At Face Value

What the Citizens of Roanoke don’t understand is that by taking Engine 13 out of service now, the department is setting up them up to make them feel better when they remove Engine 9 from service.

When the new Station 5 opens, it will be a combination of the current Station 5 and 9 (currently housing Engine 5, Engine 9, and Medic 9 collectively). When the combination occurs, Ladder 13 will be moved to the new station and one of the engines will move back to Station 13. The FD will come out smelling like roses. What the Citizens don’t understand is that it will be smoke and mirrors. We all understand that.

Chief Hoback asked me if I knew why Ladder 9 was moved to Station 13 becoming Ladder 13. He told me it was because the new ladder would not fit in Station 9. The truth is that Chief Grigsby got all of the statistics together to prove the need for the Ladder truck at 13 instead of 9 and a medic truck was put in place of the ladder at station 9.

Now, they will sell the combination as not taking a truck out of service, but actually swapping an engine with a ladder. Everyone knows that the area covered by 5 and 9 is the busiest in the city for fires.

What sense does this make. If the news media was doing their job, they would pick up on this and run with it. Why the smoke and mirrors. This whole consolidation plan has been a huge magic trick. We are the pawns, the citizens are the pawns, and City Council has bought it all hook-line-and sinker.

There have been a lot of great comments recently. I applaud your insight. I cannot think of every angle and do not claim to.

It is amazing that our Fire Chief was worried for his job by not going against the budget proposal…supposedly. This same retaliation is what we have lived with for so long. I guess the same medicine is served to all under the current regime.

JUST REMEMBER…DON’T DRINK THE KOOLAID!