| New London Should Trim The Fire Companies |
| Published on 3/22/2008 |
| The city of New London, instead of hiring more relatives of firefighters to sleep at the firehouses, should close two of the three fire stations in the city and cut the size of the fire department to about 17 people. The city needs to get rid of all the chiefs, battalion chiefs, assistant battalion chiefs, fire inspectors, assistant fire inspectors and so on. The city should also lay off all the emergency medical technicians and privatize the ambulance services, whose main functions are to ferry drunks and drug addicts to Lawrence & Memorial Hospital. A city like New London, which measures about seven miles by two miles, can no longer afford this fire department. Many New London firefighters are well to do. They sleep at the firehouses and work two and sometimes three other jobs. They easily make more than $100,000 per year. The firefighter's main duties are eating doughnuts, playing Parcheesi and watching television. They will always need a fire chief to oversee the Parcheesi tournaments, as they sometimes can get out of control. Patrick Crowley |