All eyes on next mayor at Roland Park meeting
Rawlings-Blake weighs in on fire station controversy
By Larry Perl
lperl@patuxent.com
Posted 1/08/10
(Enlarge) Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, right, and council member Jack Young laugh during a meeting of the Roland Park Civic League Thursday evening. The council members were in attendance to participate in a discussion concerning the controversial measures taken by the Baltimore City Fire Department to save money. Rawlings-Blake will take over as Baltimore City's mayor on Feb. 4 due to Sheila Dixon's resignation. (Staff photo by Sarah Pastrana)
All eyes at a Roland Park Civic League meeting were on Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who succeeds Sheila Dixon as mayor Feb. 4, as she rose to the defense of Fire Chief James Clack.
Clack told the league that rotating closures of fire company units, including Engine No. 44 and Truck No. 25 in Roland Park are unavoidable in the face of his department’s budget deficit of $6.5 million.
“One of the things I know about Chief Clack is that he’s going to tell us the truth, whether we really want to hear it or not, which is a quality that is essential as we are in the great recession,” Rawlings-Blake told the audience of about 50 people at Roland Park Presbyterian Church.
Clack did not mince words as he painted a bleak picture of a budget deficit that is projected to grow to $13 million. If that comes to pass, he might have to move Truck No. 25 to Hampden, among other more severe cost-cutting measures, he said.
Hampden’s fire station currently has a fire engine and two paramedic vehicles.
“I love Roland Park, and I love all of you,” Clack said.
But, he added, “My job as fire chief is to do the best job that I can with the resources I have.”
His blunt assessment, and his strategy of saving $3 million by taking fire vehicles out of service at stations citywide on a rotating basis, did not sit well with some in the audience.
“It’s a recipe for disaster,” Longwood Road resident Steve O’Donnell shouted in the doorway of the meeting room. “You’re rolling the dice with hand grenades.”
“I’m still totally against any” closures, said Sharon Green Middleton, one of four City Council members who came to the meeting. “It’s reckless endangerment,” she said, noting that many Roland Park houses are older and made of wood, and that the community suffered a fatal house fire in 2007.
Middleton also complained that fire officials didn’t tell her that rotating closures would be coming, a criticism leveled by the league as well.
“I’m not finding out about these things,” Middleton said. She called that “a form of endangerment, too.”
For that, Clack apologized and said, “I will do better.”
On a more optimistic note, Clack said rotating closures are a strategy adopted to avoid shutting fire stations. And none of the worst-case planning scenarios for cutting his budget deficit call for closing the Roland Park station, he said.
The civic league has taken the fire station under its wing, and requested that Clack and council members attend the meeting.
The neighborhood has spent much of the past year raising $40,000 to $50,000 to renovate the aging station. The city is spending $90,000 and the state legislature has approved $110,000 in bond money.
Clack stressed that it’s early in the budget planning process for fiscal 2011.
“We’re just starting,” he said, adding pointedly, “We have a new mayor.”
Rawlings-Blake stood to address the audience.
She said the city must “build consensus” about making the fire department more of a budget priority “and figuring out where the money is going to come from.”
And she added, “I look forward to working with you to maintain our quality of life.”
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