Steve Benjamin held a news conference today in front of the Shandon Fire Station on Devine Street to talk about cutbacks at the Fire Department. You can hear what he had to say below:
Not to be outdone, City Councilman Kirkman Finlay, who is also running for mayor, released his fire safety plan today. You can read it by clicking here.
Adam Beam covers the City of Columbia for
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I attended the City Council meeting on Oct. 21 in which the firefighter funding was discussed. The State reported the story the next morning. At that meeting, Councilwoman Gergel asked city staffers to make it a priority to see how quickly the two fire engines could get back into service.
My plan is simple. Fund the firefighters. Look for budget cuts elsewhere
instead of, a week later, allocating $150,000 to an outside group to see how to make city government more efficient. I bet the study comes back stating that funding your fire and police departments are top priorities.
I believe there are alot more $150,000 bad choices hidden within the budget.
You get what you pay for. City Council should stop trying to spend money on re-election fluff programs and start focusing on quality service to the citizenry.
Poor police and fire service means higher insurance rates.
One $8mil parking garage would have covered the budget shortfall for the fire and police depts for 3 years…
Finlay’s plan is doublespeak that boils down to “we’ll talk about it”, which is what they have been doing for years (and see where that got us).
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