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PTC firefighter cuts degrade public safety

Reading the article, “Police, fire positions axed from preliminary ‘05-06 budget” from The Citizen, July 8, was interesting, to say the least.

Having first-hand knowledge of the Peachtree City Fire Department, [I found it] entertaining just how those in government can sway a story to the press anyway they want.

This article cited the long-disputed EMS tax inequity issue as the reason for axing the fire department’s additional personnel requests, but cited “statistics” for shooting down the police department’s personnel requests. Nothing was stated about the fire department’s “statistics.”

I won’t bore you the reader with things like national standards, Insurance Service Office (I.S.O.) standards (the agency that helps set the rate of many of your insurance premiums), accepted industry practice and, of course, common sense.

I know the PCFD administration has been giving City Hall volumes of statistics and data for several years, much of it related to staffing issues.

I know this article cited that the Peachtree City Police were down 17 percent on DUI arrests, accidents were down 8 percent and remarkably citations were even down 38 percent.

I can’t speak for the manpower needs of the police, but one only needs to drive through some of the neighborhoods, complexes and shopping centers in Peachtree City to see just why there is a need for a police presence.

My calculations on the fire department side shows call responses up about 18 percent over last year, an upward trend that has been occurring for years — yes, up, not down.

Why didn’t the city reference the Fire Department’s “statistics,” instead of opting out, saying everything hinged on county money (the EMS tax issue) that might finance six or seven personnel. These six or seven personnel the fire department needed several years ago, with several subsequent staffing increases in the years following.

Next thing you’ll probably read about in a soon-to-be written article is the term “automatic aid.” This is something used in the fire service, usually in more developed urban areas, to help move fire crews from one jurisdiction to the next, to bolster personnel coverage at incidents.

This also often adds an initial response area, sometimes as the primary or first responding department to areas OUTSIDE of their own jurisdiction.

What I’m sure you won’t read is that all the proposals that have been discussed in the past really aren’t what many of us in the fire service would term as “reciprocal” (getting back in return, what you’ll be giving).

One only needs to speak to anyone at Clayton County Fire Department, as they used to have an “automatic aid” plan with and initiated by Fayette County Fire Department, but don’t anymore (remember the term reciprocal, no further explanation needed).

Peachtree City and Fayette County already work together, calling each other for assistance when needed, just not on an automatic basis.

The past proposals of “automatic aid” added roughly 20 percent more initial response area to Peachtree City Fire Department, and would definitely increase fire insurance premiums to those in Peachtree City, whose insurance premiums are affected by I.S.O. ratings.

Additionally, if implemented, Peachtree City units would be dispatched outside of the city much more frequently, leaving even less personnel in town.

Peachtree City could potentially have an increase of 15 percent to 20 percent or more calls outside the city under past-proposed plans, time that units and personnel wouldn’t be in the city.

I’m not bashing the fine folks at Fayette County Fire and Emergency Services; they are just trying to improve on what they lack, by incorporating Peachtree City into an automatic aid response plan. Fayette County Fire Department has some of the same issues as Peachtree City and Fayetteville Fire Departments: insufficient staffing levels.

Ultimately something is going to have to give, not only in Peachtree City, but throughout Fayette County as well.

If you as a citizen want a certain quality of life, it will have to be funded. Without giving public safety the tools to work with, as in a sufficient number of personnel, things can suffer.

Hopefully this won’t be in the form of not having enough firefighters at your home in a timely manner when YOU need them, enough which would possibly have made a difference for you or a loved one.

Just keep these thoughts in mind when you read some of the “official” press regarding staffing issues and your local public safety agencies.

Have any questions regarding staffing of fire departments? Stop by a local fire station and ask questions. Ask how many personnel are at that station, on each truck and on duty each shift.

Then ask how many personnel it takes to accomplish various tasks like putting out a fire at your home or business.

Then contact your local officials and politicians, let them know you want a higher level of public safety through sufficient staffing of equipment.

