by the NYPD, then let them take them. Until then, give the man his chance.
_____________

‘BRAVEST' BIG SHOULD KEEP RACE CARD IN DECK
By STEVE DUNLEAVY

April 15, 2001 -- NY POST

IT HAS to sadden and hurt someone like myself - who has such sacred respect for the Fire Department - to listen to the words of Lt. Paul Washington.

Washington is the president of the Vulcan Society, which represents black firefighters. It is hard to grasp where he is coming from.

He has come out swinging against the hiring of Police Officer Edward McMellon by the Fire Department.

McMellon was one of "The Bronx Four" cleared in the tragic death of Amadou Diallo.

McMellon, whom I've had the honor to meet, pulled down one of the highest scores in the Fire Department's test to get on the job after living every hour of his waking days recounting those terrible seconds that led to the accidental shooting of Diallo.

"We are 100 percent against [the hiring]," Washington said. "It shows the blatant disparities in how they view people trying to get on this job. If you were tried for murder as a black man, there would be no way you would be getting on the New York City Fire Department."

Because I have so much genuine love and respect for firefighters, I hope I can contain my anger at that statement. Those are not fitting words from any of The Bravest.

Washington wants to prevent Officer McMellon from earning a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.

The head of the Vulcans apparently has no regard for due process, under which Officer McMellon and the other three officers were found completely innocent of murder charges.

It seems that everywhere in this grownup city we are still playing the childish card game of race.

Now look at the outrageous explosion of rank indecency on the part of Malik Zulu Shabazz.

Malik is wailing about Bill Clinton moving offices to Harlem.

"Harlem is ours . . . We will not allow some cracker named Bill Clinton to set the stage and the pace to drive black people out of Harlem," Shabazz said at a rally on Friday.

"We are here to deal with a serious problem called gentrification . . . Gentrification to us means genocide."

There is every good reason why the Jeffersons might object to Bill Clinton moving uptown.

I wouldn't necessarily be doing somersaults myself if Bill knocked on my door to borrow a cup of sugar.

I don't know what paint Malik or Zulu is sniffing but could you imagine if some white guy in the East 70s pronounced: "The Upper East Side is ours. We don't want blacks coming into the neighborhood"?

You would need the entire 40,000 members of the Police Department to control a riot.

Perhaps Mr. Shabazz should hang out only in the area north of 125th Street. That would make us both happy. Except I know some rather decent places up there which sell very cold beer which I like very much and where I feel very welcome.

The bottom line is, I think a lot of us are getting overly tired of the overly used words associated with racism.

Here we have a situation of a numbskull like Malik Zulu sounding off about what he perceives to be his very own real estate.

But a member of "The Bravest" making a clarion call to keep a great cop like McMellon off the Fire Department suddenly puts him in the same class.

It is racism at its most deplorable.

And this is 2001? Was anyone listening to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.? Hello out there.

4/12/01 HERO FIREMEN GRAB FLEEING ROBBER: COPS By ERIC LENKOWITZ - NY Post April 12, 2001 -- An alert group of firemen returning from a call yesterday morning jumped from their truck and nabbed a knife-wielding robber who had just held up a sushi restaurant, police said. Capt. Charles J. Vella said that he and four firefighters from Engine 13 saw a group of men wrestling on the sidewalk at 22nd Street and Park Avenue South and instinctively stopped to break it up.   TO THE RESCUE: A grateful Aleya Chowdhury and M.D. Alim-Al-Razi (front center) stand with the five firefighters from Engine Co. 13 who subdued the armed man who allegedly robbed their sushi restaurant. Photo - Joey Newfield  After the firefighters broke up the fight, they learned that Jose Santos, 35, of Brooklyn, who was at the center of the tussle, had just robbed Daikichi Sushi at 34 E. 23rd St. at knifepoint, cops said. Firefighter Bobby Peters told him to hand over his knife, and he did. "When we see a problem, we always try to help out," Vella said. "They were wrestling. We heard them yelling at each other, and we broke it up." Santos initially tried to flee the robbery in a taxi, but a restaurant worker who was chasing him stopped the vehicle and ordered the man out, cops said. Santos wrestled the restaurant worker, M.D. Alim-Al-Razi, to the ground, but was held back by two bystanders on the corner of 22nd Street and Park Avenue South. Moments later, the five firefighters arrived. Santos, who cops said made off with $197, was arrested and charged with robbery and criminal possession of stolen property. The robbery allegedly took place when Aleya Chowdhury, 40, came to Daikichi Sushi just before 10 a.m. to open for business. She said as she punched in she heard someone coming in and thought it was one of her friends. Then, she said, Santos grabbed her and held a small fold-out knife to her neck, saying, "Give me the money or I'll kill you." "I thought he would kill me because I didn't think there was any money," she said. As Santos was fleeing, Alim-Al-Razi was arriving for work and, when told by Chowdhury that he was a robber, he chased Santos.

