Stamford Professional Firefighters Call out Mirkin in Open Letter to Board of Reps

Dear Board of Representatives Member; 

I am writing to you today regarding Mayor Pavia’s most recent nomination to the Stamford Fire Commission, Scott Mirkin.  This proposed nomination deeply concerns our fire fighters and more significantly, impacts both fire fighter and public safety.  This nomination is up for consideration at the July 1, 2013 Board of Representative meeting and I ask for your swift action to reject the nomination in the best interest of our city.

The Stamford Fire Commission is made up of five fire commissioners, who as a body and individually have command and control over any and all  hiring, appointments, and promotions within the Stamford Fire Department.  Given the importance of that role, there must be a serious vetting process of the appointees, so that the Fire Commission is truly representative of the city as a whole.

The current Fire Commission is comprised 100 percent of North Stamford residents.  The newest nominee Scott Mirkin – whose candidacy is before you on July 1 – would add a fifth member residing in North Stamford.

The City of Stamford’s government bodies need to be reflective and representative of the entire city and we believe Mr. Mirkin’s nomination further exacerbates an imbalance of commission members with views on public and fire fighter safety that are less focused on the city’s oldest and most highly populated communities downtown and adjacent to I-95. 

It is hard to imagine that Stamford, with a census bureau population estimate of 125,109 residents, that there are no possible candidates that hail from the Cove, Shippan, Downtown, the South End or West Side that could be considered, so that the people of these communities can also be represented on the Fire Commission?  Given that these neighborhoods make up far in excess of half of the real estate tax base for our city’s budget, residents and civic leaders from these neighborhoods need to be considered.

Even more concerning for our fire fighters and citizens are past incendiary comments that Mr. Mirkin has made about our city’s dedicated professional fire fighters.  In 2010, he compared Stamford’s fire fighters to Hamas, a terrorist organization, which on multiple occasions he refused to apologize for.    

How can someone who believes Stamford’s paid professional fire fighters are akin to terrorists be fair and impartial in any decision making process related to them?  

Mr. Mirkin was also one of the leading advocates for the implementation of Mayor Pavia’s plan to create a second paid fire department for the city.  That plan called for giving a five year, $43 million no-bid contract to a private corporate entity, which in turn would provide full time jobs to 61 of the city’s volunteer firefighters.

Mr. Mirkin was further vehemently opposed to allowing voters a say on Charter Revision Question #2 this past Election Day and blamed the Board of Representatives, writing the Stamford Patch newspaper in a letter published on October 26, 2012 that it was "a dereliction of responsibility by the Board of Representatives that resulted in the BOR punting the issue of fire protection to Charter Revision." 

The voters of this great city were quite clear on Election Day, with 66.4 percent voting (26,112 to 13,212) in favor of Charter Revision #2 for one single citywide fire department.  This 2012 Charter Revision item further received the highest voter turnout of any other item on the ballot.  If Mr. Mirkin had his way, voters would have been given no choice and no voice in the charter that governs our city and the fire service protection that people count on.

Given that we are now nearly eight months after 2012 Election Day, and less than 20 weeks before citizens’ elect Stamford’s next mayor, to rush this appointment without residents having a thorough review of the facts is very highly concerning.  For open and representative government, sunshine is always the best disinfectant and given the history of concerns surrounding both Mr. Mirkin’s bias against Stamford’s paid professional fire fighters, his steadfast opposition to Charter Revision item #2 being handed down to the citizens to consider and given the geographic imbalance of the Fire Commission, I ask you to reject this appointment.

On behalf of the members of the Stamford Professional Fire Fighters Association and the citizens we are sworn to protect, I thank you for your critical review and consideration of this matter.

Sincerely, 

Brendan T. Keatley

President

Stamford Professional Fire Fighters Association