Thursday, August 30, 2007

Babble on Albero--Babble on

Albero has once again ventured into the forest of misinformation and has been struck squarely in the face with every low hanging branch. Indeed his feeble mindset concerning quality reporting will not allow him the luxury of standing above the hyperbole of his equally weak minded informants and therefore he must be condemned to ever stoop beneath the facts and truth as it so surely exists.

Chief See has not taken a vacation at the taxpayer’s expense. As I have stated and have proven in the past the fire service in the United States is an ever changing, ever evolving, ever challenging prospect to the safety and security of the citizens it serves. Be it New York, Phoenix, San Francisco, Baltimore, Salisbury, or Parsonsburg. Be it total career, combination, or total volunteer department, the need for continuing education is clearly evident and the monetary cost of that education is not necessarily cheap. No one---absolutely no one can expect the training, innovations, products, or shared knowledge and experience of all those in the service to be delivered directly to the doorstep or desktop of the individuals and departments wishing to remain current in today’s world of emergency service. Above all else, this lesson is strongly reinforced by the events of 9/11, and the worldly events that have occurred in the years hence.

With that in mind it is vitally necessary for those in management of such fire, rescue and EMS services to attend seminars and conferences sponsored by professional and recognized entities committed to bring pertinent information to the leadership of these said services. These conferences and seminars must be held at a regional level and central locations in order to provide an equitable opportunity of attendace to interested parties. It is the responsibility of the organization or county government or municipality to provide entrance fees, travel expense, and accommodations to the chiefs, managers or directors of emergency services for their diligence in the attempt to provide the best possible service available to the citizen.

Such a recognized entity is the International Association of Fire Chiefs, (IAFC).
A subordinate of this organization is the Volunteer & Combination Section (VCOS) of the IAFC. Salisbury Fire Department falls squarely in the realm of VCOS, as it is a combination department. VCOS has apparently asked Chief See to serve on their committee. I see this as an honor for Chief See as the IAFC is a national organization. It is an opportunity for the voice of a local manager to be heard nationwide. It is not a position to be taken lightly.

Before I continue I will offer you this. It is a cut and paste directly from the IAFC website:

Overview
Established in 1873, the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) is a powerful network of more than 12,000 chief fire and emergency officers. Our members are the world's leading experts in fire fighting, emergency medical services, terrorism response, hazardous materials spills, natural disasters, search & rescue, and public safety legislation.
Mission
To provide leadership to career and volunteer chiefs, chief fire officers and managers of emergency service organizations throughout the international community through vision, information, education, services and representation to enhance their professionalism and capabilities.

If you are further interested in the mission, I invite you to visit this:
http://www.iafc.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1
Feel free to explore the entire site
.



Now I shall continue to answer Albero’s anemic pretension of Chief See’s qualifications.
Chief See came the SFD in the Mid 70’s. He was hired as a “grunt” or front line fire fighter, as we all were. His duties, included fire fighting, vehicular extrication (what’s that Albero?), general water rescue, (this was before the dive teams and special ops), limited but general hazardous material recognition and mitigation, investigating of smells and bells, (alarm activations), assisting local police agencies with resources not available to them, i.e. lights, electricity, boats and manpower, getting cats out of trees, (yes we did that) and low and behold----EMS.
As a firefighter Chief See was required to obtain and maintain a level of EMS certification that required a constant and continuing certification process. Not a one time short class and be certified for life type of education, but didactic and practical evolutions within given time limits had to be met to retain certification. Without proper certifications ones job was in jeopardy. This certification was required to be maintained by all firefighters and line officers. I cannot honestly say what the current requirement is above the rank of Assistant Chief, but I can say that failure to maintain the certification at a lower level would surely prohibit advancement to administrative status. Obviously Chief See has met that requirement.

I will personally vouch for the fact that Chief See has spent as much time in the back of an ambulance as anyone. He and I have ridden together on more occasions than I can remember, and I will say he was an excellent provider to the patients.
The last three letters of problems is in fact EMS. This is an ongoing and friendly pun within the service. Certainly note an issue of malcontent.
Where is it proven that Chief See hates volunteers? His roots are in a fine volunteer organization. His willingness to participate in the VCOS of the IAFC more than proves he is willing to promote the mission and expertise of a well-organized and efficient volunteer force.
Did Chief See have a “mare endorsed vacation”? Prove it Albero. Without a doubt Chief See was required to provide to the city a reasonable synopsis of what was to be accomplished by his attendance to the conference in question, and upon his return a comprehensive report of goals attained and a plan for implementation within the SFD was executed. Without such I doubt funds would ever have been approved in years past or be considered for the future. Please note once again—this is an ever changing service.
Did Chief See take advantage of the opportunity to indulge in some recreational beverages and camaraderie with other chiefs and officers attending the conference? Probably. So What? The National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg MD maintains a bar and lounge on campus. The logic is simply this, in a relaxed and casual atmosphere the participants of seminars are more apt to share ideas, thoughts and concepts that will be brought later to the classroom in order to share for the scrutiny and perusal of all students in order to discriminate the positives and negatives of an issue.
I have seen it many times. I have done it myself.
Now I pose this to you Albero. Where do you get off with your absurd accusations of wrongdoing under the misassumption of city-financed vacations? Can you provide financial records to prove your preposterous claims of malfeaceance?
What would you propose Chief See do with his time? Watch the news each day at noon and hope a 30 second convoluted news story from the Utah Mountains about rockslide be converted into a major training exercise for the SFD? That would be valuable, would it not?
Why don’t you do this? Take about 3 minutes of your time with your inside source to the SFD and list all of his/her qualifications as an expert to the administrative duties of Chief See. I say 3 minutes because this will give you 1 minute to listen, 1 minute to formulate, and 1 minute to write your essay. An educated guess is you will have time left over.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bravo sir, Bravo.

