Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Take home vehicles - Public Works Dept (2/7)


Tim White

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nothing makes any sense.

It appears that the reason people are given take home vehicles is so that no time is lost in their responding to emergency situations, but I'm getting the feeling that that is not the case. From the fact that many of these vehicles are required to carry emergency equipment, to used by not only the driver, it indicates that no time should be lost in getting to an emergency site. Maybe the emergency equipment stored in the vehicle is just a ruse to justify a take home vehicle and urgency is not required.

If you want fast response and there are definite needs, then the people have to live in town. If fast emergency response is part of the job, then living in town should be a requirement of the job. It makes no sense to allow people that we supposedly depend on in an emergency to live outside of town.

From a public safety perspective, these people should be required to live in town. If they want to live outside of town, then they should give up the emergency response to another person and also the car and some of the salary for that part of the job. The taxpayers expect to get what they are paying for.

In the case of others that live outside of town and have a take home vehicle and don't have an emergency response requirement, they should simply give up the take home art of the car assignment.

We don't need an elite group of people that get take home cars without the need and others who choose to live where they can not meet their emergency job response requirements.

There are real possible situations where even a matter of minutes can avert a serious tragedy and that's what this should be about, not an empty fringe benefit that does not fulfill the safety needs of Cheshire.

August 21, 2008 10:54 AM
Anonymous said...

10:54 You are absolutely correct with everything you say. And your last paragraph...well, don't we all know how true that one is.

August 21, 2008 12:02 PM
Anonymous said...

10:54 a.m. makes a good start at some important points here. In all fairness, it could be that TW has cherry picked a number of examples of municipal employees in supervisory roles dealing themselves vehicles under the guise of fast emergency response or could it be that our town is actually suffering from constantly increasing expenses at the hand of a few high placed municipal employees who have exempted themselves from the financial aspects of their supervisory actions (i.e. they don't pay property taxes here, they just help make them go up).

Seems pretty simple to do. Once you land a job here, just never move to town and either go along with the status quo or help to increase your own perks with costly 24/7 vehicle which due to your garage location, can never truly be available in a really timely fashion for late night, holiday, and weekend emergency.

And while I’m at it, I know many folks who worked in some industries requiring timely reporting 24/7 for emergencies who were able to do it routinely with their very own vehicles. I never heard any of these professionals ever claim they didn’t make it in after being summoned because a.) they had no car, or b.) they couldn’t afford to maintain it.

Cheshire town government, go figure. I sure hope we don’t have a municipal employee culture which in the end actually rewards employees who continue to move farther from their jobs. And I wonder what the town policy concerning ‘travel time’ in association with these vehicles happens to be. It travel time outside of normal hours at double time rates?

August 21, 2008 8:28 PM
Anonymous said...

The Boe has a policy that says the superintendent should be a town resident, but the Boe can waive the policy and allow him to live out of town. That is exactly what they've done each time we get a new superintendent. Florio should live in this town seeing as he continually increases that school budget by some hefty amounts. If he expects us to pay for it, he should too!!!!

Plus, I believe, he gets some sort of car allowance. Why should he? Let him live in town and pay his own car expenses like the rest of us do!!!!

August 21, 2008 8:48 PM
Anonymous said...

How often is the car replaced?
Out od the 75 times, how often did he use all or any of the equipment that he needs in the vehicle?
Does anyone monitor private use of the vehicle?
In most businesses, people who use their personal car for business will get reimbursement based on the IRS rate, which is currently 0.585 per mile.
If he had to come to work 75 times and we paid him to travel from his home in Branford (which really isn't how it is suppose to be) we would only have to pay him $2000. That is a lot cheaper then a bis SUV that only gets 15 miles per gallon.
I agree with 10:54, if he is that far from Cheshire, he should give up the car to someone who lives in town or is closer.

August 21, 2008 9:51 PM
Anonymous said...

Safety, safety, safety...........

We keep hearing that we should get some new equipment, software, service or hire more staff to improve safety, and yet we allow people who we depend on to live away from town and as a result are not able to respond to emergencies in a timely manor.

Why does the town council allow this to occur and continue?

I think Cheshire employees may be reluctant to act without direction from above, and if that someone is delayed in traffic, action can be delayed.

We have seen what tragic events can occur when prompt action is not taken.

August 22, 2008 11:21 AM

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