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Fire Alarm Boxes May be Bloomberg's Next Cut
By
Sabrina Jaszi
Published Jan 30, 2010
Modified Jan 30, 2010
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By
Sabrina Jaszi
Published Jan 30, 2010
Modified Jan 30, 2010
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What with being slammed as racist and losing funding for 16 fire houses the FDNY is having a tough year so far and street alarm boxes are next up on the chopping block. Bloomberg’s rationale? "In the days where everybody has cell phones ... the city would be just as safe without them." The mayor might have a point: 85 percent of the time people use the street boxes to make prank calls and out of 26,666 structural fires last year, only 140 were reported from the phones, reported the Daily News. Getting rid of them would also save the department $2.5 million (still only half of what Anderson Cooper’s historic fire house cost). Other cities like Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago have already trashed their boxes, so what’s stopping New York? Before eradicating the outdated system it will have to come up with a new way for the deaf to quickly contact authorities.
Tagged
alarm
bloomberg
Budget cuts
civil rights
deaf
fdny
fire
fire box
Sabrina Jaszi
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