July 11--Shutting down fire station No. 6 in North Memphis was an "emotional experience" for Memphis Fire Department director Alvin Benson but he said that with more cuts on the way, it was the logical first choice for closure.
The station at 924 Thomas will close in three weeks. Its truck will be put in the reserve (or back up) fleet. Its firefighters will be reassigned to stations across Memphis. Ladder truck No. 22 at station No. 48 in Raleigh will also be decommissioned and its 15 firefighters reassigned.
In all, the moves will save the city $2 million in overtime costs, Benson said Tuesday. The 30 fire fighters from station No. 6 and truck No. 22 will add to the pool of available firefighters, which can plug scheduling gaps that were once filled with off-duty firefighters getting overtime pay.
But this week's moves are just the beginning, Benson said. He has to cut $5.8 million and 122 positions from the department in the next 12 months. Thirty of those positions are holdovers from cuts slated for last year. All of the positions will be eliminated through attrition (like retirement or resignation). No firefighter will be laid off or fired to hit a reduction target, Benson said.
The Memphis City Council's new budget called for the elimination of 300 city employees in the next 12 months for a savings of more than $9.4 million. Of that 300, a total of 92 are from the MFD this year, Benson said, but the decision of where to cut them falls to him. To reach this year's overall position reductions, "other fire companies (and perhaps fire stations) will be decommissioned on or before July, 1, 2014."
Benson said the decisions were informed by his deputy chiefs and data-based analysis of response times, response volume, an area's fire activity, locations of other stations and equipment throughout the city and more. For station No. 6, three fire stations are within 1.3 miles of its location in North Memphis. Though response times will rise in the area around the shuttered station, they will still be in the acceptable 5-6 minute range, Benson said.
"This station represents a best-case scenario for one that could be closed," Benson said.
If news of station No. 6's impending closure was taken hard at City Hall, it was taken no better at Jack Pirtle's Chicken next door.
"We're gonna miss 'em so," said assistant manager Mary Collier, who sees at least one of the firefighters every day. "They're like family."
Both the fire station and the fast food restaurant were erected in the 1950s and, while Collier hasn't been there nearly as long, she said the firefighters have been great neighbors for as long as she can remember.
"Sometimes you'll be in here tired and sweating, and they come over and cheer you up," said cashier Spring Tyler, who knows all of their names and orders by heart.
When Tyler was pregnant and feeling sick, she walked next door to have them check her blood pressure. When her sister passed away a few months ago, they offered up what they could to help with funeral costs.
Memphis City Council member Lee Harris said he only officially found out about the closing of the station, which is in his district, late Tuesday morning.
"It's not a question of whether or not this is needed as a way to rein in the budget but how are you going to treat the citizenry," Harris said, "and whether or not you are going to give them reasonable notice on changes of levels of public safety."
Copyright 2013 - The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.
