March 30, 2023 Mayor Eric Adams signed off on the contract Thursday despite opposition from city retirees.

By Chris Sommerfeldt Source New York Daily News (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Mayor Adams signed off on a contract Thursday that will eliminate traditional Medicare coverage for retired city government workers and shift them into a privatized version of the program instead — a highly controversial move that immediately drew a lawsuit threat from a grassroots retiree group.

The contract with private health insurance giant Aetna is the culmination of a years-long effort by the city to enroll its roughly 250,000 municipal retirees in a Medicare Advantage Plan.

Under the deal inked by Adams, the city’s retirees — most of whom are on a traditional Medicare benefits structure that includes a Senior Care supplement — will lose their current coverage and be automatically enrolled in an Advantage plan administered by Aetna, effective Sept. 1.

The Advantage setup will save the city some $600 million annually thanks to increased federal subsidies, an allocation Adams described as critical at a time that the municipal government is staring down a $10 billion budget deficit by 2026. In a statement, Adams also argued the Advantage plan will improve health care coverage for city retirees.

“This plan improves upon retirees’ current plans, including offering a lower deductible, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses, and new benefits, like transportation, fitness programs, and wellness incentives,” said the mayor. “This Medicare Advantage plan is in the best interests of both our city’s retirees and its taxpayers.”

Tens of thousands of retired teachers, cops, firefighters and other city workers say Adams is wrong.

Citing federal studies that show Advantage plans can deny beneficiaries “medically necessary” care, retirees have called on Adams since he took office to let them stay on traditional Medicare, contending that the switch would put them at risk of losing access to certain doctors, medical procedures and drugs.

A group called the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees successfully convinced courts last year to block the first iteration of the Adams administration’s Advantage plan — and Jake Gardener, a lawyer for the group, told the Daily News on Thursday that they will file another lawsuit in hopes of derailing the new plan as well.

“We will be challenging this violation of the retirees’ health care rights in court,” Gardener said. “This is just the latest example of the city trying to save money on the backs of retired and disabled city workers. What this would do is to jeopardize the health of a quarter million elderly and disabled city workers.”

Retirees are resisting the Advantage switch, in part, because Aetna will require pre-authorizations for some forms of care, a protocol that does not exist under traditional Medicare. They fear this will result in diluted coverage, and have depicted it as a life and death issue.

“Retired firefighters, police, EMT workers and teachers will be forced into a privatized, managed care plan that has strict in-network, pre-authorization and referral requirements that will cause potentially life-threatening delays and denials of care,” said Marianne Pizzitola, a retired FDNY EMT who leads the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees.

“Many of the quarter-million respected public servants, and all the current NYC public employees, will be harmed by this damaging decision by Mayor Adams.”

In his statement, Adams said he sympathizes with the angry retirees.

“We also heard the concerns of retirees and worked to significantly limit the number of procedures subject to prior authorization under this plan,” he said.

The reason courts blocked Adams’ first plan was because it would’ve levied a $191 monthly premium on retirees who wanted to opt out of Advantage and stay on traditional Medicare. The courts found that penalty violated a local law requiring the city to provide its retirees with premium-free coverage for life.

Adams’ administration, with support from the city’s Municipal Labor Committee, says the new plan structure complies with the court rulings because there will no longer be a $191 penalty on the table as the premium-free Advantage coverage is the only insurance option available to retirees.

Gardener disagreed and claimed the new plan is also illegal.

“Forcing them into Medicare Advantage by not even giving them the option of keeping their existing health insurance is far more damning and just as illegal,” he said.

Gardener declined to say exactly on what grounds his group will challenge the new plan, but added: “We have a number of grounds that we will be relying on to ensure that the savings the city is looking to achieve is not obtained solely on the backs of retirees.”

March 30, 2023 Many stations across the country lack features to keep crews healthy and safe, a recent NFPA survey found.

Source Firehouse.com News

While fire and rescue personnel are on duty 24/7 across the country, many of the stations they are staying in lack features to keep them healthy and safe, a recent NFPA needs survey shows.

But, that will change if Congress passes the FIRE STATION Act, a bi-partisan measure introduced this week.

It would create a $750 million grant program to modify, upgrade and construct fire and EMS stations, according to a release from U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, (D-MD), one of the bill sponsors.

