By William Tauro
What’s wrong with this picture? Yup, you guessed it, Engine 7 (Highland Ave ) has a Boston piece in its station. And we are using a Boston ladder now as well. That ladder is at headquarters on Broadway.
Somerville had to borrow a ladder and a engine from Boston. Everything we have for fire apparatus equipment in Somerville is breaking down.
Another major reason why one of the fire trucks isn’t being repaired in a timely manner is because Somerville Ladder2 is being repaired at a company in Clintonville, Wisconsin called Seagrave. Seagrave Fire Apparatus, can refurbish and/or update your tired aerials, pumpers, and rescues to “like new” condition for a fraction of the replacement cost. The ladder on Ladder 2 failed and was not safe. The ladder actually collapsed. The failure to Ladder 2 was caused by budget cuts which resulted in lack of preventive maintenance on an aging apparatus by the city of Somerville. Because the repairs weren’t kept up with, now a $200,000 repair is needed to fix the problem at hand which again was lack of preventive maintenance on an aging apparatus. Another reason for the repair delays is that the city of Somerville is trying to force/dictate Seagraves Fire Apparatus to pay $15 an hour minimum wage to its employees, but Seagrave Fire Apparatus doesn’t have to listen to the City of Somerville’s policies so they told the city that they’re not going to repair the truck. In other words, it’s not their problem what our mayor and Somerville city Councilors dictate to them because they don’t have to listen.
The old saying kicks in here with “Beggars can’t be choosy” so let’s get the job done and get it over with instead more of the same old bureaucratical bullshit!
Our mayor and our city Councilors including the two that are mayoral candidates who are Katjana Ballantyne and Wilfred N. Mbah who don’t have the experience to fix a fire truck let alone run a city.
The sad part here is that there is a lot of this going on with many more other fire trucks in Somerville as well as that they are getting old and putting our firefighters at great risk everyday.
This just proves more of my thoughts and reasons why I plan on increasing the budgets on the Fire and Police Departments instead of defunding them.
#TEAMTAUROforMAYOR2021
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Somerville Firefighters Local 76 posted on Facebook: If you see a Boston Fire Truck in your neighborhood don’t be alarmed. 
Somerville Ladder 2 is out of service for a long term rehab and our spare ladder is also out of service due to mechanical issues.
Somerville Engine 1 is out of service for a long term rehab, Somerville Engine 3 and Engine 7 have also been taken out of service due to mechanical issues and our spare Engine companies are either out of service due to mechanical and safety issues or filling in for front line apparatus.
Special thanks to the Boston Fire Department for their assistance!!