Blame Malloy

Staff Reports
The Advocate Posted: 11/16/2008 02:46:14 AM EST

To the editor:

This is in response to Marlene Springer's Nov. 12 letter to the editor, in which she makes one - and I do mean only one - very good point. It's right in the headline for her letter: "Fire situation is an outrage." It is indeed.

What Springer conveniently fails to point out is that the fire situation was getting along just fine until Mayor Malloy messed everything up. When are Malloy's cronies going to stop trying to spin the truth so blatantly? Yes, Springer is right to point out that the current situation is a mess, but the real outrage is her ludicrous attempt to place blame on the volunteers.

Does anyone remember any newspaper stories about inadequate fire service before Malloy decided to break the charter and contract agreements in his aggressive campaign to seize more power for himself? That's not a small point; it's the crux of the entire situation: Fire coverage was fine. Malloy, illegally and for indefensible reasons, decided to meddle. Now coverage is a disaster - literally, in the case of the Molen house incident. And Springer has the audacity to blame the volunteers?

This is a clear and disgusting attempt to manipulate the Molens' hardship for political gain.

"Without paid firefighters in the volunteer fire houses, the people of North Stamford are putting their lives and homes at risk," Springer gripes, ignoring the most relevant fact of all - that this is a result of the city's doing, not the volunteers'. When Belltown went all volunteer, that was in response to whose ultimatum? Malloy's. When Turn of River went all volunteer, who ordered the paid firefighters to be pulled in the first place? Malloy. The answer to the question "who is at fault?" is really just that simple.

But Springer's real motivations for writing her letter become plain at the end. She's allegedly concerned about fire safety, so she discourages financial support of the fire department. Because a bankrupt fire department would apparently solve everything? Get real.

Springer declares that it's "Time for the volunteer districts to wave the white flag," and here she's at least consistent, because this is how the offices of Malloy and his lackeys have seen the issue since the beginning: not as a conflict to be resolved, but as a war to be won.

Alexander Higle

Stamford