To My Fellow Rumford Citizens As most of you are aware, years of financial difficulties in the Town of Rumford came to a head with the rejection of all the municipal budgets on June 11. Outraged by the voters’ rejection of their proposed budget as a whole, and in particular their most favored departments and charities, the selectmen have sought to punish the citizens of Rumford in a number of ways. The board of selectmen has voted to recommend zero funding for curbside pick-up and recycling (Article 10) in violation of Town Ordinance Chapter 21-B which prohibits suspension of recycling and of curbside pick-up. You can find Ordinance Chapter 21-B on page 40 of the pdf file located on the town’s website at rumfordmaine.net/UP/2011%20FINAL%20Rv%2006%2012%202012%20w%20Hdrs%20Sect%20Bks.pdf . This retaliatory action by the board of selectmen will not assist the town in improving economic conditions or in reducing taxes. It will worsen them as the community becomes more dump like with resulting increases in infestations of rats, mice, and other vermin in our schools, homes, apartments, public facilities, and businesses. This retaliatory action by our elected board of selectmen will cause great and unreasonable inconvenience to all and great hardship to our significant disabled and elderly populations. This action will also greatly skyrocket the costs of operating the NORSWB facility as additional employees will be required to handle the dramatic influx of traffic as individuals seek to dispose of waste by bringing it to the transfer station. It is likely that costs will further increase dramatically as the citizens of Rumford discontinue recycling in favor of quick disposal at the transfer station mixing what they currently recycle into what currently goes into the landfill stream. NORSWB will have to pay increased tipping fees for the disposal of these recyclable that are intermixed with landfill material while also losing the growing recycling revenues which have reduced NORSWB assessments benefiting all the member towns by lowering the part of your tax bill going to provide these services for the last three years. The Board of Selectmen is also seeking to punish every citizen including our youth, and every remaining business in the community, as well as our mutual aid partner, Mexico, by making draconian cuts to Rumford’s fire department budget. This is a department that has seen budget cuts not by scalpel but by chain saw annually for nearly a decade. This is a department that has seen zero increase since fiscal year 2008-2009! For being very good stewards of our resources, maintaining levels of service that have kept losses of life and property to a minimum, and conducting vital safety programs and inspections of critical facilities such as our schools and hospital, the fire department is being used by the selectmen to punish you. The selectmen have voted to recommend a 13% cut to the already barebones fire department budget, again I remind you this department requested a budget the same as it has operated under 4 budgets ago the 2008-2009 amount. If the selectmen’s budget is approved by the voters, there will be great consequences. The citizens will likely lose two career firefighter positions. This is unacceptable as this will eliminate the ability of the Rumford Fire Department with the mutual aid assistance of the Mexico Fire Department to respond to a fire immediately with 3 apparatus and 4 men. Without 3 apparatus and 4 men on scene, there will not be any entry to rescue trapped people or pets, there will be no entry to attack the fire. Our very professional full-time and volunteer call force manned Fire Department will have to wait until enough call force members are able to arrive from their homes and places of work to have the required manpower and equipment on scene before they will be able to move forward with rescue and firefighting operations. By then, it may be too late for anyone trapped inside or to save the property. Not only that, it is likely fire may spread to involve more than one structure such as happened in a rash of fires in Lewiston recently. Region 9 in the 2011-2012 school year, began a firefighter course. This course came out of the Rumford Fire Departments Junior Firefighter program which gives high school students an opportunity to serve their community as volunteers while learning important firefighter skills that lead them to joining the call force as skilled firefighters when they turn 18. If the selectmen’s recommendation is approved by voters, the fire department will not have the necessary funds or personnel to continue the junior firefighter program. The selectmen’s recommended $99,299 cut to the fire department’s budget will eliminate the training opportunities our firefighters enthusiastically avail themselves of in order to serve you and I better protecting life, health, and property. The fire department will also no longer be able to respond to assist Medcare with EMS calls that require additional manpower to get the sick and injured out of their homes, out of remote areas, and when patients must be moved with extra caution better done with more than the 2 individuals staffing Medcare’s ambulances. If we the people vote approval of the punitive cuts recommended by the board of selectmen, the fire department will have no choice but to considerably reduce lifesaving fire prevention programs including inspections of the hospital and schools! The Finance Committee is recommending a 5% reduction from the requested frugal budget. The Finance Committee’s recommended budget would result in only minimal cuts in the programs described above and with only a minimal number of shifts with staffing reductions that would cause delays in entry for rescue and firefighting. It is vitally important to ALL citizens, our children in their schools, patients in our nursing homes and hospital, and our businesses that the Finance Committee’s Article 9 recommendation of $687,877 pass. Please for the love of all our children, family, friends, and neighbors, join me in the hard work of insure the Finance Committee’s Fire Department budget recommendation of $686,877 passes. Please, share this potentially lifesaving information with all the residents of Rumford you know and come in contact with, share this with all your social media contacts, encourage all of them to vote for the Finance Committee’s recommendation of $687,877 on Article 9 Fire Department Budget on July 23, 2013. Thank you, rumfordmaine.net/UP/2011%20FINAL%20Rv%2006%2012%202012%20w%20Hdrs%20Sect%20Bks.pdf .
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 21:01:55 +0000
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