Why don’t we have at least similar fire department staffing levels in Peachtree City, Fayetteville and Fayette County as most citizens do that reside in Clayton, Henry, Fulton, DeKalb, Rockdale, Gwinnett and many other Atlanta area counties?

Name withheld

Should ‘Fayette Idol’ competition signal, ‘No over-21 acts need apply’?

My wife and I, along with our three children, looked forward to spending a nice summer evening at the Villages Amphitheater, watching the wealth of talent that Fayette County has to offer.

Last year, we were a little disappointed because none of the “over 21” contestants made the finals. We were excited this year because there were two age groups so that the “over 21” contestants might have a chance, since everyone knows you just can’t compete with cuteness. There was a 5-12 category and a 13-adult.

We got good seats for what we expected to be a wonderful show. We weren’t disappointed: the children and adults alike dazzled the audience with their one-minute renditions of music from many different genres. The audience was appreciative and showered all the contestants with applause. The MC for the evening, Steve Geyer, was a hoot just like last year.

Now came the hard part, the selection of the top five finalists from each category. The 5-12 category had some tough competition but the judges made pretty good choices.

As for the 13-adult category, they must have only considered 13-20 years old as the category, because no one from the 21-and-over crowd made the finals.

There is no way that at least one of the adults over 21 didn’t deserve to be in the finals. There were 13 adults over the age of 21 in the competition, and several of them had been better than at least three of the five finalists selected.

But hey, my wife and I don’t have the “trained ear” of a talent professional or radio personality, so maybe we just didn’t hear the promise of what was to come when each finalist performed.

Finally the finalists could perform their complete songs and everyone could hear what the “trained ear” of the professional judges had heard earlier in their one-minute performance. The judges tallied their votes and announced the winners.

The judges’ selection that won the 5-12 category could have beaten all the adults that were selected as finalists; she was that good.

In the 13-adult category finalists, let’s just say the judges’ ears must have been less trained than I thought.

My question to Nancy Price and the Fayetteville Main Street Association is this. Is Fayette Idol just a popularity contest for kids?

From the past two years it appears that the press release should have read, “Fayette Idol, over 21 need not apply.”

I spoke to several of the adult contestants and they felt as though they were simply filler acts for the kids, and never really had a chance at winning.

Then there were the prizes for the 13-adult category, one of which was a gift certificate to Hangar 74, a bar. Nobody in the finals was even old enough to use it.

Maybe next year you could have three categories, 5-12, 13-20, and over 21 for the “real” adults.

Or maybe you could have an entire contest just for the “You’re too old and not cute enough” crowd.

Mike Hammerstien
Fayetteville, Ga.

Tyrone’s ‘public meetings’ without public must stop

I, for one, am getting sick of the town of Tyrone’s way of having “public meetings” without the public. Today I looked at the town’s Web site at minutes of recent meetings.

My attention went to a meeting I never knew happened. It seemed they had a meeting on Tuesday, June 21: Called meeting and public hearing. It seems this was for nothing less than the budget for 2005-2006.

My thoughts are that something so important, that being the use of my hard-earned tax dollars, should be posted at least a month ahead. After all, this only comes up once a year, right?

I am told that all they have to do, and did do, was post a note on the Town Hall door.

It may comes as a great shock, but most of us don’t scour the doors of the Town Hall, or look under rocks in the flower beds in front of Town Hall either for public notice on something so important.

I feel that is something that would be posted in The Citizen, you know, something that most of us would logically look in.

There are many things that a lot of us would have made loud comments over. If we are not [notified] about these meetings a reasonable amount of time in advance, or for that matter, notified in a reasonable place, I suggest you give us back our tax money and keep on having your “private parties,” [but] you can fund them.

Gail Onesi
Tyrone, Ga.

Keep the cops at Bates Avenue

I don’t consider it a waste of taxpayer money to catch the people who refuse to stop at stop signs regardless of where they are located.

To turn off Bates [Avenue in Fayetteville] or onto Bates is putting your life at risk. There are so few drivers that comply with the law to come to a complete stop, it is unimaginable what it would be like if the police weren’t here on occasion. In my opinion the police should be here more often, such as 24/7.