John R said...

Is Chief SEE next in the $9,999 club?

joe albero said...

Sorry, too long, too boring, too much BS! Of course you're going to defend the Chief, that's expected. However, you're wrong and full of lies. The funniest part is this Joe. Just think about how many people come to my Site and then think about how many of those same people come here. What, maybe 5? You're an Idiot but it's fun to sit back and wather the Fire Department butt kissers lick up to these two Idiots and try and save face. Thanks for the entertainment but you're not making any difference anyway. However, I'm sure it helps you vent and that's what your blog is all about anyway, a personal outlet.

Luckyduck said...

Bravo!

Anonymous said...

The man,
The legend,
The Ego,
Can you not do more than personal attacks and ego boasting? Actually seeing as your too weak to even post your Views then you have no creds with me Mr Albero.
It amazes me just how much you really know about fire departments. Which department did you serve with again?

Good job Soap Box. Keep posting his comments. They only serve to further enlighten us as to just how big a moron he is.

Anonymous said...

Apparently JJ's never been to a continuing education conference. JJ read carefully, the business you're representing pays for your classes, transportation to and from, and accomodations (of necessary). They will also pay for food (sometimes), but you must submit restaurant receipts. If in fact there are alcoholic beverages on said receipts, those charges will NOT be reimbursed.
Soap, good job! Couldn't have said it better myself.

Soapbox said...

Than prove me wrong Albero. And how many people truly come to your site.
You do not even have the fortitude to open your site meter to prove your claims of hits. If you cannot prove your claims what does that make you? Maybe only 5 people do come to this site but they do so for factual information not for the daily chuckles they get from yours. And once again you start with the name-calling. When have I ever called you anything but your name? You’re on the ropes and a personal attack is your only avenue to misdirect the issues at hand. Those issues being you have no idea what you are talking about as usual.

Historical Wit said...

People like JJ just talk to hear themselves, just because he's sooooo vain...

joe albero said...

Nope, sorry soapbox but it is YOU that needs to prove me wrong and you can't.

The funniest part is, my phone has rung off the hook this morning from inside people laughing to death because I was so dead on.

You just can't handle the truth.

Bunker Britches said...

Quoting and questioning joealbero's response "you're wrong and full of lies" where are the lies Mr. Albero? Can you provide proof? or is it only in your mind? As somone who has to obtain a specified number of hours of continuing education to maintain my certifications,(in neither Fire or EMS) I can assure you that what Soapbox wrote is true. The employing organization will, at times, pay for the required continuing education but the costs must be documented and documentation supplied of the goals achieved and training receive as well as the expenses incurred. Continuing education does include, though not documented as such, the relaxed and casual networking over meals and beverages (sometimes stronger than tea or coffee) during non-lecture or classroom hours. This education is valuable and worthy but not documented as certified continuing education. This information comes from experiences and sometimes tragedy we all hope to avoid.

By the way Mr. Albero, what does the number of visitors to a site have to do with required continuing education?

Why the personal attack? It seems whenever someone disagrees with you, brings facts to light against the inuendos or accusations on your blog you resort to name calling and personal attacks on the individual that disagrees with you.

Who are the "two idiots" you referred to? So far as I can tell the Blog was about Chief See.

Aren't all Blogs a "personal outlet?"

John R said...

WHATS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEN MISINFORMAION AND LIES? This is an informative post. And JOE dismisses you as an "IDIOT". I thought that was my given JOE NAME. Where is the meter on JOES SITE? I understand too that when you have you post pictures it counts as multiple hits because your pics are kept on another site and are fed into yours. So everytime you put up a pic your numbers go up!

soulshine said...

I don't know how travel works for the city but for the county, you are reimbursed for mileage and have limits on how much can be spent on breakfast, lunch and dinner. No alcohol is paid by the county. Also when there are conference most hotels offer a reduce rate along with being tax exempt. Not just in county / city government, corporate world also pays for travel for seminars and training. Corp. worlds travel is more expensive and the general customers pays for it, through consumer goods. I wish jj aka runaround sue go take a long walk of a short plank. This was well written, salisbury soapbox.

Soapbox said...

Quote
"Nope, sorry soapbox but it is YOU that needs to prove me wrong and you can't."

Quite the contrary, I have very
successfully debunked your accusations. You ringing phone is like your site meter---non-provable.

TomCat said...

EXCELLENT POST!

Waterwench said...

It appears the Mr JJ thinks the only thing to firefighting is "put the wet stuff on the hot stuff". Perhaps he should look up the National academy web site and review the online continuing education course descriptions or pull up MIEMS website and review the necessary hours of cont ed for EMS providers.

Well done Soap, he goes on the personal attack and you remain above that gutter level.
City, County, and State all offer time off for continuing education and reimbursement if it is required to maintain current in you job description.

Clueless as always...

Luckyduck said...

Soapbox, you dont have to prove him wrong. He will do that all on his own on that contradictory blog of his...

Anonymous said...

Soap:

Well done.

My phone has been ringing all day with people agreeing with your post.

Everyone who called says that such educational trips are well worth the money, and Salsibury is lucky to have a Mayor that recognizes this and a Fire Chief that is willing to travel to get continuing education.