As a resident of Jericho I am both thankful and proud of the volunteers of the Jericho Fire Department who give so much of their time and effort to serve our community. They deserve our praise and gratitude. The issues raised by the community are with the elected fire commissioners and their decision-making process with respect to the proposed new firehouse.

The chief is painting a different picture of the proposed new firehouse than what the community is actually experiencing. The homeowners in the immediate vicinity of the new firehouse have not been provided a proper opportunity for their input. To the contrary, secrecy and stalling by the commissioners has been the reality. For years, telephone calls and pleas placed by the Birchwood Civic Association to gather information and request meetings were ignored. Requests for copies of the plans and certain materials were not provided and difficult procedures were required. When a limited group was allowed to meet with the commissioners, the issues raised fell on deaf ears and were never addressed. The community and civic association were specifically concerned with additional traffic creating an unsafe environment, reduced response time, physical size of the facility, budget and taxes, how to attract a dwindling volunteer base, how to better utilize the current two houses in operation, exact needs of the firefighters and noise and air pollution.

Why was there such a lack of respect for the community? Why was there so much secrecy? Why haven't the factual questions been answered? Perhaps the facts would point out that three firehouses in a community the size of Jericho is not warranted. Perhaps the facts would point to a decrease in response time. Perhaps the facts would prove that the two existing facilities could be enhanced as an alternative to a third building at tremendous savings and bring proper and adequate protection to the community while still affording the volunteers everything they truly need. Perhaps the facts would show that the proposed facility isn't even being considered for the proper location as it should be closer to where the volunteers travel from. Perhaps the facts would point to several fire-fighting career professionals involved in the Jericho fire district who disagree with the proposal. Perhaps the facts would show that there would be additional, dangerous traffic so close to the Long Island Expressway.

A few residents in the community did in fact visit the two existing facilities. The visit was an eye opener. We saw firsthand how underutilized the substation on Cantiague Road was. The visit actually made us believe that the third firehouse was in fact excess and how a simple plan could be designed to better utilize the facility if it were desired to. This would not only save millions of dollars in capital improvements but also significantly reduce ongoing expenses for years to come as two buildings are cheaper to maintain than three especially considering that the existing 30,000 square foot main house would simply serve a handful of administrative personnel and a repair bay.

To think our taxes will decline is not accurate. The truth is that funds have been collected over the years to pay for the project. In effect, we have been over-taxed for a long time. Make no mistake about it; the community is footing this bill.

We should give the volunteers everything that they need to help serve us and do it in a manner that is comfortable to them. Every objective can be met if the requests were reasonable and open-minded. Reasonable and prudent modifications and improvements to the two existing structures would clearly suffice without disturbing the community and costing millions of unnecessary dollars. The commissioners' motives are unclear as each reason they state for a new firehouse is in dispute. However it is clear that the planned project to erect a huge, expensive structure is unnecessary.

Stuart Leibowitz