SAFER Grant Shenanigans

As, usual getting the audio of last night's city council meeting up is taking longer than I'd like, but a lot of interesting stuff happened.

So last night Channel 7. The local ABC affiliate was at the city council meeting. Yeah ethically I probably shouldn't do this but I'm going to tell you the, "vibes" I was getting off of everyone.

The cameraman said he was there about something regarding FEMA, and my guess it that probably had something to do with the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant.

See a few months back the fire department applied for the federal grant that would help the city pay their salaries.

Okay, kids this is where it gets complicated.

The city asked for a millage. One of the reasons why they asked for that millage is because without it they would have to lay off workers for Southfield's emergency services.

The SAFER grant as a stipulation for its money would require the city not to layoff any firefighters for the next two years.

The vibe I got is that the city doesn't feel like guaranteeing that. But because of the millage a lot of folks feel they already did.

Also, during the millage campaign, Southfield Fire Chief Peter Healy said, "We are very pleased to secure this grant; however, it is unfortunate that we will not be able to accept it if the May 3 millage does not pass," which implied that if the millage passed the city would accept the Safer grant. For those living under a rock, the millage passed overwhelmingly.

At last night's city council meeting, Councilman Fracassi, said that way back during the campaign he was present when that statement was made and that he had asked the Chief not to do that again after the public meeting. According to the council, The SAFER grant wasn't supposed to a part of the campaign.

Right now the council is in contract negotiations over fire and police and as always the possibility of layoffs is going to be a factor, so the council tried not to talk about the SAFER grant. Like I said accepting the SAFER grant would mean that the council would be guaranteeing that no layoffs would happen in the next two years.