“Our fire fighters (sic) deserve the best possible facilities so they can be ready with everything they need to spring into action when duty calls. Yet nearly half of the fire stations across America require major repairs – with some even posing serious health hazards to the men and women who protect our communities. This bipartisan bill will unlock more funding to ensure our fire and EMS heroes have modern, safe, and mission-ready facilities,” he said in a statement.

Van Hollen was joined by Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) in sponsoring the legislation.

The NFPA report showed 44 percent of fire stations are over 40 years old and in need of significant repairs and 56 percent of stations lack exhaust emission control and are not properly equipped with cancer-preventing systems.

Many have no backup power and don’t have separate quarters for women and men.

Van Hollen noted that he found similar conditions in Maryland where some 71 stations need repairs, modifications or need to be replaced.

Murkowski noted: “Those who serve as fire fighters (sic) throughout Alaska not only deserve functional facilities – but need them – to help them respond quickly and safely to emergencies. Unfortunately, many fire stations in our state are in dire need of repair and updating—which is why I’m joining my colleagues in this bipartisan measure, the FIRE STATION Act, to invest in our fire stations and to support the people that are always there for our communities when we need them most.” 

IAFC President Chief Donna Black lauded the lawmakers: “This legislation will help fire departments upgrade their stations to meet the life, safety, and health requirements of the modern fire service.”

Pascrell pointed out: “Our Fire Station Act will provide critical funding to help modernize fire and EMS department facilities across the nation, ensuring that our first responders have the tools they need to do their jobs safely and effectively.”

The chairman of the National Volunteer Fire Council said the measure will help departments in rural and small communities.

 “Thousands of fire stations across the country are outdated and don’t meet current voluntary consensus standards for health and safety. This problem is particularly acute in smaller, rural communities, which often lack the tax base to properly invest in modern facilities for fire and EMS,” Steve Hirsch said.

Likewise, the Congressional Fire Service Institute said the legislation is of the utmost importance. “Our nation’s fire and emergency services personnel work tirelessly to protect their communities. We must ensure that the facilities where they sleep, eat, and work are safe and code-compliant,” said Bill Webb, CFSI executive director.

The FIRE STATION Act would provide funds for:

·        Building, rebuilding, or renovating fire and EMS department facilities;

·         Upgrading existing facilities to install exhaust emission control systems;

·         Installing backup power systems;

·         Upgrading or replacing environmental control systems, such as HVAC systems;

·         Removing or remediating mold;

·         Constructing or modifying living quarters for use by personnel; and

·         Upgrading fire and EMS stations or building new stations to meet modern building codes and standards as set by the National Fire Protection Association and International Code Council.

IAFF General President Edward Kelly thanked the legislators for their effort. “Countless fire stations nationwide have fallen into dangerous levels of disrepair – risking fire fighters’ health and safety. Budget-strapped local governments need assistance repairing and replacing these dilapidated stations.”

March 29, 2023 The neon pink ammonium phosphate-based retardant which also is used as fertilizer kills aquatic life, the suit claims.

By Alex Wigglesworth Source Los Angeles Times (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

For most Californians, the sight of aircraft spewing neon pink liquid over flaming trees and brush has become a hallmark of aggressive wildfire suppression campaigns — if not a potent symbol of government’s struggle to control increasingly destructive forest fires.

But as the use of aerially delivered retardant has soared in recent years, some forest advocates say the substance does more harm than good. They claim wildfire retardant drops are expensive, ineffective and a growing source of pollution for rivers and streams.

“There’s no scientific evidence that it makes any difference in wildfire outcomes,” said forester Andy Stahl. “This is like dumping cash out of airplanes, except that it’s toxic and you can’t buy anything with it because it doesn’t work.”

Now, a federal lawsuit in Montana that seeks to stop the U.S. Forest Service from dropping retardant into water could reshape how the agency battles wildfires throughout the western United States.

The case is being watched particularly closely by officials in California, where an extremely wet winter is likely to stoke the growth of so-called connecting fuels — grasses that can carry small flames from a spark on a roadway to chaparral and forested areas.

“This is going to destroy towns and many communities in California, if they allow this to go through,” said Paradise Mayor Greg Bolin, whose town was razed by the Camp fire in 2018. “To maybe save a few fish, really?”

The lawsuit, filed by the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, of which Stahl is executive director, accuses the Forest Service of violating the Clean Water Act, which prohibits the discharge of pollutants into U.S. waters without a permit.

