Partial answer to Don Wright’s “friends” questions
By Bob Rhoades 

I can’t answer all of the questions you have, but I can answer a few of them either because I got involved with a local project or because I used to perform one of the functions questioned. 

First off I’ll have to agree with everything Don said about the state of Ohio.  I worked there, in Columbus for the state for a long time and it pretty much is do as I say and not as I do.  Bureaucracies are like that. When employees know that every four years you have to train a new person to be your own boss, something gets lost in the loyalty clause to their jobs.  Every state worker has a boss.  In my case, I was supposed to be dealing with emergency response to local health departments.  My boss was hired because she checked all the right boxes on the questionnaire.  She had a degree in psychology. Read into that what you want and then multiply that by the number of bosses there are in state government.  If you tell that story to a politician, they’ll not believe much of what you say. 

As for Mr. Hale’s use of law enforcement officers checking on violations to city ordinances, that’s sort of what they are hired and sworn to do, uphold federal, state and local laws. So I’m not thinking it’s a misuse of funds.  Maybe there should be a zoning/building inspector or someone like that doing some of it, but they’ve yet to hire that person, so cops are all that we’ve got. 

Response to motor vehicle accidents seems to be a misunderstood concept a lot.  Number one the unofficial answer to the question is courts and lawyers.  The Ohio Revised Code says that the fire chief is in charge anytime there is a danger to life or property.  That also charges the Fire Department with protection of life and property.  If you would sit in the dispatch center and listen to Suzy Q. Public call in a report of a crash, you’d know pretty quick that you can’t always tell from the call what the problem is.  Police chiefs, fire chiefs and EMS chiefs have sat down and decided what the best response is to a motor vehicle accident.   Those decisions are based on past experience, NFPA standards and a lot of common sense.   

So you make the judgment call which one shouldn’t respond from this call: 911, what’s your emergency? Caller: There’s been a wreck at Wagner Ave and Russ Rd.  911: is anyone hurt?  Doesn’t look like it.  We’ll send someone right out. From that we know that there’s been a wreck and it needs to be investigated by the PD to determine fault and what happened.  Who else do we send?  Caller said no one was hurt.  So the cop gets there and finds out there was an unrestrained baby in the back seat of one of the cars, and the person in the other car suffered a heart attack.  The collision caused a gas leak and a by stander happened to drop a cigarette butt just as the officer pulls up on the scene.  If three people call in that same accident all three will have a different assessment of what happened.  The dispatcher has to sort that out. 

There is a standard response mechanism in place fueled by a computer aided dispatch system that has all that information in it based on what has happened before and a lot of other things.  As that cigarette butt hit the ground, what do you think went through the cops mind?  A motor vehicle is an unstable occurrence until it is checked and deemed not to be.  

Bottom line is this, you said that your group was businessmen and that means that probably every police officer, firefighter and EMS person on that scene could avail themselves of your friend’s services.  They would do this because your friends offer a service that the emergency responders don’t know how to do and since they all have homes and families they want those families to have a nice home and living conditions.  I guess I’m trying to say that not one of those responders probably knows anything about raising horses.  But I’ll bet if they asked you, you’d probably give them a tour of your farm and let their kids sit on a horse.  When they left, they would know about raising horses.   Public safety personnel spend a lot of time going to school and an equal amount planning.  That information is used to help protect all of you.  99.5% of their actions are based on best practice and training.  If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be safe. 

The city of Greenville has 20 firefighters, one Asst. Chief and 1 Chief.  Their pay is public record.  Those firefighters are assigned to three shifts; there are 7 on two shifts and 6 on the other.  The reason for that is one firefighter retired and the city did not replace him. The minimum manning is 4 firefighters per shift.  By state law they must take 2 weeks’ vacation.  If your shift falls on one of the 10 state of Ohio Holidays, you receive that day off later.  The work week is 52 hours.  One firefighter from each shift is also assigned to make fire inspections.  Among the duties of the Assistant Chief is overseeing the inspection program.  Fire fighters are also cross trained as Emergency Medical Technicians.  They have training in high angle rescue, trench rescue, hazardous materials and a host of other things.  Half are certified State of Ohio Fire Instructors as well as 7 State of Ohio fire safety inspectors. 

