Statement from the source RE: the West Shore Fire District Blog

I received an email today from WSFDFF regarding the West Shore Fire District blog. I'm republishing it (with permission) exactly as it was sent to me.

We tried to provide what we thought was an
educational site for the West Shore taxpayers and
others as well. It turned into a pissing contest with
every explanation that we tried to provide being
turned around into a challenge of the facts. We only
wrote true facts. We never tried to mislead anyone. It
was so bad that I started to take it very personnal
and that We felt was a bad thing and defeated the
whole purpose of the site. The site wasn't intended to
provide a spot for people to type false and misleading
statements. It wasn't a site to provide space for
stiring the pot. After seeing the enormous amount of
false and misleading information that was written not
by you but by many others we wanted to try to provide
a place where people could ask us questions. It never
happened. So we decided to take the blog off for a
while and let all cool down. I promise that we will
put it back on at a later date. If there is still
anyone out there that has a question regarding the
WEST SHORE FIRE DISTRICT,  please feel free to contact
us at this e mail address and we will answer.

I did get a chance to view the blog last week before it disappeared; things seemed to get rather ugly before it disappeared. I know the feeling - this blog (Lower West Haven Taxes) gets ugly comments from time to time, too. I cannot edit the comments that people make - but I can choose to not publish them, and there are many that have never seen the public eye. That's my choice - this blog isn't a democracy, and I have no political agenda. My nature isn't one that enjoys strident discourse -- I guess I would say that I prefer intellectual fact-based discussion. It's not that I think people shouldn't disagree or discuss the difficult topics; it's more that I think that they should disagree without being mean or hateful.

I would really like to concentrate on solutions and discussion on the TAX issue on this blog (Lower West Haven Taxes), not simply on the fire consolidation or the fire departments.

Having said that, in fairness, I've received emails from a person who participated on both boards who is concerned that perhaps the firefighters are publishing blogs while on duty. My impression is that the complaint wasn't about improper use of time, but that it is felt that there is too much downtime to warrant the current staffing levels. They felt this was important to disclose, so I've put this forth.

I suppose I should state that my own feeling on this matter is that there will BE a lot of downtime in this sort of profession... but when there is a need, it's far more dangerous to not have enough to answer the call of duty.

At any rate, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I don't expect to be online for the extended holiday weekend. If I haven't responded to an email or I haven't published your comment, it's likely just because I'm offline.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone... for tonight, I'm just going to close by saying that I'm thankful that I live in a country where I can state my mind, and I can disagree with others... and I'm thankful that there are those who are willing to stand up and disagree with my opinion, too.