The action comes as more retardant is being dropped from the air than ever before amid longer, more active fire seasons. In 2021, 52.8 million gallons of retardant were dumped on federal, state and private land, compared with a 10-year average of about 39 million gallons per year, according to figures provided by the Forest Service. More than half of the retardant the Forest Service used on national forest lands was dropped in California — more than any other state.

The Forest Service primarily uses ammonium phosphate-based retardant, which is intended to coat vegetation and other fuels around the edges of a fire to deprive advancing flames of oxygen. The goal is to slow fire spread and lessen its intensity so crews on the ground get a chance to directly attack it.

But the chemical, which is also used as fertilizer, can kill aquatic life. For example, in Santa Barbara County, dozens of endangered steelhead trout were killed in Maria Ygnacio Creek during the 2009 Jesusita fire. UC Santa Barbara scientists documented elevated ammonia levels in the water and concluded the fish kill was likely due to retardant drops.

The Forest Service has dropped more than 760,000 gallons of retardant into water, both accidentally and under an agency directive that such drops are permissible if they mitigate threats to human life or public safety, according to figures the agency released last year.

Plaintiffs in the case have asked the court to enjoin the Forest Service from spilling retardant into waterways. However, the Forest Service contends in court documents that the only way to do so is to stop using retardant altogether — an action that they say would deprive the service of a crucial firefighting tool.

Plaintiffs, however, say the Forest Service could instead increase the width of buffer zones alongside waterways where no retardant can be dropped.

After the suit was filed, the Forest Service asked the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a general permit to cover the discharge of retardant into waterways. The EPA estimates the process will take about 2½ years.

Facing the potential prospect of the Forest Service not being able to apply retardant from the air for more than two years, more than a dozen communities and interest groups have petitioned to intervene in the case. They include Paradise, Butte and Plumas counties in California and trade organizations representing private firefighting companies, the timber industry and agriculture.

“The impacts that everybody is experiencing in California and beyond are so dramatic that we have no option other than to build a coalition to try to cease any action that would result in a higher risk as it relates to wildfire damages,” said Matt Dias, chief executive of the California Forestry Assn.

Members of the trade group, which represents lumber mills, veneer plants and biomass facilities in the state, have lost hundreds of thousands of acres to wildfire over the past several years, he said. The effects extend beyond the forest products industry to include the loss of hundreds of lives, the depletion of carbon stocks and recreational opportunities, the degradation of air quality and the economic devastation of rural communities, he added.

“My understanding is that fire retardant is not good for waterways, but think of the other side of it,” said Butte County Supervisor Doug Teeter, who lost his home in the Camp fire. “A massive forest fire burning down a huge amount of acreage is probably worse for the environment.”

The Camp fire was the deadliest wildfire in California history, killing 84 people. Although retardant was unable to be used to save Paradise because the blaze moved too quickly, generating 100-mph winds and thick clouds of black smoke that grounded air tankers, retardant did stop the flames from spreading to nearby Chico and Durham, Bolin said.

The legal wrangling prompted U.S. Reps. Doug LaMalfa (R- Richvale) and Jimmy Panetta (D- Carmel) to on March 14 introduce a bill that would explicitly exempt firefighting agencies from having to obtain a permit for retardant use.

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a decades-long battle between FSEE and the Forest Service over the agency’s use of retardant. The nonprofit first sued the Forest Service in 2003 for failing to conduct the appropriate environmental analyses to use aerial retardant; a federal court ruled the agency must do so. The nonprofit again sued the Forest Service in 2008, alleging its environmental analysis was inadequate, and the court ruled the Forest Service had to do a more thorough analysis by the end of 2011.

That’s when the Forest Service agreed to map out exclusion areas where it would refrain from dropping retardant absent a risk to public safety, including buffers around vulnerable species habitat and waterways. The EPA told the agency at the time that if pilots complied with these guidelines, they would not need a permit, as they would not be discharging retardant into waterways.

But in a report released last year, the Forest Service admitted that it had dropped more than 1 million gallons of retardant into exclusion areas on 459 occasions from 2012 through 2019. Retardant landed in water on 213 of those occasions, representing less than 1% of the roughly 56,868 retardant drops the Forest Service made during that time frame, the agency said in court documents.

While the lawsuit primarily concerns the dropping of retardant into water, the issue of whether it works as intended has also been raised in court documents.

