Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council are negotiating over how many fire companies to close in order to balance the budget — and yesterday City Hall finally released a list of its intended targets.
But the whole negotiation is pointless — because none should be closed.
Not one.
Let’s face it: Firefighting is an indispensible, core service — unlike, say, bike lanes, “green”-energy intiatives or the health-awareness-type programs that Bloomberg is so fond of.
And while other city services, like the NYPD, may be able to shift around resources and employ sophisticated operational techniques to deal with budget cuts, the FDNY can’t.
Without a sufficient number of companies — spread around the city to minimize all-critical response times — New Yorkers’ lives will be placed at risk.
(What’s more, the FDNY was pushed into a corner by Judge Nick Garaufis, whose attempts to impose racial-hiring quotas on the department have frozen new classes of rookie firefighters — causing overtime pay to spike.)
Meanwhile, the $55 million needed to keep the companies open is less than a thousandth of Bloomberg’s $69 billion budget. That’s right: barely 0.08 percent.
The mayor’s disclosure yesterday of which companies are to close was certainly welcome news: Affected neighborhoods may now rise up.
We hope they do!
And council members ultimately may find budget money to shift around to save some companies.
But there’s still a very real threat that some may have to close.
That won’t do. City Hall needs to find a way to keep every last fire company open — and ready for duty.
Or be prepared to live with the consequences.