News for you Mark, there's more to this Assembly district than the city of Schenectady. What would it to take for you to realize that KAPL, GE R&D, the industrial complexes throughout the county, and a whole bunch of other places you don't even know about, are protected only by SFD's HazMat team.
And where's the listing of all the Homeland Security grants that offset some of these costs? Nice job failing to mention that...
Not that Amedore is anything to write home about as long as he's an R in the Assembly, but this sort of screwed up thinking by Blanchfield shouldn't be endorsed come November. What NYS desperately needs is less forms of governing and more consolidation of services. The city is providing a service, with subsidies from the county, that the rest of the county can't and he wants to reduce or even eliminate that service? Schenectady stands to be a perfect example of a county that could greatly benefit from a consolidation of public services, given its small geography.
If there was one thing Spitzer was dead-on about, it's that NYS has way too many redundant and duplicative services. Like say, five(?) police agencies serving this county!? If local politicians had any chutzpah, they'd be begging to consolidate services to resolve the oncoming financial crisis. Overhead people, spread it around...
8 mpg is pretty bad, but given that many police departments run their cars 24 hrs a day, and in a city are either accelerating or stopped, that's not unrealistic. It's not like it's 8mpg on a highway. And mpg isn't even a useful measurement. It should strictly be how many gallons per year. A department doesn't really have control over how many miles are driven, which is really what mpg shows. The gallon part of that equation is constant, ya know?
The only way to really improve mileage is to change policing habits, like two officers per car. But there's of course, drawbacks to that.
Hybrid SUVs would 1. cost more than a state contract Crown Vic to acquire, aren't rated for police pursuit, don't have heavy duty cooling or suspension aspects, etc. The department would also have to spend money on tires, aftermarket equipment and bracketing, etc. that is specific to the Ford platform. And you also have to consider the fact that you have an entire driving fleet of officers whose primary experience, especially in pursuit, is with a rear wheel drive V8 vehicle. I don't want to be standing at the tangent of a veteran officer flying around a corner when the 4000 lbs of front wheel drive comes understeering through a corner.
The sheriff's department can get away with a small fleet of 3.9L V6 Impalas and get better mileage because they cover greater distances and aren't stopped in traffic as often. They also probably don't see the wear and tear that the city police do on these awful pockmarked streets. Speaking of which, hey Olsen/Stratton, when is MILLARD ST GOING TO BE FIXED?!?! Summer's almost over!
I firmly believe the Crown Vic is awful vehicle, but there's more to changing a fleet over than just what mpg the vehicle gets. Environmentally, vehicle based policing is always awful, but it's still an efficient effort at patrolling a large area. Not much is going to make a difference. Safety is an odd item. Full frame vehicles are somewhat safer, but the crush zones don't absorb as much kinetic energy as a unibody vehicle does. It's a tradeoff because a full frame distributes more energy to the occupants. In theory at least...Of course, wearing seatbelts would help the officers considerably, regardless of their complaining that it slows them down. If they ever responded to a call in this city in a normal timeframe, maybe I'd believe it.
Replacing a fleet just because gas has gone up is a decision made by someone who only looks at the fuel bill. I'm talkin' to you Carl...
Posted on October 18 at 8:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
News for you Mark, there's more to this Assembly district than the city of Schenectady. What would it to take for you to realize that KAPL, GE R&D, the industrial complexes throughout the county, and a whole bunch of other places you don't even know about, are protected only by SFD's HazMat team.
And where's the listing of all the Homeland Security grants that offset some of these costs? Nice job failing to mention that...
Not that Amedore is anything to write home about as long as he's an R in the Assembly, but this sort of screwed up thinking by Blanchfield shouldn't be endorsed come November. What NYS desperately needs is less forms of governing and more consolidation of services. The city is providing a service, with subsidies from the county, that the rest of the county can't and he wants to reduce or even eliminate that service? Schenectady stands to be a perfect example of a county that could greatly benefit from a consolidation of public services, given its small geography.
If there was one thing Spitzer was dead-on about, it's that NYS has way too many redundant and duplicative services. Like say, five(?) police agencies serving this county!? If local politicians had any chutzpah, they'd be begging to consolidate services to resolve the oncoming financial crisis. Overhead people, spread it around...
On Schenectady County's hazmat service area at issue