Scranton Fire Station closing raises concern from residents up the hill
ISSUE DOESN’T MAKE AGENDA AT TWDC ANNUAL MEETING
by Chuck Hoven

(Plain Press, March 2008) At the January 17th Board of Trustees meeting of Tremont West Development Corporation, ex-officio Board Member Henry Senyak brought to the attention of the Board the “browning out” of the fire station serving the Tremont neighborhood. Senyak relayed to the board concerns raised by the Cleveland Fire Fighters Union President Chester J. Ashton in a January 10th letter, about the closing of Fire Station 21 at Carter and Scranton on any day citywide staffing of firefighters dropped below 187. Senyak asked the Board to place the issue about the Fire Station on the agenda for the upcoming Annual TWDC Membership Meeting on January 31st so the general membership could petition the mayor and city council to reopen the station. The Board refused to place the issue on the agenda for the annual meeting and instead tabled it and referred the issue to the Safety Committee for consideration.

The letter from the Cleveland Fire Fighters Association’s President Chester J. Ashton said “Station 21 houses two apparatuses: Engine 2, the first-due fire engine for the Flats, Tremont and Warehouse/West Downtown neighborhoods, and Engine 21, Cleveland’s Fire Boar, the Anthony J. Celebrezze.”

The letter further warns of the impact on the neighborhood when the station is closed. Ashton notes that two busy stations, the one at Lorain and W. 32nd and the one at Clark and W. 41st would be handling calls that would have been handled by Station 21 if it were open.  “Under the current plan, the safety of your property or business will rely upon the availability of busier fire companies responding from further away.”

At the Annual Meeting on January 31st, while the letter from the President of the Firs Fighters Union was present on every table, there was no public discussion of the issue. With the Mayor and the two Tremont Councilmen, Ward 14 Councilman Joe Santiago and Ward 13 Councilman Joe Cimperman, in attendance, Senyak felt an opportunity for the membership to address this critical issue to the policy makers before the City of Cleveland’s February Budget hearings was lost.

Having been denied the opportunity to address the issue at the Annual Meeting, Senyak invited Ashton to speak at the Lincoln Heights/Scranton-Starkweather Block Club’s meeting on February 7th. There Ashton explained how the station came to be closed on most days this year and part of last year, and gave several examples of the seriousness of the closure of Fire Station 21 and the neighborhood safety issues it raised.

Ashton cited a fire on Thurman Avenue last June on a day that Station 21 was closed. He said if Station 21 were open that day, Engine 2 would have been the first responder to that fire and would have taken only 2 to 3 minutes to get to the fire. Instead it took 10 ½ to 11 minutes for the first responder to get to the fire. He said the first engine to respond ended up being Engine 20 from W. 41st and Clark Avenue because the engine at Station 4 at W. 32nd and Lorain was already out on a call at the time of the fire. Ashton said that national fire safety standards call for a standard of having fire equipment on the scene of the fire within 4 minutes. Ashton said while thankfully there was no loss of life at the Thurman Avenue home, there was extensive damage to the house.

Ashton said that in addition to responding to fires, fire fighters are trained as paramedics and 60 -70 percent of their calls are in response to medical emergencies. He said response time can be a matter of life and death in a medical emergency and often the fire department reaches the scene before EMS.

Ashton said Mayor Frank Jackson cited abuse of sick time by firefighters as the reason for tying the opening of Station 21 to the number of firefighters that report to work on any given day. However, Ashton said a public records request by the firefighters union revealed that the firefighters had the lowest absentee rate of any group of employees in the city despite the fact that department was aging, with more than a third of the department having 25 years or more of service. Ashton said also said the records request indicated that use of sick time was decreasing from year to year, not going up.

After Ashton presentation, residents spoke of their fears. Several residents expressed concern about medical response time in light of the many elderly residents in the neighborhood. One participant in the meeting raised the issue of higher fire insurance rates as a result of the station not being open.

The Block Club voted to send a letter to the mayor and the Council Representatives to let them know the block club supported keeping the fire station open. Several members urged the block club leadership to demand that Tremont West Development Corporation take a stand on the issue. They urged a letter be sent to the TWDC Board so the issue could be addressed at its February meeting.

(see related letter to the editor here)

(see related photos here)

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