Council Tries To Negotiate Deal On Engine 261
by john toscano

Gazette photo Pressure to reopen Engine 261 came from lawmakers at all levels of government.

As those opposed to the closing of the Engine Company 261 firehouse in Long Island City anxiously and hopefully await a decision in their suit to keep it open, the City Council has made the reopening of Engine 261 and five other shuttered firehouses one of its objectives in the ongoing negotiations over the city budget, which is nearing its deadline.

The original deadline for adopting the 2003–04 budget came and passed last Thursday, but the council voted to move the deadline to this Friday.

Further pressure to reopen Engine 261 came from lawmakers at all levels of government. Congressmember Carolyn Maloney, in whose district the firehouse is located, wrote the mayor a letter asking him to reverse "this ill-considered decision," and nine other lawmakers signed it.

One of them, state Senator George Onorato (D-Astoria) joined with several senate colleagues in sponsoring a resolution urging the mayor to reopen and restaff the six closed firehouses.

Onorato told Bloomberg that the few million dollars that would be saved by the closings "are simply not worth the price we could all ultimately pay in terms of diminished public safety."

Onorato noted that the state legislature had "stepped up to the plate" and provided the mayor and the city with more than $2 billion in additional aid.

"Now it’s time for the mayor to make sure that this aid is used to the best possible benefit of all city residents," said Onorato, "and part of that means reopening our firehouses."

Among the signers of Maloney’s letter were Council Speaker Gifford Miller, of Manhattan, and Councilmembers Peter Vallone Jr. (Astoria) and Eric Gioia (Woodside), whose district includes Engine 261.

Last Thursday, the day after the mayor restored $90 million in vital city services, upstaging Miller and the council by leaving them out of the announcement, Miller enumerated several restorations he hoped the council could elicit from the mayor in the budget negotiations, and reopening of the firehouses was among them.

Keeping in mind that the Council had been stung by the mayor’s unilateral action in parceling out the $90 million, City Hall watchers point out that the council must win further restorations and put the mayor in a position where he must deal or the council could refuse to pass the budget.

The council had said before the $90 million restoration announcement that the mayor should save $350 million in services. The council is now looking at another $260 million in restorations, not an unattainable amount.

The firehouses, being a public safety priority, could be the council’s priority restoration objective.

Besides Gioia, Vallone, Onorato and Miller, others who signed Maloney’s letter were Assemblymembers Michael Gianaris (D–Astoria), Margaret Markey (D–Maspeth) and Catherine Nolan (D–Ridgewood), Olga Mendez and Alexander Grannis, both Manhattan Dems.

Maloney (D–Queens/Manhattan) pointed out that by closing Engine 261 and forcing other firehouses in western Queens to pick up its duties, the mayor was putting constituents’ lives in peril. Because of their significant distance from Engine 261, she said, response times to Roosevelt Island and much of Long Island City would be increased considerably.

Maloney also noted the heavy work load performed by Engine 261—2,000 calls annually from 1999 through 2002, with one quarter of the calls related to Emergency Medical Service responses. She also pointed out that Long Island City has become more residential in recent years and with Engine 261 closed, the second responder to Roosevelt Island will be two miles distant from the Roosevelt Island Bridge.

She concluded, "We are sympathetic to the city’s pressing budget concerns and recognize that difficult decisions must be made. Nonetheless, we urge you to re-examine and reverse the decision to close Engine 261 so that the citizens of Roosevelt Island and Western Queens will not face increased risk."