The following letter to the editor was published in the Beach Reporter newspaper (TBRnews.com) on Thursday, March 15, 2012 in the Letters section. The Beach Reporter has a strict 250-word limit.
Dangerous consequences
I witnessed the aftermath of a car accident in Gardena. A car was overturned, and a man sat in the street, missing his legs, surrounded by five Gardena city police cars positioned to prevent him from getting hit again. He moaned in pain and screamed for someone to help him, but nobody there could help.
There were no paramedics yet, and no ambulance, because Gardena uses the L.A. County Fire Department, just as El Segundo will if Measure P passes.
Measure P eliminates our city fire department and contracts with the L.A. county fire department for at least ten years. It cuts our number of on-duty firefighters by 31 percent, from 16 to 11, a staffing level even fire union president Christopher Thomason admitted was unsafe at the Jan. 18, 2011 City Council meeting. It eliminates two of our three paramedic rescue squads, and eliminates all three of our paramedic ambulances. Firefighters serving El Segundo will report to an L.A. county fire chief far away, and they will routinely be sent out on calls to other L.A. county cities.
I still can’t get the image and sounds of that poor man out of my mind. Now I am even more determined to campaign against Measure P and Scott Houston. Houston strongly urged our city council to enact Measure P directly into law, without letting us vote on it, at the Feb. 15, 2011 City Council meeting (see the video at http://www.YouTube.com/user/PublicSafetyProject).
Please help. Tell everyone to vote “no” on Measure P and against Scott Houston.
Marianne Fong
El Segundo
El Segundo Police Officers' Association (ESPOA) Exposed