PR: Firefighters Endorse Farr
The Professional Firefighters of Santa Barbara County IAFF Local 2046 are proud to join the growing list of supporters of Doreen Farr for 3rd District Supervisor. We believe that Doreen’s experience as a planning commissioner, consultant and businesswoman, combined with her 15 years of service to the County as a community and neighborhood leader makes her the most qualified choice for the County Board of Supervisors. Her thorough knowledge of county and regional issues and commitment to public safety were important to our diverse board and membership in making our selection.
“Doreen impressed our Executive Board with her knowledge of the importance of disaster preparedness. As someone who was evacuated twice for fires while living is Santa Barbara County, Doreen will bring real life experience when making land use decisions that impact public safety.” stated Local President Rob Heckman. “Her commitment to public safety, disaster planning, combined with her deep roots in the community made her the obvious choice to our members.”
The more than 220 professional firefighters who make up the Santa Barbara County Firefighters Association are your friends and neighbors. We are Republicans, Independents, Green Party members and Democrats. We are families concerned about neighborhoods and affordable housing. We care about the economic growth of our community and keeping our high quality of life. We are parents, surfers, hikers and divers, who want to instill in our children and our community a sense of ownership and responsibility about our environment. We are public safety professionals who, on a daily basis, are in contact with the people of the 3rd District and understand their interest in a safe and responsible community.
Protecting life, property and the environment are the highest priorities for firefighters and we are proud to support Doreen Farr for 3rd District Supervisor. Doreen is the one candidate we know has the experience and leadership ability to prioritize these essential 3rd District community needs.
“Doreen impressed our Executive Board with her knowledge of the importance of disaster preparedness. As someone who was evacuated twice for fires while living is Santa Barbara County, Doreen will bring real life experience when making land use decisions that impact public safety.” stated Local President Rob Heckman. “Her commitment to public safety, disaster planning, combined with her deep roots in the community made her the obvious choice to our members.”
The more than 220 professional firefighters who make up the Santa Barbara County Firefighters Association are your friends and neighbors. We are Republicans, Independents, Green Party members and Democrats. We are families concerned about neighborhoods and affordable housing. We care about the economic growth of our community and keeping our high quality of life. We are parents, surfers, hikers and divers, who want to instill in our children and our community a sense of ownership and responsibility about our environment. We are public safety professionals who, on a daily basis, are in contact with the people of the 3rd District and understand their interest in a safe and responsible community.
Protecting life, property and the environment are the highest priorities for firefighters and we are proud to support Doreen Farr for 3rd District Supervisor. Doreen is the one candidate we know has the experience and leadership ability to prioritize these essential 3rd District community needs.
Labels: 3rd District Supervisor Election
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 5/15/2008 07:15:00 PM
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8 Comments:
Does this mean that Rob Heckman will be violating county policies again by distributing Doreen Farr campaign literature from county fire stations the way he did for Janet Wolf?
Is it no wonder that the county pension plan is behind in funding by $200 million?
The firefighters union helps get candidates elected who in turn vote for lucrative union contracts that allow their members to retire at full pay in their early fifties.
The firefighters endorsement should be viewed with skepticism more than anything else.
If anyone still thinks the "fire fighters" support Farr, and not the fire fighter public employee UNIONS support Farr, deserves the government they get.
C'mon people. The "friends" of the fire fighters, or the police or the teachers, or the prison guards who support candidates are their very own public employee unions who have their hands out big time for more salaries, more benefits and more pensions.
All paid for with your increased tax dollars.
If you keep falling for this "friends of the" (insert your favorite public employee lobbying group), you deserve getting taxed out the yazoo because you are still too dumb to govern your own lives.
Farr would probably rather have the endorsement of local, hard working firefighters, who risk their lives as they did in the Zaca fire, than the mega donations Smyser has received from out of state donors who sent him $5,000 checks to develop Gaviota.
And anyone who watched the Zaca fire threaten our community for a month can't really begrudge firefighter salaries to retain the best in our county.
The county pension has a deficit because the stock market is down, probably more to do with the national economy than paying for decent benefits for hard working SB residents.
When the market rebounds the pension deficit will go away. But once developers put more timeshares on the Gaviota Coast, they will never go away!
