not a diver death but sad

[gndpdr]

3-year-old's drowning underscores L.A. Fire Department budget cuts -- latimes.com



they spent how much money on Michael jackson ?
i bet this little kid doesn't get a police escort to his grave

 

[ibj40]

Sorry, and I really sympathize with the family, but this is the type of sensationalism that sells papers (and advertising in papers). Voters make the choice of who their elected officials are, and those elected officials make the choices of resource allocation. They can close libraries, public swimming pools, and quit mowing parks; and then when they run out of those options, they start looking into "essential" services, such as police and fire. If the elected officials feel as though their allegiance is to cutting costs, and they run out of the "soft" costs, then the "hard" costs are next.

So who, really, is to blame? Is it the city's administrators, or the elected officials, or the voters whose mandate forced the elected officials into making the resource allocation decision that they made? The spector of property taxes, and their impact on one's standard of living, hangs over all of the decisions that municipalities face, and, unfortunately, there is an apparent tragic consequence that can be implied.

My question is: Where were the parents?

 

[Gen San Chris]

That's so sad when money comes first before a young life!

 

[RJP]

Sorry, and I really sympathize with the family, but this is the type of sensationalism that sells papers...

There's an old joke where it becomes obvious to scientists that the end of the world is only a few days away. The next day the NY Times front page headline reads "World To End Tuesday: Women and Minorities Hardest Hit"

 

[vladimir]

NYC met huge resistance when it was trying to close down redundant firehouses. The fire department can always point to a tragedy that might have been prevented had they been 90 seconds closer. In this case there were still two teams at the firehouse in question, cut back from three. No government has the resources to meet every possible contingency. They have to weigh the costs and benefits of allocating resources, just as taxpayers do. It's too bad the child died--sadly, it is a common occurence, and it is highly questionable that another emergency team would have made a difference.

they spent how much money on Michael jackson ?
i bet this little kid doesn't get a police escort to his grave

Why would they need crowd control for the funeral procession of a random child?

 

[DandyDon]

3-year-old's drowning underscores L.A. Fire Department budget cuts -- latimes.com



they spent how much money on Michael jackson ?
i bet this little kid doesn't get a police escort to his grave

Well, your comparison is not direct. I don't know of any money spent on MJ's death, but then I didn't read much about it. I suppose a 911 call was made, but I don't know that any more attention was given then than other times.

Or, if you're referring to the money spent at the time of the funeral - wasn't that just necessary crowd control? Again, I am not up to date on details and don't know if they ever did bury him, but couldn't avoid noticing that it was a large event as the headlines were everywhere. I don't think officials had anything to do with organizing anything other than control.​

Now as for the child, yes - a very sad death, happens all too often. It's a very common tragedy across the nation with kids - happens all the time. There are resources for drown-proofing toddlers that are all too often not explored, and of course the kid should have been protected from the pool. I don't know why this was not the case, but the negligence is not the city's.

Battalion Chief Ronnie Villanueva, a Fire Department spokesman, said the engine company that had been idled is one-tenth to three-tenths of a mile closer to the house than the two units that responded to the drowning.

By all means try to safe the kids that were negligently allowed in harms way, but I don't see a city failure here.

 

[ItsBruce]

It is very sad that a child died.

However, according to the "newspaper" article, the team that was idled was only 1/10 to 3/10 of a mile closer. In a motor vehicle, that is an almost imperceptible difference.

Resource allocation is always a problem. But, who is to blame? We Californians cannot afford our state government. We were just subjected to one of the largest tax increases in the history of tax increases. Even without the increases, many, if not most Californians could hardly make ends meet.

But, except for government workers, Californians can't simply requisition more money. Imagine going to your boss and saying: "I'm having trouble making ends meet, give me more money." Your boss is likely to say: "I've got no more money to give you, get another job." Yet the government does it without batting an eye -- it just raises taxes. And, it has the power to force us to pay.

In a business, when there is not enough money, the boss tells the workers that if they don't take salary cuts or at least forego raises, some of them will be laid off or in the alternative the business will close. But, when the state goes to its workers and says that, the workers threaten a general strike and run advertising about how important their jobs are.

The bottom line: The rescue team was idled because the state workers' unions refuse to forego increases in pension contributions.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I can't get into details but our program evaluation efforts in CA support that Bruce is correct that CA has some issues that have created enormous budget problems. At one level, CA citizens have demanded high levels of services that in many cases have attracted people who move to CA to access those services. At another level however CA residents have been unwilling to pay taxes at a level needed to support that level of services.

You can't have your cake and eat it too, even in CA. Resolving the problem will require CA citizens, politicians and unions to make some hard decisions and establish some priorites to guide taxation, budget and service delivery processes in a manner that will transcend turf issues and benefit everyone. If that does not happen, nothing is going to change and CA will just grind along from crisis to crisis while many of the rest of us secretly wish they would just cecede or at least stop taking federal money.

It is not a simple problem and it is one that took decades to create so will not be solved over night.

 

[bsee65]

If only the parents or caregivers responsible for the child were paying attention, it wouldn't have come to the point where the child was in need of urgent care. This BS doesn't belong here - take the political ramblings to whine and cheese...

 

[I Dive]

Bel-Air can't afford Fire Engines?