DAVID SEIFMAN
Courtesy New York Post
The Giuliani administration - admitting it made "mistakes" - is restoring all the firefighters it removed from recovery duty at the World Trade Center site, officials said yesterday.
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Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen said 75 firefighters, along with 50 cops, would be on hand around the clock to try to spot remains as the clean-up operation proceeds.
Infuriated firefighters clashed with cops a couple of weeks ago during a protest against a reduction of the recovery detail to 25 firefighters.
More than 200 firefighters, along with thousands of civilians and other uniformed officers, have not been found since the Sept. 11 attack.
Mayor Giuliani said at the time that the cutback was being made for safety reasons, to prevent firefighters from being injured or killed by massive cranes.
But two emotional meetings with firefighters' widows and other relatives convinced the mayor and Von Essen to not only back off the manpower reduction, but to remove some of the heavy equipment.
With the mayor standing by his side at Fire Department headquarters in Brooklyn, Von Essen conceded the administration had acted too hastily.
"We wished we had talked about some of the issues beforehand, but we didn't," he said.
"We made some mistakes, but the intentions have never been anything but the same on both sides."
City officials also agreed to have firefighters' relatives recommend how funds are allocated in future disbursements from the Twin Towers Fund.
Lee Ielpi, a 26-year veteran of the Fire Department and friend of Von Essen, acted as a mediator in the dispute with the firefighters' families.
Ielpi's son, Jonathan, of Engine 288 in Queens, died at the trade center.
Kevin Gallagher, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, said it was "gratifying to see that this union and its membership's efforts to speak out against the reduction in manning were not in vain."
