Letter from Concerned Citizen to Joe Miller

This email was sent to our City Manager and a few others.  It is from a concerned citizen, Mr. John Grassa to Joe Miller District 1 City Commissioner.

Dear Joe,

As one of your constituents. I have looked at May 17th's agenda. There are two very important items on this agenda.

The Utility Tax  and the Fire Department Presentation. I am not including the mayor in on this email as I feel it is totally unethical, as her whole family works for the city and is raking in the dollars as we sit here like fools doing very little.

First - you have all talked about transparency and I think the word is harmony, that you have used, Joe . Well I would like to know why you have put one of the most important items in slot 25. Obviously you all do not want us there. And I do not need any excuses, the people of Deerfield have mentioned this type of game on many occasions. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

Secondly - I noticed now out of the blue that Lamberti is giving us a presentation on moving the Fire Department.  Another tactic, if not enough with the Utility tax. I would assume on this that the seating for all of us residents who pay taxes will not have them as all the fireman from outside our city will fill the room, so that many of us will not be able to sit and wait through till item 25.

That is well planned and orchestrated - I applaud you all on you tactics - this is the wrong way to do things. And I am voicing my complaint to all of you, and I would hope that my commissioner stands up and voices this as well. The Fire presentation could have waited for another week or a special meeting.

While we are on this point of the fire department. I have heard all of you state at one time, that you will look at all the options. As a parallel move does little for us in the long run.

So that would leave two other options for us to also consider:  1.) Privatization 2.) Volunteer

Are you all going to be fair about this and have other presentations as well?

I dug up some statistics from the NFP - they state that there are 30,310 fire Departments in the US and that 72.3% or 21,900 departments are all volunteer and then another 16.1% or 4,886 are mostly volunteer. So lets see here, out of 30,310 departments 88.4% or 26,786 fire departments are volunteer. Get this only 6.7% or 2,044 departments are all career.

By not presenting these different options to the people, especially one regarding Volunteers, you are withholding information that could really make a change in our city. We would not need a utility tax or a high millage rate, if you all stopped playing politics and did your job.

I am sure you all will give me some great answers or should I call them excuses on why we have not been presented with this option or why it has not made it to our public media or better yet why it will not work.

You all do not have all the Answers, and should keep an open mind.

I am starting to agree with some of my friends, who state; Deerfield Beach - How's the hood these days?  Or another one has coined Deerfield Beach - A place to work for The Government but not a place to live or start a business. And you know they all have not one example but many to support their comments.

Included for you all to see is the City of Plantation. Please look at the attachment on Demographics, then look at their budget for the Fire Department on page 29 of the attachment.

Plantation Fire
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Deerfield Beach Fire
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Please note that the City of Plantation has a larger population than Deerfield Beach.  Also, last year our City took to lay-offs to make up funds and they chose Public Works and Parks n rec which combined, cost the City less than our wonderful Fire Services Department(s).
Maybe it's time we look look at all avenues of cost savings...


Did I hear a call to decrease the Fire Force in consideration for some volunteer fire fighters.