The Forest Service has argued that a prohibition on discharges of retardant into water would impair its firefighting capabilities and jeopardize safety, doing a disservice to the public interest. The FSEE has argued however that the agency lacks evidence that aerial retardant actually accomplishes those goals.

Studies performed by Forest Service scientists have concluded that aerial retardant slows fire spread in laboratory-based and experimental fires, but that its effectiveness in the field is dependent on environmental conditions like slope, fuel type, terrain and weather.

“Aerial retardant is effective over a narrow range of conditions, and the windows of opportunity for those conditions are narrowing each year due to climate change,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, a former wildland firefighter and executive director of the nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, which is not involved in the lawsuit.

Retardant is most effective when used in the cool of the morning on relatively level terrain with sparse vegetation during the initial attack of small fires burning near communities, he said. Ground crews must be nearby to take advantage of the reduced rate of spread by cutting containment lines; otherwise, the fire may slow only temporarily and then keep spreading, he said.

And yet, Ingalsbee said, research has shown that retardant is often dropped in the heat of the afternoon during the extended attack of large fires burning on steep, densely forested slopes in remote areas where ground crews can’t reach, or when fire behavior is so intense that it’s too dangerous for ground crews to engage.

“The Forest Service feels pressure to do something, as much for public relations as any operational benefit,” he said. “But it’s just a big airshow.”

March 29, 2023 Summit Fire and Medical District officials recently presented residents with the options.

By Sierra Ferguson Source The Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Mar. 28—Summit Fire and Medical District will close one eastside firehouse this year, and they’re asking the public to help them decide which one to keep.

There are three stations on the east side of the Summit Fire and Medical District: Station 31, on Cosnino Road; Station 32, on Koch Field Road; and Station 33, on Firehouse Lane near the Summit Fire District Maintenance building and Highway 89.

While there are three fire stations, right now there are only two Summit Fire engine companies operating on the east side. Due to budgetary constraints, in 2021, the Summit Fire Board dissolved one engine crew worth of personnel.

One of the two remaining crews has manned Station 31. Since October, the other crew has rotated between the Koch Field Road station and the firehouse near Highway 89.

Now, the fire board is looking to base that crew permanently out of either Station 32 or 33. The remaining building will be decommissioned, but not sold.

According to Flagstaff and Summit Fire Chief, Mark Gaillard, both properties will be retained by the district regardless of which one is shut down.

To find out which station the public would prefer to see operating moving forward, the board hosted a public input meeting at Cromer Elementary School on Thursday night.

“The board has a really difficult decision to make. We wanted to create a space for the public to come and weigh in on the choice that the board has,” Gaillard said when the meeting opened.

According to Mark Wilson, the Administrative Deputy Chief at Summit Fire and the City of Flagstaff, public input is just one factor the board is weighing in order to decide which fire station to abandon.

The board, Wilson said, will consider response times from each base of operations. They’ll also look at call density and risks to community safety in each location, and take into account facility design and community input.

An outside consultant was hired to analyze data related to costs, response times and other critical factors, offering the board a recommendation.

Instead of suggesting that one station or the other remain open, the consultant determined that the metrics were “too close to call,” according to Wilson. He said the consultant determined that Station 31 is in the most appropriate spot and that the ideal location for a second station would be on Silver Saddle Road.

“I believe the right answer is to close them both. Close them both now. Get a new station built on Silver Saddle where it belongs. Fix the problem long-term,” one community member said when the board sought public comment last week. “Continuing to do what we’re doing, what we’ve been doing for the last 10 to 15 years here, has not worked. We’ve seen that.”

The fire board, at present, is not considering building a new station on Silver Saddle Road.

The impending closure, Wilson said, comes after about a decade of budgetary challenges for the district.

In front of dozens of community members gathered at the Doney Park Elementary School, Wilson painted a picture of plunging tax revenues and rising operating costs — a picture of a fire district whose efforts to keep out of the red ultimately came up short.

In 2008, Summit Fire had $4.2 million in tax revenue to cover operating costs. By 2014, the district’s tax revenue had dipped to $3.5 million.

There were a number of reasons for that, Wilson said.

In 2010, after the Schultz Fire swept through the region, property values were re-assessed and dropped to give county residents a tax break and some breathing room financially.

In 2012, Proposition 117 capped the annual increase in real property used to calculate property taxes to 5%.

“Now you can’t rebound more than 5% in any given year,” said Wilson. “It took us 12 years…to get back to where we were collecting the same revenue that we were collecting in 2008 to cover the cost of running a fire district.”