I have been passed while turning left onto Bates and narrowly missed being hit; fortunately I was able to stop just as I crossed the center line.

I have started to turn left off Bates with only one vehicle in view far up Beauregard [Avenue]. I noticed that the van was moving very fast so I stopped and started to back up just as the young woman, with a young child in the right seat, deftly moved to the northbound lane and sailed through the intersection.

I have been bumper to fender and fender to bumper more than a dozen times while turning left onto Bates simply because of drivers refusing to stop.

I have witnessed other vehicles being passed because they weren’t rolling through the intersection quick enough. Two nights ago my wife was on Beauregard and stopped at Grady; the driver behind her blew the horn because she had the audacity to stop and the same horn-blowing routine occurred at Bates.

I come to a complete stop at all stop signs at all times. I often wonder what these people do with the nanosecond that they save by rolling through stop signs. They must be very important to disregard the law and the safety of others. Diplomats to the UN, perhaps.

I applaud the Fayetteville Police Department for taking an interest in this intersection. If you ever need a cup of coffee while you are there, let me know and I will gladly provide. Many thanks to the Fayetteville Police Department and keep up the good work.

Edward A. Lawson
Fayetteville, Ga.

PTC Mayor Brown: ‘I didn’t say it’

Unfortunately, following the tragic drowning of Danen Clarke, a local reporter misquoted me in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Mr. Phil Heise and several others in last week’s newspapers were critical of the statement that was attributed to me in the article. The statement did lack compassion but I did not make the statement.

I contacted the AJC reporter after reading the article and questioned the statement that was printed. The reporter went back and examined his notes and called me later to say that he could not find the statement anywhere in his notes. The video taken from the interview confirms that finding.

Much to his credit, the AJC reporter asked his editors to print a retraction. The retraction appeared in the Monday, July 11, 2005 issue on page A-2.

The retraction in the Corrections section read as follows: “Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown was misquoted in a Friday Metro section story about a teenager who drowned. Brown was not critical of the teenager’s father when talking about the circumstances of the drowning.”

As a father myself, I tried to be as sensitive as possible to the boy’s family. In that interview, a local television reporter asked if it was true that some of Danen’s family was present when the drowning occurred? I replied, “I did not know.”

That was as close as the interview got to the family. The rest of the interview consisted of a discussion on the severe weather conditions, where the body was found, how the incident occurred and why a metal grating over the culvert would have made matters worse according to our engineers.

I did the very best I could to keep the family out of the matter and still answer the questions from the media.

All of the reporters and cameramen did an excellent job in a very difficult, raining environment. The misquotation attributed to me was unfortunate but I am grateful to the reporter and the newspaper for exhibiting strong character and admitting the mistake and printing the public correction. No hard feelings towards Mr. Heise and the others as you were unaware of the error.

My deepest sympathies are extended to the Clarke family.

Steve Brown, mayor
Peachtree City, Ga.

Editor’s note: No correction has been requested and none has been given for the following, which appeared in the July 8 Peachtree Citizen story about the drowning:

Speaking Friday morning, Mayor Steve Brown said Clarke’s death was tragic, and one that might have been avoidable.

“When you have severe weather conditions, you should use precautions and avoid outside activity in severe weather,” he said. “Anytime you have something that’s avoidable and someone dies it’s a tragic circumstance. And this was one of those situations where there are certain things you shouldn’t being doing in severe weather.”

The Citizen stands by our published account.

Ever since McGovern, Demos weak on defense

About the liberal Democrats in Congress today: As I recall, I did not disparage any of the old Democrats that were pro-military and anti-crime.

Franklin Roosevelt, though he started the nanny state of today’s government, was a great war president and his successor, Harry Truman, truly had guts.

John Kennedy had great courage as he stared down the Russians for 13 days in October 1962, until they took their missiles out of Cuba.

Unfortunately, ever since George McGovern commandeered the Democratic Party in 1972, there has been no pro-military Democrat, with the exception of Zell Miller.