18 Firefighters Get New Ranks
4/06/01
By BILL EGBERT
Daily News Staff Writer

Eighteen of New York's Bravestclimbed another rung up the ladder yesterday in a promotion ceremony at the Fire Department's MetroTech Headquarters.

Cheered by their buddies and congratulated by Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, 15 firefighters assumed the rank of lieutenant, while two deputy assistant chiefs were promoted to assistant chiefs.

Chief Mike Butler will take over the Bureau of Fire Prevention a little more than two weeks after Mayor Giuliani announced that the FDNY would assume inspection responsibilities from the city Buildings Department.

The move is aimed at increasing accountability in the buildings inspection process in the wake of a Daily News investigation exposing widespread corruption within that department.

Butler will oversee the merger of both departments' inspection staffs and duties into the Fire Department's chain of command, a process expected to be complicated by the fact that current law does not give the FDNY the authority to overrule buildings inspectors in many instances.

Sal Cassano and Frank Felini were promoted to the rank of assistant chief.

Yesterday's ceremony saw 15 firefighters move into the hot seat, rising to the rank of lieutenant. The rank, which takes up to four years of study to attain, puts them in command of firefighters in the field.

Before leading the new officers in their oath, Von Essen summed up their new role.

"Up to now, you've been responsible for yourself and for being part of a team," he said. "Now you're responsible for that team."

Michael Foy, a 36-year-old firefighter promoted out of Ladder Company 157 on Farragut Road, had a clear picture of what kind of leadership his new rank demands.

"I remember an apartment fire not too long ago where the fire had melted the window out and the wind blew the flames right into us," Foy said, replaying the event in his mind.

"All nine of us got burned — all second-degree, our ears were all blistered and everything — and our lieutenant had to get us all out of that apartment safely," he said. "But then, as soon as we were all out, he had to get all nine of us regrouped, and then lead us right back in there to fight that fire."

Foy's firehouse is one of the busiest in the city, so he and his teammates already were well-seasoned. But as a lieutenant assigned to a division, Foy will work with firefighters from several different companies, making his role as team leader even more challenging.

"Now it's my responsibility to see how much these guys can give me," he said, "and know what I can do to bring it out."

4/04/01 UFA Spurns No-Confidence Vote
By BILL FARRELL

Daily News Staff Writer

Don't look for the Uniformed Firefighters Association to join other unions in a vote of no confidence in Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen.

It's not as if the idea hasn't been tossed around among UFA President Kevin Gallagher's board. It just that the UFA leadership doesn't believe there's a lot of upside to a no-confidence vote.

According to insiders in the union, the UFA board was quietly polled on the issue, and it voted 9-to-2against a vote of no confidence.

On Monday, the union — which represents the FDNY Emergency Medical Service lieutenants and captains — joined the Uniformed Fire Officers Association and union representing FDNY EMS' emergency medical technicians and paramedics in passing a no confidence resolution.

Last Friday, Uniformed Fire Officers Association President Peter Gorman upped the ante and called upon Von Essento resign. The demand came in the wake of performance failures of newly issued digital radios.

The unions charge the FDNY knew about problems with the radios and still put them in the field.

While Gallagher stood alongside Gorman at the Friday press conference, he made no call for Von Essen to resign.

He did, however, blast the department for putting his members at risk when the FDNY rolled out the handheld radios last month.

