[Infowarrior] - Firefighters' windfall comes with a catch

[Richard Forno]

Firefighters' windfall comes with a catch
Grant can't buy needed truck

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/02/09/firefighters_windfall_c
omes_with_a_catch/

By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff  |  February 9, 2007

When the fire department in the tiny Berkshire hamlet of Cheshire needed a
new fire truck, it asked Uncle Sam for a little help.

The response last month was stunning: a $665,962 homeland security grant.

The award was nearly 26 times the annual budget of the volunteer fire
department in the town of 3,500. And the rub: The department is not allowed
to spend it on a fire truck.

Instead, the town won a grant to fortify the ranks of its volunteer brigade.
Its selectmen plan to huddle later this month to hash out a spending plan.

Asked how the money will be spent, Cheshire Fire Chief George Sweet
cryptically replied yesterday: "Rome wasn't built in a day."

Sweet said he couldn't say much more about the windfall. Indeed, Cheshire's
officialdom is a nervous wreck over it and is reviewing federal grant
guidelines.

"We've never had this much money dropped in our laps," said Cheshire town
administrator Mark Webber. "People get fined and go to jail because they
don't handle money like this properly."

Just as Boston, New York, and Washington complained last year when their
homeland security grants were reduced while other less likely terrorist
targets received more, the Cheshire money seemed to underscore the puzzling
nature of some of the agency's spending habits.

The town does have the Cheshire Cheese Monument, a sizable concrete
sculpture of a cheese press commemorating a 1,450-pound cheese hunk given by
town elders to Thomas Jefferson in 1801. But its value as a terrorist target
is not readily apparent.

Security specialist James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington
think tank, was blunt: "It's pure pork. It has nothing to do with homeland
security."

The money comes from the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response
grants, a program that was absorbed into the Department of Homeland Security
after the agency was established following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks.

Asked about Cheshire's grant, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman
Val Bunting said yesterday that the town "presented a multifaceted project
proposal." She said the grant could be spent over four years, but she would
not elaborate .

Carafano said the emergency response program was designed to funnel money to
small fire departments and has wide support in Washington "because everyone
has a fire department in their district."

But now, Carafano said, "the money is spent under the big lie that it's
about national security."

The Cheshire Fire Department wrote two grant requests, one for the fire
truck and the other for boosting its 29-member volunteer force. It got a lot
more than it bargained for.

And that is where its spending dilemma began.

Cheshire -- the smallest town in Massachusetts to get a grant, but the
recipient of the largest amount -- is not alone. As part of $94 million in
the emergency response grants awarded across the country, Fall River gets
$621,000, Concord gets $414,000, Littleton gets $207,000, and Sudbury gets
$101,970.

Cheshire's money can be spent to reimburse volunteers for wages lost at
their regular jobs while on duty, new uniforms, and recruiting ad
vertisement s. Sweet, who has been chief for 18 years, said the department
could use about 10 new volunteers, though it has more pressing needs.

"We really needed the truck," he said.

Sweet said that the department has seven fire trucks, "plus an old antique
we use for parades." Of particular concern is a 21-year-old refitted
ambulance used to ferry medical equipment to fires. He had sought about
$175,000 to refurbish or replace it.

But now that that's off the wish list, Sweet said he might use some of the
money to recruit high school students. Or he might put some of the windfall
into a marketing campaign to lure volunteers to Cheshire.

"It'll be on billboards, TVs, and radio stations, and that kind of stuff,"
he said. "We'll have to spend it wisely."

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Raja Mishra can
be reached at rmishra at globe.com
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.