Our hardworking fire fighters who work maybe a few weeks a year at max, get paid extremely well already, have incredible health and pension benefits, have easy access to disability retirement and are out the door before age 50 so they can double dip some other cushy government job for another 20 years.
They chose to fight fires and on the few occasions they actually work, they are only doing what they signed up to do. They are no more hardworking than a lot of other working stiffs who actually have to face the front lines every single day.
Give me a break about touting fire fighters. They have a cushy job and they keep it in the family for generations.
Any public employee union endorsement is an automatic reason to never vote for any candidate. Otherwise, you will never see the end of the state budget crisis.
Fire personnel have jobs just like the rest of us do; except they work harder a lot fewer days than the rest of us do.
To Never Vote and other naysayers,
If we followed your logic, there would be no one to vote for. All five 3rd District candidates pursued the endorsement of the firefighters, but only Farr got it. Presumably your candidate didn’t so sour grapes seem to be in order.
But putting politics aside, your sweeping negative generalizations about firefighters reveal your ignorance. Firefighters have to undergo long hours of training. When they are not fighting fires, they have plenty to do, doing upkeep on the equipment, keeping fit, and withstanding long hours of tedium away from home just to stay alert to emergencies. Often they are rushed to false alarms, sometimes to aid situations outside our county, sometimes aiding victims of non-fire accidents.
And may I remind you that unlike the work many of us do, they actually put their lives in danger. Annually, about 100 firefighters die on the job. Many more are injured. And many more have delayed job-related injuries and complications they carry well into retirement. So compared to those of us who work hard but in relatively safe jobs, I’d say firefighters more than earn their pay and benefits.
Logic aside, I think you will appreciate firefighters more if they are ever called to your home as they were to mine. A firebug had set fire to the trees bordering my backyard. My dog was in the house alone and as we arrived to discover the blazing tree line, a passerby had just called the fire department.
Several fire units arrived in minutes and quickly and efficiently extinguished the fire, saving our house and the nearby houses in our thickly populated neighborhood. Then the firefighters stuck around, making sure all embers were thoroughly doused and that we were perfectly safe. They were followed by the fire investigator who identified how the fire started.
I hope you will never have to experience the professionalism and caring of the firefighters. But if you do, I promise you will sing a different tune.
Finally, we are fortunate to have a Constitution that guarantees that all of us have a right to participate in the political process. In fact, one of the great shames of our culture is that only about 50% of our residents are eligible to vote and only about 25% actually do.
It would be a poor “reward” for their service if we somehow decided that public service workers such as firefighters should be deprived of supporting candidates who they believe will stand up for them and for their profession.
I am thankful that our firefighters participate with their donations and their votes by supporting candidates they think will best support them and public safety.
Police and fire fighters ended up bankrupting the entire city of Vallejo. So much for their "friends" who put that city council in office and then rewarded these police and fire fighters at the expense of the rest of the entire city.
Bah, fire fighters get paid plenty, get to retire at 50 and go on to other cushy careers while the city has to pay out the nose for the rest of their lives.
This is a racket and it is just a job. Lots of people put their lives on the line every day. And get paid and demand a lot less than the over-paid, over-bloated fire fighters.
If your only response if you hope my house burns down, you prove firefighters are not the dedicated professionals you make them out to be. You just turned them into whining public beggers who will punish you if you don't support them.
Remember Vallejo,
I think your post just proved the adage: "A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
I don't know what happened in Vallejo but if paying their public safety workers busted their budget, it must not have been much of a budget to begin with.
By your "rules" who should be allowed to vote? If you start by not allowing union members to participate, who is next on your list of not allowed to vote.
Sorry, your arguments are un-democratic and no one is buying them.
Wow! I am shocked at some of these comments. As a proud wife of a firefighter, it angers me to hear some of the comments. "Cushy Job". HA! Is it cushy to respond to a vehical accident with multiply fatalites possibly with children involved? It is cushy to respond to a murder or to a suicied? Or to respond to a fire in 109 degree weather? And then after witnessing all of that to return home and carry on with those images in your head. How quickly we all can forget the 343 firefighters who lost their lives on 911. Firefighters not only fight fires but respond to many medical calls. Many of which most of us could never stomach. I'm not very good at all this political stuff. But if you are going to take jabs at people, please think long and hard about what you say. For someday you many need these Firefighters who you say work no harder then other working stiffs.
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