Rather than vote on a resolution of no confidence, Gallagher would wait until an investigations into the radios are completed.

The FDNY is conducting an internal investigation into the $9 million radio fiasco. The City Councilcommittee on investigations and oversight also is investigating.

A full hearing is scheduled for April 16.

According to those familiar with the Council inquiry, investigators have been reviewing the contracts with Motorola, and have spoken to department brass involved in the program, as well as individual firefighters and fire officers.

Investigators are looking into allegations that FDNY officials were aware of problems when the handheld radios were used during drills at Randalls Island in January and February.

FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon said that the department was unaware of any problems during testing and that some of the problems — including echo effect, delay and volume problems — were inherent in the features of the digital technology.

"Once problems surfaced on March 19, the radios were tested, and when problems arose, they were taken out of service," he said.

So in light of all the inquiries, the UFA leadership has decided to take a wait-and-see view on the no confidence vote.

"A vote like that isn't going to do much right now. What's important is the safety of our members," a union insider said.

Don't be surprised, however, if a call for a no-confidence vote is brought to floor at the UFA meeting this month.

Don't look for a thaw in relations between Von Essen and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association Gorman either.

In an apparent response to the association's no-confidence vote, the FDNY deactivated the FDNY headquarters security cards issued to Uniformed Fire Officers Association and EMT union officers.

"The access cards to headquarters have been deactivated," Gorman told us yesterday. "We have sent a letter and have asked the chip or whatever be reactivated."

According to Gribbon, the union officials shouldn't expect that to happen in the near future. "Access cards are a courtesy that had been extended, and now it's been retracted," said Gribbon. "No one is being denied access to the building. It only means when they come to headquarters, they now have to sign in."

4/04/01
3 Critically Injured In B'klyn Blaze
By TOM RAFTERY and BILL EGBERT
Daily News Staff Writers

Flames ripped though a Brooklyn house early yesterday, filling the second floor with choking, black smoke that sent six people to the hospital, including a woman and two children who were in critical condition.

Fire officials said the blaze started in a first-floor bedroom of the two-story brick house on Sheffield Ave. in New Lots about 4:30 a.m. and quickly spread across the rear and onto the upper floor, where the smoke trapped the three adults and three children, who ranged in age from 1 to 13.

Two men escaped by leaping into an air shaft, where they were rescued by firefighters.

Faced with acrid, black smoke filling the stairwell, 23-year-old Ebony Spicer, her two children and her younger brother managed to climb to the flat roof, but were overcome.

Firefighters found them unconscious on the rooftop and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation as all six victims were taken to nearby Brookdale University Hospital with severe smoke inhalation.

Spicer was in critical condition when doctors at Brookdale sealed her inside one of the hospital's two hyperbaric chambers — pressurized containers that deliver high-pressure oxygen to victims with severely damaged lungs.

Two of the children — Spicer's year-old son and her 13-year-old brother — also were in critical condition. Spicer's 5-year-old daughter was listed in stable condition. Authorities did not release the names of the children.

Spicer's uncle Michael Woods, 40, and friend Brian Smith, 23, were both in stable condition, but hospital officials said all of the victims would be rotated in and out of the two hyperbaric chambers.

Twelve units and 60 firefighters brought the blaze under control by 5:13 a.m., officials said, and one firefighter was treated at Kings County Hospital for burns to the ears and neck.

Alma Woods, 51, who owns the house and lives on the ground floor, escaped without injury after her brother Zaney Woods, 43, alerted her to the blaze.

Fire marshals said the blaze was likely touched off by a cigarette in Zaney Woods' bedroom.

March 28th, 2001

Dear Brothers,

I have received the March 2001 "Fire Lines" from the UFA. On the Front page it states "OUR Legislative Goals for 2001."

Well, there seems to be something conspicuously missing from the UFA's Legislative Goals List. The UFA & UFOA have informed some retiree leaders that legislation would be sought by both unions to eliminate the COLA offset (VSF) contracted & legislated in 1988-89, which precluded Service Retirees from essentially "double dipping" until the year 2007 or age 62, whichever came latest. To omit this important goal from their purported legislative list would lead one to believe that the UFA might be holding back this information.