In that time, the cost of doing business had gone up for the fire service.

“We had a deficit of two or three thousand dollars in a 10-year timeline,” said Wilson. “Hard costs, costs of doing business, not salaries, including public safety retirement pensions went up 20% in that time. Our healthcare went up 40%. Our worker’s comp went up 116%. Our insurance went up an additional 26%.”

In an effort to keep the district afloat financially, Summit Fire and Medical District entered into an intergovernmental agreement with the City of Flagstaff. The two departments consolidated administrative roles in 2015. They agreed to share a fire chief and support one another in call response and training.

“It was a savings of about $50,000 a year to hire a new chief for Summit, compared to what the city could charge,” Wilson said. “We both knew that we had deficits in our staffing and in our capacity to provide service levels. That IGA has been going on for 8 years. The City of Flagstaff has never raised the rate one dime. I assure you, the cost of those administrators has gone up, but that has been a flat rate agreement between the City and Summit, and it saved Summit a lot of money over those eight years.”

If Thursday night’s meeting felt like deja vu, it’s because Summit has taken similarly drastic measures to cut costs before. In addition to entering the IGA with Flagstaff Fire in 2015, the board closed one of Summit’s Highway 180 stations.

In later years, Summit would utilize bonds for debt consolidation, catching up on capital costs and growing pension expenses. None of those steps, presenters asserted Friday, helped to achieve fiscal stability.

“During that time we were treading water,” Wilson said. “In 2021, we advised the board we could no longer tread water. The gap was starting to separate. We need to do something dramatic.”

That’s when the district entered what they call the “Eastside Restructure Pilot.” They launched the process of shutting down a fire station.

The board cut seven firefighting positions, which Wilson said were vacated due to attrition rather than layoffs. For 18 months, the remaining firefighters that weren’t assigned to Station 31 started rotating between 32 and 33, all the while gathering data.

The data was analyzed by an outside consultant, but the board didn’t act on that right away. Instead, they postponed officially closing a station in hopes that Proposition 310 would pass, bolstering tax revenues.

The proposition failed, and the Summit Fire Board was left with data on both stations and a big decision to make.

On average, the national emergency response time for rural fire departments is 10 minutes. According to Wilson, when crews responded from Station 32, they arrived at their call in about 6.59 minutes on average. The average response time from Station 33 was 7.45 minutes.

Station 33 offers quick access to Highway 89. It’s an older facility and the farthest north of the three stations.

The majority of speakers at Cromer Elementary School Thurday said they would prefer to see the station on Firehouse Lane station remain open.

Many of those speakers own property or live in Timberline or Fernwood — neighborhoods that have been rattled by three catastrophic wildfires in the last decade, and are now subject to devastating flooding.

“The most important reason to keep Station 33 open is that Government Tank will continue to flood during monsoon for years to come, closing Highway 89 for periods of time and putting residents, travelers on 89, recreationists, forest restoration and flood mitigation workers north of Government Tank at extreme risk when 89 is closed,” said Marilyn Ruggles, who has attended fire board meetings regularly over the last 18 months.

Flagstaff Fire and the Summit crew at Station 31 would be able to respond to calls Farther south and east when the highway was closed and communities farther up 89 would still have first responders on deck, Ruggles argued.

Daniela Harrison told the fire board Thursday that she believes Station 33 is the best fit too. For one thing, it’s close to a high-traffic corridor — tourists use Highway 89 to access popular sites like Grand Canyon National Park and Wupatki National Monument.

Harrison also pointed out there might be more reasons in the future to keep the northmost station.

“The hospital is going to be located outside of the city. Having EMTs that are able to reach the northern part fast…before they can get all the way up to the hospital? It’s going to make a big difference,” she said.

Station 32 is centrally located in the fire district, closer to Cromer Elementary School and closer to the highest volume of people and calls for service. The building itself is much newer, and Station 32 features a large bay space for equipment.

One of the primary concerns associated with the location on Koch Field, however, is its lack of a workout room. Summit Firefighters are required to work out daily, and when they’re stationed at 32, they have to leave their post and work out at Station 33.

No one spoke on behalf of seeing Station 32 remain open last week.

According to Wilson, the fire board will decide the fate of one of the two buildings in April. In the meantime, they are still looking for online community feedback. A digital comment card can be filled out at summitfiredepartment.org.