• Why move away from a more cost effective Citywide career department that can provide equal fire protection throughout the city with volunteers supplementing the system
• What happens to all the volunteers when the new “Stamford Volunteer Fire Department” hires its volunteers as their paid members?
• Does it really make sense to have two separate “Hiring Standards” for career personnel who will be working in the same city?  What happens to all those applicants that just shelled out close to $200 each to try to get on a City hiring list.
• There would be no new hires in the SFRD for years if this plan is implemented.  Wouldn’t that create a huge generation gap and disrupt the normal flow more experienced firefighters training the not so experience firefighters?
• If the City wanted to force the Volunteers into a unified plan, couldn’t they threaten to shrink a volunteer fire departments response area to their fire stations property footprint without changing the Charter?
• Who will plan and conduct the training of the new Stamford Volunteer Fire Department.  There was no mention of any further infrastructure beyond the operations division of the Department.
• Will the volunteers guarantee staffing response staffing levels?
• How will the new department address being an “Equal Opportunity Employer”?  Will minorities have the same opportunity to be hired in the northern district as in the downtown area?
• What kind of control will the City be afforded over the hiring practices of the new autonomous Stamford Volunteer Fire Department?
• Who will be responsible for vehicle maintenance under this plan?  We the City turn over the apparatus currently owned (and being paid for via a debt service) by the city?
• Who will handle all the HR issues, including pension, health insurance and annual physical for all of the 50+ new hires of Stamford Volunteer FD?

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