What started with a non-emergency accident with our $1.3 million dollar fire truck in January, ended up with a specially worded council subterfuge from our Fire commissioner, Councilman Mark Lazarow. The final chapter to what the Hawk’s original article called “Garwood Combats Scrutiny.”
Two months ago, various experienced former firemen and fire officers along with residents found the governing body was hiding the fact that our “fairly new” $1.3 million ladder truck had an accident which may put it out of service for up to one year as the whole “back-box” may have to be rebuilt out in a factory in Pennsylvania. This diminished the safety and the fire security of our town. But it morphed into a more serious issue that our fire department command structure was not fully certified per state mandates, and per our own fire ordinance #23-28. This was revealed in the local free speech Facebook forum covering Garwood. Immediately the governing body went on the defensive, denigrating the forum saying one can’t believe anything that Facebook says, it’s just divisive and lot of noise. But the first crack opened when two of the fire officers were suddenly replaced. However, the command structure including these two new officers still were not properly certified by documents governing the department. A resident over two council meetings asked the council if this command structure was certified to which the mayor ended the second time replying in contemptuous tones, yes, they are. All the while, Mayor Blumenstock, Council president Kearney and newly elected Councilman Foley kept attacking the Facebook forum, even to the point where Councilman Kearney released a video demanding the two admins of the forum, of which this author is one of them, to walk back the accusations and then calling the forum disgraceful.
The first letter to council generated by six members of the forum had gone out on Feb 18, 2024 requesting the mayor have our fire chief attend a meeting to answer many questions listed in the letter. The mayor ignored the request. Finally, as a cudgel to show the deficiency of the command structure, that the forum had been stating, a matrix and letter dated March 15, 2024, created by the four experienced former and present firemen, specifically showing in detail the lack of various certifications, was then sent to council for answers.
Obviously, Fire Commissioner and the Fire Chief had to scramble to figure out how to marginalize the matrix facts. At the council meeting of March 21, Fire Commissioner Lazarow, somewhat agitated, read a public statement. We recognized it as a carefully worded subterfuge. In context, the two reached out to the state Fire Marshall to achieve a downgraded fact that the command structure of the Fire Department can meet minimal standards set forth by the state; that the more stringent requirements set forth by our ordinance will be ignored. Councilman Lazarow stated that the state requirements always override local requirements, which any person versed in state policy and procedures understand that local ordinances can impose stricter standards over minimal state requirements. Our ordinance did just that and the command structure was deficient. Also, the state required certs for Hazmat and Incident Command of four of seven officers appear to be lacking but these points can be argued.
Councilman Lazarow in his statement of subterfuge, noted that he will be sitting down with the attorney to adjust “the code.” For some reason he was evading using the correct wording “ordinance #23-28”. The public recognized his evasiveness. This is his apparent target that will be rewritten to remove the imposed more stringent requirements that made the command structure deficient.
Through the governing body’s chatter, noise, indignation, and denigration over the two months, they were wrong from the start. Was it ignorance? Was it non-transparency? Was it arrogance? Will they apologize to the residents that they are hiding a diminished safety level not only from the $1.3 million ladder truck being out of service, but the lack of true certification? This episode is now nearly over, the council has egg on their face thanks to our “disgraceful” Facebook forum. Government rarely admits failure until you cudgel them with facts.
Bruce Paterson Garwood
