Redundant and unnecessary

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2012 • The Alameda Sun

Redundant and unnecessary

Editor,

Charles Fasso’s op-ed (“Closing Fire Station No. 3,” Sept. 13) can only be politically motivated as it could not be further from the truth! There are no reports that contradict the 2009 ICMA report.

Moreover, the ICMA report based its findings on national fire industry standards: each fire station needs to provide a 1.5-mile radius of coverage.

What the heck does that mean for us exactly? It means that out of all of the fire stations we have in Alameda, Fire Station No. 3 is the only fire station that we do not need.

Why? Because every other fire station perfectly and slightly overlaps to provide service for the entire city. That’s right: the coverage provided by Fire Station No. 3 is redundant and unnecessary.

So why is our city leadership and management hell bent on spending millions on the redesign and expansion of the Fire Station No. 3 facility and staff and exacerbating the annual multi-million dollar overspend on overstaffing of fire services? One needs only look at the political donations made by the firefighters’ union, IAFF Local 689, to figure this one out: the local fire union has been averaging $50,000 in donations per election to local candidates and measures.

Our city’s citizen legislature is anything but.

— Denise Lai

Retired Oakland Firefighter weighs in

Daniel Lisker, retired lieutenant with 16 years on the OFD, weighs in over at the Contra Costa Times, article here.

The Raymond Zack Event falls into the LOW RISK with HIGH REWARD category. A no-brainer.  Quotes from Lisker’s article (bolds mine):

“Situations fall into four classifications according to risk to personnel and probable outcome of the situation: Low risk, low reward; low risk, high reward; high risk, low reward; and high risk, high reward.

From the video of this sad scenario that I saw, this man was about 100-150 yards offshore in about 4-5.5 feet of water. This was not a water rescue; this was a case of wading out to the man, communicating with him and walking him back to the beach. This was not a man treading water in the Oakland-Alameda estuary, where danger to personnel is great. At Crown Beach you can wade out for 200 yards and still be knee-deep in water.

A police officer or a firefighter could have done this…