I was simply referring to the liberal Democrats of today. How’s that for some history?

Rebuttals are welcome.

Kevin D. Arnold
Fayetteville, Ga.

Rules for rural living (with no power)

Oh, we never get tired of seeing how our neighbors struggle with living in the country.

My family has been in Fayette County since the Natives moved out about 1805. We are wondering where all the other folk have come from. But rural life for some is like living on a distant planet.

We get questions like, How do you get the horse that is wandering in the road back into the pasture? Answer, open the gate and rattle the feed box. They will come running every time. Then find where the fence fell down and prop it up until the farmer can get to its mending.

We also get questions like, Why does the power go off so much? Answer is usually trees have taken down the lines. You know, the trees we like driving through on our way home through masses of lemmings on the freeway.

The trees give us a warm feeling that we are living the Little House on the Prairie life with a two-car garage. But it is usually those same trees that come crashing down during the two types of storms we are often blessed with. A little preparation on your part will help make the time without power easier to bear.

The first thing that comes to mind is look into the possibility of having your own tree limbs trimmed around the power lines that run to your house.

If EMC is having to chose between restoring power to your home versus restoring power to the entire subdivision down the street, then you get put on the next-to-do list.

The next thing I suggest is to watch the weather. Today it is easier to do in this mass communication era. Otherwise it’s standing in the field watching clouds gather in the west, test the wind with chafe or leaves, smell the air for moisture, looking for birds going to roost in their nest, and finding the flies are biting more than usual.

This of course describes the sudden thunderstorms from which tornados descend at their leisure.

We have so many sources of weather information now available on weather radio, cable channels, and local programming that no one should say, “I didn’t know it was coming.”

When threatening conditions are announced south and west of your location, be ready for 90 percent of these “conditions” will travel your way.

Waiting to act until you get the actual alert can reduce your reaction time to minutes. Watching the statewide forecast can increase your time to prepare to hours.

Now this does not apply to the winter freezing storms we get from time to time. The freezing rain is the one I usually fear will wrap ice around the limbs of these soft Georgia pines and bring them down across the power lines.

Usually this happens on more than one section of power line. So I can expect to be without power for not less than two hours and we have never gone without for more than four days.

Once the really bad weather is forecast, get ready for a power outage.

Our first step is to get out the five-gallon buckets and put them where we will catch rain, if rain is forecasted. Or we fill them with our well water if freezing weather is coming.

Do this if you are on a well, for no power means no water. The water in the buckets will be used for the animals, and for refilling the toilet tank after a flush. We have four to five buckets, which will last about six to seven flushes. So conserve until the power comes back on.

We keep gallons of bottled water on hand for cooking on the gas range. There will be some pressure in your tank even after the pump goes off, but the amount of water you get will depend on the tank size and pressure. It won’t be much in any case.

The oven will not light without power to the igniter, but the top can be lit with a match.

Showers are out of the question. We go to relatives or the gym if they have hot showers for a bath. And if we can get out on the roads after the storm.

We always have several flashlights around for illumination after dark. New batteries will burn most bulbs for about six to eight hours. Old batteries, who knows?

I do like my rechargeable 12-volt work flashlight. It is powerful enough to light up the whole room and gives off plenty of reading light.

Television is out of the question. We do have a battery back-up weather radio for alerts and further information. You could dig out the battery operated camping lantern and use it for light if you replaced the battery.

We never use a gas-fired camping lantern in the house. The fumes are toxic and will injure or kill the occupants, including pets.

We have used grandmother’s kerosene lantern but it is smelly and children are not safe around the hot globe or volatile liquid in a glass container. A metal “railroad” lantern has a wide metal base that is harder to tip over.

Now we have water and lighting taken care of, let us address in the winter time the problem of staying warm. Firewood often disappears instantly from the home supply and grocery stores when the possibility of freezing weather is announced.

Let me assure you as an old-time resident of a once-farming community, fireplaces do not give off sufficient heat to warm your den to something tropical.

