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/