The Rake magazine has a feature on the situation with the massive staff cuts at the Minneapolis Fire Department.
http://www.rakemag.com/features/detail.asp?catID=61&itemID=5610 Also mentioned is the idea of adding revenue to MFD by having firefighters conduct housing inspections on their "downtime." Does anyone know more about how that might work? I asked my dad (retired MFD firefighter) and he thought it was a pretty idiotic idea since anyone who knows the MFD knows there isn't that much downtime with the training, equipment maintenance and fire safety inspections that are already conducted. I would also imagine that this could further stretch response times if firefighters have to leave inspections to respond to calls. I've also heard from the housing inspection side that this would likely have problems - inspections having to be rescheduled if a firefighter gets pulled away by a call, costs for training firefighters to do inspections and installing Inspections software at the stations, inspections would become secondary concerns for staff who were hired primarily to fight fires and respond to emergencies. The idea is portrayed in the Rake feature as essentially a done deal. Does anyone know if that's the case? Mark Snyder Windom Park TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
