*********UPDATED 08/10/11*****************
Mark your calendars, we are about 4 months away before we again elect our city leaders and who we believe will be the best 7 people to represent us the next 4 years. "We the people" must begin to step up starting at the local level and vote for ONLY those who represent us and have our best interests in mind.
www.viddler.com/explore/Amandah/videos/2/
Below is the speech given at the 2-17-09 council meeting
addressing the layoff plan by the city of clifton
Good evening, tonight not only do I stand here as a former elected council member, but also a concerned resident,
and a firefighter and member of FMBA local # 21. I am here to address many miss-statements made by this mayor
and council over the last few months. I would like to start by breaking down some issues and financial information
FACT: Clifton fire department already rides 25% below the minimum national safety standards for fire apparatus manning
FACT: according to the city managers handbook our fire apparatus makes us only 38% effective on the fire ground.
FACT: The idea of a volunteer fire department has been floated around, besides the fact that it’s impractical
for a city of 80,000 people and 12,000 plus calls a year it’s also a safety issue because of response times.
Also the added cost from your homeowners insurance could outweigh the cost of your fire protection.
FACT: The cities of Paterson and Passaic are roughly combined of 12 square miles with roughly 440 firefighters;
the city of Clifton is roughly 12 square miles with less than 140 firefighters. 300 less firefighters covering the same 12 miles
FACT: Clifton revenue was up more than 6 million dollars from the previous year in 2008.
Next I would like to talk about some financial information that has been taken
from the city of Clifton website pertaining to the 2008 budget
Per taxpayer cost breakdown for your Clifton fire department.
I challenge the mayor, council, and CFO these findings
For salary, medical, and pension costs for the whole 140 member fire department:
Roughly $360.00 a year out of your 8,000 plus tax bill, that’s less than $30.00 a month,
and less than $1.00 a day! To put that into perspective tonight out of the vending machine
for a dollar I was able to buy a mere bag of peanuts!
If 17 firefighters are laid off, the approximate savings per taxpayer are
Roughly 36.00 for the year that is less than 3.00 a month, and .10 cents a day!
Isn’t your life and safely worth an extra .10 cents a day?
These figures also don’t include the more than 2 million dollars a year in revenue
that the fire department brings in from EMS, fire prevention, and fire hydrant testing
Financial income that could be being generated from the city of Clifton for many years
Last month Gloria stated "come up with idies for income. We are here to listen"
and many of you have said the same. The problem is you all sit there and just listen and don’t act!
Here are just a few items that have been brought up numerous times to you not only by me but many others
1. Recycling- just about every municipality in the state of New Jersey (540 plus) and
across the country comingle recycling. If we did this we would
A. drastically reduce labor costs
B. increase recycling by 3 or 4 fold
C. decreasing garbage tonnage drastically
The saving could be 500,000 or a million dollars a year out of the 6 million dollar in garbage costs.
2. Solar panels: we had the opportunity 6 or 7 years ago to do this and having a lot of the costs paid
for by grant money. Not only did we shoot down the idea but we even fired the city manager because
she was trying to be progressive and think outside the box.
The savings for this could be $100,000’s a year off of our 2 million dollar energy bill
3. Code enforcement- we brag about our 100,000 a year income in fines but north Haledon
which is 8 times smaller brings in roughly the same amount of money.
The potential income is 100,000’s of thousands a year income to the city besides the improved quality of life
4. The city of Clifton has 3 part time municipal attorneys. roughly 225,000 a year in salaries, 3 set’s of medical benefits,
3 vacation packages, 3 set’s of pension payments (yes they even are in the pension system for part time work,
even though some of them make 6 figure salaries out side of here), all for 20 hours a week part time work!
The cost savings to the city to have 1 full time attorney with 1 set of benefits would be 200,000 a year plus!
All this information will be available on tonylatona.com over the next few days.
In closing, for the safety of the citizens of Clifton I would ask the mayor and council to do the responsible thing
and alteast put on hold the layoff plan until the details of the stimulus package are released. It was signed today
and this is exactly what the state of New Jersey has done.