Formerly each political subdivision had its own pension board.  In the 1960’s the state mandated that all municipal workers would fall under a state managed pension fund.  In general Police and Fire fall under the Ohio Police and Firefighters Pension Fund.  City workers fall under the Public Employees Retirement System.  This happened because many cities had pension funds that were underfunded and although folks worked 30 years, there was no pension money for them. 

Police and Firefighters pay 10% of their pay into the pension fund from their paychecks each month.  Their retirement is based on the highest pay earned over any 36 month period.  You must have 25 years of service.  It costs each firefighter about $180 per month for health insurance which is about 20% of the premium.  The city negotiated this with the employees. 

If you look three paragraphs up, it says the maximum that can be on duty is 7, most days that is six.  This means that if your house is on fire, or BASF blows sky high or the ethanol plant goes boom.  Six men respond.  When they exit the apparatus, they have 60 extra pounds of equipment on.  They must be in good shape.  Two men enter with the hose line, one operates the engine and the officer in charge takes care of the troops, planning the attack, calling for mutual aid, recall of off duty personnel and requesting EMS.  After dropping a supply line the two or one firefighter on the second engine, move in to help the first crew.  That all happens within the first 6 minutes.  In general, if you go to Columbus, Dayton, Versailles, Arcanum or Ansonia or any other department in Darke County, you’ll notice they operate the same way.  As for total runs, in 2010 there were 491 calls for emergencies in the city.  Of those 24 were for structural fires, 7 were for motor vehicle fires and 72 were for motor vehicle accidents.  The rest were for investigations, calls for assistance, assisting EMS and other miscellaneous runs.  Four retired GFD personnel have had good enough credentials to be hired as assistant state fire marshals, two of them as Bureau Chiefs. 

As for the Taj Mahal they feel is being proposed by the school committee and the Board of Education, they’ve got me there.  I’ve been on the committee since its inception in January and I haven’t seen a picture of it yet.  All I’ve seen is the engineers rendering of how it will sit on the property so I don’t know if it’s going to have any of those great big spires or not.  I know I haven’t heard about ordering any gold plating for anything.  I’m sure as business people, your friends both Democrat and Republican have had to make many hard decisions in regard to their business.  Most recently they’ve had to computerize their operations.  They may have had to make decisions on whether to get a new phone system or plug along with what they have, or buy a new vehicle because they just couldn’t get Bondo to stick on their 1952 Hudson anymore.  Their good business heads should tell them that nothing lasts forever.  That good old wooden desk chair with the pillow on it that grandma made has been replaced with an ergonomically perfect seating unit so that their posterior doesn’t get tired and their feet hit the ground precisely as they should. 

When South Elementary School was built in 1911, William Howard Taft was President.  Since electrification of the nation had only been under way for 10 years, there weren’t any computers, overhead projectors, or much else besides light bulbs that were needed in this building.  It is a small wonder that the State of Ohio criteria weren’t met for this school.  Some have said that the schools weren’t taken care of.  My thought is that someone must have done something right for it to last 100 years.  John Kennedy was president when the current High School opened in late 1962.  Fortunately the world has changed little since then, right? 

I think there won’t be a Taj Mahal built.  Tell your friends that a group of 40 citizens representing the 15,473 registered voters in the 8 townships, 2 villages and one city that comprise the Greenville City School District chose a building that will do that job for the next 100 years.  Yes it will be comfortable and that should help teachers teach and students learn.  The State of Ohio is going to pick up 40% of the tab for this building and around $5 million for renovation of the current high school.  As I said, none of it is for gold plating. 

I’m not the city but I think my answers are correct.  I called some people to verify.  I don’t know if the city will answer the questions I didn’t answer.  And while I agree that your friends do deserve answers, practically everything they asked is public record and I’m guessing that they all have phones. 

When you moved to Greenville 40 some years ago, there was no police academy, no fire academy and funeral directors picked you up and took you to the hospital.  There was no law enforcement or fire science college degrees then.  There are now, not because all of these people need a sheep skin hanging on their wall, it’s because there is a need.  The world around us caused this.   Lots of stuff has changed.  There is no Black Smith Shop across from my house anymore either. 

And Don, tell your friends that you were able to get the phone number for the police and fire departments so that the next time they have questions they can get it straight from the source.  Nice chatting with you and thanks for your continued awareness of what is going on... Greenville Fire 548-3040 and Greenville PD  548-1103.