The Canandaigua City Council on Tuesday voted against adding two firefighters to its 2025 city budget.

An amendment added before the council voted on next year's budget was approved to instead have an outside source conduct a public safety study for the fire department, police and EMS to reassess risk throughout the city. 

"Are we trying to solve an EMS problem with firefighters and fire trucks? That's why I asked for this study, because I thought the only way that we can really get an answer about what are our risks for fire, for police, for EMS, is to have a study," Councilmember Douglas Merrill said. "If the one that we did in 2018 is deemed to be obsolete, then we need another one by someone from the outside, a recognized group of experts."

Merrill says he brings data-based decision making to the table. He cites a Center for Public Safety Management 2018 report that determined a total of four full-time firefighters manning the station 24/7 was sufficient for managing risk of fire within the Canandaigua community. He also recognizes the variety of services the fire department is called to.

"We still have, on average, about 20 house fires a year," Merrill said. "We still have on average, about 70 fires of all sorts per year. And over that period of time, that amounts to less than 4% of the number of calls that our fire department answers. That number hasn't changed. The risk remains the same. Bad things happen to good people. And we can't always keep them safe. And I think we have to understand that as a city responsible for funding, all of our departments, that it's an impossible job to keep them safe. But what is our job? Our job is to manage risk, to do our best, to manage the risk that those bad things will happen to good people. And managing risk is a hard thing."

Canandaigua Mayor Bob Palumbo was one of the three persons who voted against the amendment.

“I've never like to play the percentages," Palumbo said. "That's fine until you're one of those percentages, or somebody you know is one of those percentages. You know, somebody picks up the phone and calls 911. It’s for a reason. This is just another step backyards. I’ve been fighting this battle for a long time. And I was really hoping this would be the year that maybe we can move it up a little bit, move it forward. I’m all for looking at the study and including PD in that study. I think the chief definitely needs some help, but I think we need to look at the public safety.”

Also included in the amendment is one full year of an assistant fire chief. However, the vote was still a shock, and disappointment to firefighters in attendance.

“Again, I'm still trying to process what was going on in the last meeting," Canandaigua Fire Chief Frank Magnera said. "There was hopeful that those two positions were going to be filled. We do have a staffing problem. We do have a staffing need. Since I was chief here, when I started back in [2017], we’ve added staff and obviously we found out quickly that it’s not enough staff. I’m hoping that we can still move forward with additional staff, get our firefighters the staff they need and provide a more safer worker environment.”

“It's been a tough, tough past two weeks. And, I don't feel confident that they truly understand what we're going through," Jake Bement, president of Canandaigua Professional Firefighters, expressed. “Our results didn’t happen in our favor. We’re going to keep on trying to increase staffing and show our need.”

Staffing issues came back to surface after the union criticized the lack of support after a house fire left a 98-year-old man dead on Nov. 30. He was laid to rest Wednesday morning.

"We don't have enough firefighters to cover if someone's out, if someone gets hurt, someone retires [or] someone goes on vacation," longtime city of Canandaigua resident Cindy Patterson Wade said. "And to have only four interior qualified firefighters and a major blaze where we lost a fellow Canandaiguan. It's terrible. I'm just, like, totally appalled."

Canandaigua Fire Department has four career firefighters to protect a population of more than 10,000 residents. Officials from the firefighter union say there were two firefighters working the evening of the fatal fire. They fear these working conditions put their health and safety at risk.

“We need help," Bement said. "We can’t keep going the way we’re going with only four guys covering the city. [We are] running almost 2,500 calls a year. It takes a toll on us. Our safety is at risk. And that’s the biggest thing that we want to make sure that we go home at night and that we’re safe at night."

The National Fire Protection Association is a nonprofit organization that develops voluntary consensus safety standards for first responders. N.F.P.A. Standard 1710: Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments, involved a compilation of safety suggestions for career firemen. That includes response times, staffing requirements, etc. which are created based on risk factors within an area or district.

Senior specialist Ken Holland says there are ways around the organization's suggested safety requirements. 

"If there's an area of your jurisdiction that, let's say it has a fire station that might not meet the response times that are within 1710, when you've got that mutual aid agreement, if you pull from another town based on that mutual aid or automatic aid agreement, because of that agreement you could meet the response time requirement within 1710," Holland said. 

Holland adds that these standards are voluntary, but at times the organization can provide adoption assistance, and if not adopted there could be "negative effects."

Canandaigua firefighters feel indifferent with the impacts of this fatal fire, as well as the city council budget vote. However, those who wear the uniform have taken an oath.

“I do disagree with City Council on some of the statements that was made," Magnera said. "You know, we took an oath. I took an oath to do everything I can possible to to save lives. And again, I understand that there are processes that provide me that money and the budget to work with. But I’ll still work as hard as I can to obviously provide a safe working environment for our firefighters as well as, you know, try to add more staff, advocate for that."

“No matter what, we’re going to to our job," Bement said. "[We] just need to get some support. And we’re very supportive of this study that they want to do. We think the study’s going to shed a lot of light on what we’ve been talking about. We just wish in the meantime that we could get a little back and get two more guys that would give us five guys a shift."