The following questions must be asked again: Are the unions being negligent in their fiduciary responsibility to disabled, vested and pre' 68 retirees ? Are the unions guilty of a "conflict of interest" by taking sides among their retirees ? Why are the unions willing to support this legislation while denying the right of an Inquiry to disabled, vested and pre ' 68 retirees? Will ALL union officials be Service Retirees ? If retiree leaders are to represent ALL retirees, they must first start by treating ALL of them equally and fairly ! Finally, didn't the UFA want ALL retirees to know about their legislative goal to have the 1988-89 contract unwound, only for the benefit of some retirees ? If it is such an important goal, as they have stated, why purposely omit it from a union newsletter (Fire Lines), which is sent out to some 18,000 active and retired members ? I hope, I don't have to give you that answer !

Additionally, it seems that the UFA is still seeking changes on how insurance funds are invested (FDNY Mandatory). The UFA proposed eliminating the fund and promised to forward info to retirees on how this could (would) be done. It seems that it didn't quite work out to the unions benefit, so back to investing fund moneys without retiree's input. Who will be the real beneficiary of this proposed change ?

Lastly, congratulations must go out to the UFOA and EMS for issuing a "Vote of No-Confidence" to Fire Commissioner Von Essen. What is the UFA waiting for ? Wasn't the Radio Fiasco the straw that broke the camel's back ? That firefighter was in serious trouble. I don't care if he was "one foot" away from an egress. He didn't know that, and his "untested radio" didn't work ! For a Fire Commissioner to state that the firefighter's life was not in jeopardy or danger is incredulous !
UFA, where are you ?????

In hopes of .............?????


John Gilleeny
Pres. Keystone-FDNY-Retirees

(Firefighters (from l.) Anthony Chaimowitz, Tom Kempfand and Van Johnson show aluminum foil used to wrap manila envelopes full of cash)

Cash Stash Discovered At Fire Scene
By MICHELE McPHEE Daily News Staff Writer
- 3/27/01
It wasn't pennies from heaven, but firefighters tearing down a fire-ravaged ceiling in a Brooklyn apartment stumbled onto a bounty from above: $30,000 stashed away two decades ago.

The man who lives in the Bushwick apartment said he knew nothing about the brittle bricks of bills in six manila envelopes marked with hand-scrawled dates from the late '70s and early '80s. The envelopes were wrapped in foil.

Copsbelieve the cash found Sunday in a third-floor apartment at 379 Grove St. might be long-forgotten mob money. The firefighters of Ladder Co. 124 have their own theories.

"We think it belonged to some bookie who got bumped off, or some wiseguy who went on the lam," mused Firefighters Anthony Chaimowitz, Tom Kempfand . "We've been thinking up all kinds of crazy New York-style stories."

Chaimowitz was among the firefighters who responded to a blaze that started after tenant Michael Drewery, 43, fell asleep while smoking.

Firefighter Robert Gigulianotti was tearing down Drewery's ceiling, looking for fire pockets, when he discovered a secret compartment that had been obscured by molding.

He spotted what looked like silver bricks hidden in the rafters. He reached in and found the foil packages, along with a metal lockbox.

"At first we thought it was drugs. But when we saw it was money, we called the fire marshals," Chaimowitz said. "Sure, we're all scraping pennies together, but it never crossed our minds to keep it. We all love our jobs."

Fire marshals called the 83rd Precinct, and cops vouchered the cash. Police sources said there was $1,300 in $100 bills; $450 in $50 bills; $27,640 in $20 bills; $440 in $10 bills; $20 in $5 bills, and three singles. In the rusty box were old silver certificates, currency representing silver bullion on deposit.

"It was like finding buried treasure," said Firefighter Van Johnson.

Nobody appeared more surprised than Drewery, who has lived in the apartment four years.

"He told us, 'Boy, there were plenty of times I could have used a few dollars, and it was right over my head the whole time,'" Chaimowitz said.

Police officials said the money was put into the city's general operating fund, where it will stay if no one claims it.

"It would be terrible if it went in the city's budget somewhere. We would like to see it go to the [firefighters'] widows and children's fund," Johnson said. "If someone does try to claim it, I guess they'll have to answer a lot of questions."

