New Haven Fire Department

Incompetent Politicians........

Wow…..here’s a field ripe for the picking! I want to zero in on one example of political incompetence however, the New Haven Fire Department in New Haven, CT. Who is running the city? As Bugs Bunny would say; “whatta buncha maroons”.

Seems in 2003, the city paid a princely sum of money to have a promotional exam administered by an out of state firm. The exam was SPECIFICALLY designed to overcome any racial biases embedded in the process, giving equal chance across the board for all eligible department members. What happened ? The results came back with none of the black or brown candidates scoring high enough for promotion.

Well, Mayor John DeStefano Jr. and the politically powerful black chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners, the Rev. Boise Kimber, decided, in what I am sure was a purely a non-politically motivated move (yea, right) to basically forego the non-biased testing process, and devise a crude racial labeling system of the participants and make race a factor. The result was they were able to ensure their political hacks who did not pass the exam, were promoted. Those who passed the exam, and had the knowledge and skills to become leaders, were passed over. Let me just add here that Rev. Kimber is a convicted embezzler and perjurer. Interestingly enough, this would disqualify him from joining the ranks of the New Haven Fire Department, but apparently, he can sit as the chair of the overseeing Board of Fire Commissioners. Whomever put him in that position ought to be awarded the New Haven “Moron of the Decade” award. A politician with any miniscule tidbit of intelligence, would have never put a convicted felon in such an important position. Obviously the Mayor of New Haven, CT has no such tidbit of intelligence.

So…what do we have?

• We have a promotional process, which began as one that was legally defensible and designed to remove any biases, turned upside down and into a three-ring circus by these two incompetent idiots and their political minions. It obviously is no longer a legally viable promotional process since their intervention.
• We have a bunch of people who paid out of pocket for testing materials and took the time out of their daily lives to legitimately study, following the process. Some of these people passed, some of them did not. The ones who passed however, had the rules changed on them after they finished the process. Their sincere efforts to work hard, study, and move their careers forward, have been negated by these two political boobs.
• A situation where a person is promoted and is not truly deserving of that promotion threatens to subvert the entire chain of command within a para-military organization such as a fire department. The people promoted in this fashion will never have the respect of the men that work for them. Further more; they will never have the self-respect they SHOULD have, if they had earned the position in a fair and just manner based upon their knowledge and problem solving skills. Think about being in a close work environment with a group of people that you suddenly found yourself in charge of, just by virtue of the color of your skin. A work environment where your job knowledge and skill levels are lesser than those around you, but yet, they have to answer to you in high-stress situations. I can tell you what will happen. They will not support you. They will let you climb further and further out on a limb until you fall off.
• We have a situation where the taxpayers are going to be paying their hard-earned dollars to support and defend a ridiculous political agenda.
• We have a situation where the tax payers are paying their hard-earned dollars towards the increased salaries of those that could not legitimately demonstrate they had the knowledge needed to perform in a critical position.
• We have a situation where the taxpayers are paying for less-than-capable people to be in a position to make life and death decisions. Decisions that will directly affect the well-being of those people who pay their salaries.
  

By way of disclosure, I am a retired 27 year veteran of the fire service. I went in as a ‘back-step’ man, and spent the last 10 years of my career as the Chief of the Department and I held every rank in between. I know of what I speak. Whenever we hired, we hired the best available candidates. Whenever we promoted, we promoted the best candidate. I could care less if someone is black, brown, yellow, red, or rainbow. All I care about is if they are the best qualified for the job. I strongly supported President Obama in his quest for office. Why? In my opinion he is the best-qualified man for the position. The taxpayers of any state, city, town, deserve no less. If you owned a business, would you promote someone who could not pass the established standard for a position? Would you promote someone less qualified or would you want to get the biggest bang for your buck. Oh yea….wait a minute…..I forget…big business does that every day (see below). The difference is those people are making widgets, and selling widgets. These people literally may hold your life in their hands some day, and you should think long and hard about whether or not that person is qualified to be making those decisions. There are too many dummies out there, that are elected as a mayor/councilperson/alderman/whatever, and immediately consider themselves experts on fire suppression, law enforcement, education, water distribution, and other, key public safety and infrastructure functions. They are not. They are simply looking to feed their political agendas. Politics should stay out of public safety.

Remember….wanna fuck-up a good plan? Put a politician in charge. They are some of the most INCOMPETENT people who walk the face of this good earth.

Go to: http://www.newhaven20.com/

Incompetent Drivers

There are three types of automobile drivers down here in Southern Florida:

TYPE 1: Never leaves the middle lane of RT95. Doesn't matter if he/she's only going 45mph. Same applies to multi-lane surface streets at a lesser speed. Once they pick their lane they never change regardless of their speed, unless of course, they see their turn which is always at the last second. Heaven forbid you find yourself on either side of them when they need to turn, because they don't look...they just turn. On rare occasion I HAVE seen them use a turn signal, but it does not matter if you are the poor sucker unable to get out of their way. They have their eyes on their goal, and they will make it come hell, high water, or some poor innocent.....They are generally driving big and/or expensive cars, and seem to have a sense of entitlement to the road, everyone else be damned. Then after nearly killing themselves and you, they give you that: “what’s the matter with you, don’t know enough to get out of my way?” look.

TYPE 2: Jimmy-Bob the NASCAR wannabe. 150MPH up (or down) RT95 bobbing and weaving and on occasion, trying to draft. Often seen in a pick-up truck that you need a step ladder to get into the cab. So high in fact, that if you put anything in the pick-up bed, it is never seen again, unless of course, you are talking about the empty beer cans and trash that blows about on flights up and down the highway. Sometimes drives a big SUV. (On another note, what is it with all the SUV's down here? It doesn't snow. I usually see them belly up on the roadside in the rain.....so what gives? That topic should be given its own thread...lol).

TYPE 3: "I learned to drive using a cart pulled by a small goat, back home". These types are generally Hispanic or black. This is not a racial bias, but strictly my observation as to who operates these errant vehicles. They drive as if they are using bumper cars. Case in point: I witnessed a +/- 1998 Toyota Corolla operated by what appeared to be a small Hispanic male broadside an older woman who was trying to exit a CVS onto Congress. The Toyota was traveling about 20mph, and it didn't appear to me he ever hit the brake, even though he had a clear line of vision for at least 100 feet. He did not try to evade her at all - just drove into the side of her car. His wife was with him, and they were both dressed very colorfully. His car bounced off the woman's (probably 5 year old) Lexus, and the look of surprise on his face was comical. Apparently, it did little mechanical damage to his car as he slowly backed up, pulled out into the next lane and drove off, at the aforementioned 20mph. In the process, he never checked behind him, and cut off another car, nearly causing a second collision. He continued slowly puttering up the road as far as I could see him, seemingly oblivious…….

I won't get into the older folks who should not be driving at all - you know the type...they are usually wearing those big sunglasses that look like they would be suitable for use while welding. Then there are the folks that get on the highway going south in the northbound lanes. How about those landscaping trucks with 8 employees standing up in the back while they go down the road. Do you think their insurance company (or OSHA) knows they're doing that?? lol.....I could go on and on but I shall restrain myself.

Funny thing is, most people say the drivers up north are terrible. I spent most of my life up there, and they're a breeze compared to the mess down here.

By the way......who he hell designed all these parking lots down here? There must be a "Florida Technical School of Parking Lot Design"...that draws in late night television viewers and slackers, because they all seem to have paid good money to learn how to design a convoluted mess....but again, another topic....