Fire breaks out a block from Clayton newsconference on emergency communication system
Just as numerous police and fire officials began an 11 a.m. newsconference in the St. Louis County Council chambers to support a sales tax for an countywide emergency communications system, a fire that involved eight fire departments and districts broke out one block away.
This morning’s fire was at the Fatted Calf restaurant at 12 South Bemiston Avenue, virtually across a parking lot from the government center and a half block from the Clayton fire house. Clayton Assistant Chief Paul Mercurio had to leave the newsconference to tend to the fire.
Following standard procedure for a fire in a commercial building in downtown Clayton, the Brentwood, Ladue, Maplewood, Rock Hill, St. Louis and University City fire departments and Mid-County Fire Protection District joined Clayton in responding to the blaze.
Mercurio this afternoon said firefighters from the eight agencies could communicate by radio with each other at the scene. But he said his department could not directly talk to Ladue and St. Louis firefighters en route to the fire if it had to give these firefighters instructions. Such calls would have had to go through his dispatcher and the dispatchers of the other departments, Mercurio said.
Passage of an 0.1-cent sales tax on Nov. 3 would result in a system that would give firefighters direct contact even if they were more than a mile away, Mercurio said. The tax would finance an $80 million countywide emergency communications system and pay for equipment that would allow dispatchers locate emergency calls from cell phones and provide money to rehabilitate the countywide siren system.
Grease caught fire in an exhaust pipe for a grill at the restaurant, Mercurio said. The Fatted Calf, a restaurant in downtown Clayton for more than 40 years, will remain closed until it completes repairs, the owner said.
So according to Mercurio, even at a major fire involving eight agencies, people at the scene could communicate. Seems to me that the minor inconvenience of having to go through your dispatcher when you’re on the way there isn’t worth $80 million to remedy.
So who else got the slick flyer? Another election, another gold plated Civic Progress campaign.
Is the Fatted Calf OK? Please report important facts like that. I’m worried about it. Not about increasing more taxes.
More empire building. I’m voting no.
Good point, Steve, the Post really needs to focus on the big story here. The status of one of the popular restaurants for the Clayton courthouse crowd is much more important than raising the cost of everything from diapers to automobiles for every resident of the county.
All fire departments can talk to one another on or approaching a fire scene using the fire command channels. Every department in the County AND the City have them in their radios and have had them for years! Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or doesn’t know what they’re talking about. There’s a LOT they appear not to be telling the truth about or are simply not talking about with this tax. I’m not voting for it!
I know for a fact there have been several first responder departments in the St. Louis Metro Area who have received millions of dollars from the Federal Government through the Fire Safety Grants. These grants where awarded for individual departments and Regional Emergency Mutual Aid Groups. They use the same arguments in their written narratives in the grant application process. They have bought big toys and lots of walkie talkies to go a long with those toys. Not sure why they want to tax us, when they could have used the money to go in together to fix their now so called “emergency”.
Bet those county firefighters said “OH CRAP” when that call came in. LOL Don’t call the city, just get in there and get boys. LOL