Hero Fireman Back At Work Was severely burned in 1998 Brooklyn blaze
By MICHELE McPHEE
Daily News Staff Writer 3/12/01

It has been nearly three years since FDNY Lt. Timothy Stackpolewas waist-high in flames reciting the Lord's Prayer aloud amid a monstrous Brooklyn inferno.

Stackpole and four other firefighters had plunged into a burning East New York rowhouse to search for a woman they mistakenly were told was trapped inside. Then the floor collapsed and they fell into an ocean of flames and a crushing pile of debris.

Lt. James Blackmore died at the scene. Lt. Scott LaPiedra died 29 days later. Three others were hospitalized for serious burns, including Stackpole, who was critically injured. No one thought Stackpole ever would set foot in a firehouse again.

Timothy Stackpole trained last week before returning to active duty. Firefighting is in his blood. Yesterday at 9 a.m. sharp, he reported for full duty at his second home: Ladder 103, nicknamed "The Pride of Sheffield Ave."

PICTURE: FDNY Lt. Timothy Stackpole (rear r.) and his wife, Tara (rear l.), with their children Terence (foreground), Brian (l.), Brendan and Kaitlyn.

"I feel tremendous pride to be back here," said Stackpole, 42, who was greeted with applause from colleagues and Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen. "Nobody thought I was going to be back. But I'm a fireman, and all firemen have faith. I couldn't come back here if I didn't have faith."

Ladder Co. 103's list yesterday includes Lt. Timothy Stackpole. Not long after his arrival, an alarm sounded. Firefighters cheered as Stackpole slipped on his protective bunker gear and jumped into the front seat of the ladder truck to respond to his first call, a woman complaining of overwhelming paint fumes.

"Timmy has the heart of a lion," Von Essen said yesterday as he watched Stackpole at work. "He's a real credit to the Fire Department."

When Stackpole looks back on the awful night of June 5, 1998, he is faced with conflicting memories of the horrible loss of two colleagues and human kindness in the face of tragedy.

He recalled that after he was dragged out of the inferno, a fellow firefighter wrapped blessed rosary beads around his scorched hands. Doctors later said he clutched the beads so tightly, the imprint of a cross was emblazoned on his palm.

He also remembers how his wife, Tara, and five children were buoyed by a sea of firefighters who crammed his hospital room around the clock. They did household repairs on his Marine Park, Brooklyn, home and held a block party the day he was released from the hospital.

"I always wanted to be a fireman, because I believed you could never meet a better quality of people," Stackpole said. "Even with all the sadness, losing those guys, there has been so much good that came out of what happened."

Stackpole's injuries left him hospitalized in Weill Cornell Medical Center's burn unit for 66 long days. He has since endured dozens of painful surgeries and skin grafts for burns so severe that in some spots bones were exposed. His legs are tattooed with massive scars.

"For a while it looked really bad," said FDNY Chief Medical Officer Kelly Kerry. "We knew he had a long road ahead of him. He was burned in so many areas and so deeply."

"A lot of people who went through what he went through would have walked away, saying he had sacrificed enough," she added. "Not Timmy."

Days after he was released from the burn center that winter, Stackpole limped on bandaged feet to a tragic trio of funerals for three other fallen firefighters — Christopher Bopp, James Bohan and Lt. Joseph Cavalierifrom Ladder Co. 170 in Canarsie.

"It hits so close to home," Stackpole said of those funerals. "The pain is huge."

As Stackpole slowly recovered, he worked toward a business degree at St. Francis College, played with his children and was an active parishioner at Good Shepherd Church. Still, he was counting the days until he could walk back into a firehouse and do the job to which he has been devoted for more than two decades.

"This is his life, this is his love," said Ladder 103 Battalion Chief James Riches. "He's where he belongs."

We the "disabled retirees" are the targets of sweeping discrimination by the repressive unions and the City of New York...This is the thanks we get for risking our lives and health..
GOD Bless America

KEYSTONE-FDNY-ASSN. Members United Retired Firefighters Association 74 WLE Lake Ariel, Pa 18436

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