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Supreme Court Justice Asks: Who Passed Bribe?
filled by cronyism and nepotism, always has been and always will be-that is why SDFD was sued and they were forced into a legal consent decree ================== See... told you he'd come back to an argument he couldn't prove. Yet again, Johnny, prove that any hiring in the FD in the past 25 years has been affected by a consent decree. You seem to think that something that happened 35 years ago is still current hiring practice.— November 11, 2009 6:29 a.m.
Supreme Court Justice Asks: Who Passed Bribe?
Big difference between going through a fair hiring process and nepotism. It seems that by your definition, no one who had ancestors in the military could ever join... Incidentally, did you notice that Johnny Vegas seems to have plenty of time to comment on other stories, but none to back up his bogus claims here? Typical. Sooner or later, he'll make the same fantasy statements again, completely ignoring the fact that he couldn't prove them the first time.— November 10, 2009 6:37 p.m.
Supreme Court Justice Asks: Who Passed Bribe?
OK, in regards to Post 106... you're kidding, right? You really think that people are adopting themselves out to have a different surname to that they can get hired? Are some family members hired? Sure. Just the same as some follow their parents footsteps into business, or into the military, or into elected office. However, unlike business, those hired into the FD are held to a higher standard. The "you should know better" standard. At least one son of a high ranking chief has been fired from the academy for failure to perform. Based on what I've seen, the "family" rate in the academy is <10%. I believe that in the current academy, there are two family members out of 34 recruits. The testing is handled by the city Personnel Department. No one in the FD knows what is on the test. It's a general knowledge test, so there is no need for FD review. The only FD involvement is in the interview process. But then city Personnel makes the final hiring offers based on whatever criteria they do. Don, you say it "cries out for a major investigation". OK. Into what? How much are you willing to spend on a grand jury investigation based on the complaints of a couple of anonymous people?— November 10, 2009 9:58 a.m.
Supreme Court Justice Asks: Who Passed Bribe?
Funny how Johnny twists the truth. In post 52 he claimed: "The high paying gov jobs, like FF jobs, and to a lesser extent the PD jobs, are all "gifted" out to; 1- Family (Hi JF!!), 2- Friends, 3- Military workfare and 4- Civil rights lawsuit consent decree hires for engaging in 1 & 2 above." OK, so prove it. You claimed it, you prove it. You used the words "ALL gifted out..." Prove it. 1. Prove what family connection I had to get hired. 2. Prove what friends I used to get hired. 3. Prove that I was in the military. 4. Prove that I was hired under a consent decree. I picked consent decree to pick apart his argument because it's the only one he has a chance at. I was trying to throw him a bone. As usual, he's unwilling to back up ANY of his claims with actual proof. As far as consent decrees, Johnny is trying to prove his theories about current SDFD hiring by way of a 35 year old court case. It doesn't apply today. He's still welcome to show that ANY hiring in the SDFD has been affected by a consent decree in the past 25 years. He can't do it. No one can. Basically, he's jealous because he couldn't get hired as a PD officer years ago, so he uses the typical victim stance of blaming the "system".— November 9, 2009 7:05 p.m.
Supreme Court Justice Asks: Who Passed Bribe?
BTW-I am glad you ADMIT that SDFD was under a lawsuit consent decree for illegal hiring practies. ================= I have no idea if there was or not. You sure have a funny way of interpreting people's words. For the third time in this thread, please post the case where the SDFD was under a consent decree at any point during the past 20 years. You can't post links because it's damn hard to verify "make believe" with actual info.— November 8, 2009 2:19 p.m.
For Cliff Sitters
Fred, Firehouses have to be ADA because they are public buildings. We give tours to the public. The public stops by with questions about fire safety. At the insistence of former council members, some fire stations had areas added to use as community meeting rooms. Of course, they've never been used for that as they're around 12' x 12'. Wonder what that cost? Nonetheless, we should be able to serve the public we serve. Richard Rider has often made the point that we're spending more per capita on gov't services than pre-Prop 13. He is absolutely correct in that fact, but not necessarily on the cause. In my mind, we have a lot more expensive mandates than we did then. ADA, sewage treatment, etc. Yet there hasn't been a tax increase to cover the cost of those mandates. Therefore, day-to-day services suffer. As far as surge capacity, I don't agree that residents should be trained to use fire equipment. They would essentially become a volunteer fire department then. That requires training, workers compensation insurance, personal protective gear, etc. Hugely expensive, yet few would ever fight a fire. Why not have the equipment and call back off duty firefighters to staff it when the weather calls for it? SDFD is just about to add 8 new apparatus to the fleet. The plan was to keep the old ones as reserve. Alas, that plan may go by the wayside in this latest budget crunch. Sad. We've also developed ways to build capacity on the cheap by buying smaller pickup type apparatus, but there was no budget for that, so now we keep boxes of equipment with the thought of renting pickups to put it in. How sad is that? As far as government? Someone once said, "Anyone smart enough to be president is also smart enough to know that they don't want the job." Same applies to local government. A city council member in SD only makes $75K/year. Anyone smart enough for the job is easily making double that in private industry.— November 8, 2009 2:13 p.m.
Escondido's Tech-Heavy Headquarters
It it tech heavy? Yes. However, the lessons of the Cedar Fire and Old Fires from 2003 showed that those in the decision making centers had little situational awareness of where the fires actually were and thus had a difficult time deciding where to evacuate. Having technology help increase that situational awareness and allow better decisions. Do they need a 55 inch TV? I don't know. How big is the room? Where is it mounted? How many people are in the room? Or, I guess you could just have an uneducated kneejerk reaction and call them all clowns.— November 8, 2009 1:58 p.m.
Supreme Court Justice Asks: Who Passed Bribe?
Oh hi, Johnny. I see I got your attention. Care to provide a link for your info? Or should we consider that a Johnny Vegas lie? Now provide the case where SDFD was under a consent decree within the past 20 years. I guess your refusal to do that means you lied about it? Once again, a few of us here are trying to have a decent conversation. Please stop with the insults and name calling.— November 7, 2009 5:28 p.m.
Supreme Court Justice Asks: Who Passed Bribe?
Here ya go, Johnny. Found this while looking for something else. This is what happens when true nepotism happens these days. Someone complains and the violators get fires. Note that none of the people in this case were actually firefighters. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-harper27-…— November 6, 2009 11:56 p.m.
For Cliff Sitters
It's not necessarily against the rules. The problems is that they have to follow the rules -- ADA especially. That adds to the cost, which scares residents off. The the city attorney's office gets involved, so the residents have to sign hold harmless agreements, etc. That scares of potential donors. It really sucks. Believe it or not, a lot of us can plainly see some of the excesses in gov't, and how to fix them. Alas, there's not a lot we can do at our level. Various laws and various politicians get in our way. One good example -- do you really think that we (street level firefighters) want mansion fire houses? Give us a decent place with good industrial, easy to clean interiors and we're happy. But the law and politicians say that the stations must fit in with the neighborhood, that we must have public art installed and that we must be ADA compliant. Add all that to the fees that we pay other agencies and you've doubled the cost of a fire station. It's ridiculous. Of course, we've finally gotten back to having developers pay, so that helps. I'd rather spend the money on spare fire apparatus, so we have a big surge capability. But they don't ask me.— November 6, 2009 11:37 p.m.