Fire consumes wood and air. Hot air goes up the flue to the outside. Air going up the flue to the outside must be replaced with freezing outside air seeping into the house under doors and through walls.

Kerosene-fueled space heaters are blamed for several house fires and carbon dioxide deaths each year. This occurs when the warm fumes stay trapped in the space or home and the heater is not allowed enough fresh air from the outside to sustain life.

Know that the flame will burn at 4 percent oxygen, but life is over if oxygen levels fall below 8 percent. This applies to candles as well.

How do we stay warm in a home with no power to run the furnace? We bundle up in several layers, close off the rest of the house and all of us, including dogs, stay in one room. It’s old-fashioned, I know, but all body heat helps.

Or use a fireplace insert that has an electric fan that will blow heat from the iron insert box into the den. The electric fan will need a generator to run it. Even the smallest generator will power the fan, the refrigerator, and one light bulb.

Some of our neighbors will run out and purchase a generator from the local home improvement center. With little or no understanding of electrical engineering, they will proceed to “hook up” their home to portable power like people in third world countries.

They will buy the cheapest generator possible, usually around $600, and it will be the smallest generator as far as output goes on the market, usually 1,560 watts.

Usually the generator output will not power the home lighting system, TV set and refrigerator.

You have to understand the ratio of watts to voltage to amps to know how many appliances you can run on a generator.

For example, a 1,560-watt generator will power a 1,500-watt, 110-volt AC electric heater. See how that works: 1,560 watts of mechanical work puts out 1,500 watts of electric heat.

Plug in another, say 60-watt, light bulb and you could risk tripping the built-in circuit breaker.

You cannot run an appliance using 10 amps (around 1,100 watts) an electric strip heater using 1,300 watts and two 100-watt light bulbs (a total of 2,600 watts) on a 1,560-watt output generator. You’ll need a bigger generator.

We run out every time freezing weather is forecasted for our area and rent a generator from the tool rental businesses, for around $40 a day. If we are lucky enough to have the weather come in on a weekend, then Sunday is free.

A word of caution about using generators. Treat them as you would a kerosene heater or a running automobile, for that is what they really are, an internal combustion engine just like the mini-van.

Do not operate them in a garage with the garage door closed. Do not put them in the crawl space of the home, for this too is an enclosed space. Do not operate them in an unfinished basement, for this is an enclosed space.

And above all, do not jury-rig a plug to plug the generator into the house wiring. This is dangerous to EMC personnel for the power is going to all wire in and to the home. This will put power to the lines that normally feed your home and carry the risk of electrocution of EMC technicians trying to restore your power.

If they detect power on a line then they have to trace the source and isolate it before they can restore power. This means further delays in restoring my power down the street and throughout the neighborhood.

Stand-by generator systems with automatic transfer switches are available and must be installed by qualified electricians. But know they can be expensive, starting around $10,000 dollars. That’s a lot to spend to keep the microwave running and the ice cream from melting.

The last thing to worry about will be food. Most healthy people can survive without any food for up to two weeks. Most Americans cannot survive without fast food for more than eight hours.

We keep crackers, peanut butter, canned soups, and maybe bread on hand for meals. If we warm the soup up it will be on the gas stove.

If you do not have a gas stove, dig out the propane camp stove you used on last summer’s camping trip. Remember to provide ventilation for the flame. And you could treat the entire power outage experience as an unexpected camping trip.

One more thing to do to prepare for power outage. Keep the EMC phone number beside a working phone. Remember that all cordless phones need power to their bases in order to operate.

We have one phone that is still connected to the wall with a phone wire. Using your home phone to call in a power outage can help you report it faster.

When we call Coweta-Fayette EMC, their automated system will record the home telephone number we are calling from and put our house on the list.

Using a cell phone we have to make the same call and wait for a customer service representative to take our call along with all the other cell phone users.

Most phone lines are now underground so they have a better chance of working when the power does not.

Keep safe.

Bryant Betsill
Fayetteville, Ga.

Betsill is a sixth-generation Fayette native who lives in the unincorporated central part of the county.