Garden City Voting To Eliminate Paid Firefighters

At it's meeting tonight, the Garden City Board of Trustees will be voting on whether or not to eliminate the village's paid firefighters.

The announcement was made when the agenda to for the meeting was posted to the village's website. It says the board is considering eliminating all "competitive class positions" in the fire department, which would be the "paid/career firefighter positions."

The meeting is scheduled for tonight at 8 p.m. at Village Hall, located at 351 Stewart Ave.

According to News12, the village has had a paid fire department for more than 90 years. The village currently has a dozen paid firefighters. Currently, Garden City and Long Beach are the only municipalities on Long Island that have paid firefighters.

The career firefighters said that the move would be putting public safety at risk.

"On Wednesday, the Board of Trustees will be voting on a measure that will be the first step in eliminating the fire fighters who provide a guaranteed immediate response when needed," the Garden City Professional Firefighter's union posted on Facebook. "This will eliminate any guarantee of having enough fire trucks and fire fighters quickly responding to minimize the damaging effects of fires and other emergency situations."

The announcement was sharply criticized by firefighter groups on social media, including many people from Garden City.

"It’s amazing that this village board is considering throwing tens of millions of dollars into the Saint Paul’s building but wants to cut corners by illuminating our paid fire fighters," one resident wrote. "If this village is so cash strapped, why are we rebuilding St. Paul’s? Why are we giving huge tax breaks to 555 Stewart Ave.? And why do we keep hiring more police officers? Our fire department has been gutted every year for the past 10 years. This village is gambling with our safety."

Mayor Brian Daughney pointed out that, other than Long Beach, no other community has a paid fire department, including communities like Rockville Centre, Floral Park and Stewart Manor.

"Many of these communities have shared fire services with us. Many of these communities have similar business districts and residential areas with large homes," Daughney said in a statement to Patch. "Many have large colleges or universities, larger than Adelphi here in the village. Farmingdale, with very large office buildings, has only a volunteer department. None of these communities are burning down. There has been no increased loss of life or loss of property because they have volunteer departments."

Daughney said the village has 11 paid firefighters, which costs the village $2 million per year, and the cost is expected to increase every year.

"Over the years our volunteer force has gotten better, bigger and stronger. They do continuous training," Daughney said. "They are here every day and every night. The facts are – and most residents don’t understand this – when a firefighter comes to your house or your neighbor’s house it is almost exclusively the volunteers who answer the call. It has been that way for some time."

Photo: Patch