Against the voters wishes, a public safety department appears to be in its early stages for the City of Harper Woods. Four police department staff are to attend the upcoming fire academy hosted at Oakland Community College Crest Center. The new public safety department will take over the responsibilities of the Harper Woods Fire Department, which has in turn angered many residents and the fire department. In response to this action, many of the instructors who teach at the OCC academy have expressed that they will no longer teach at the academy where these police officers are planning on attending.
The Detroit Free Press is reporting that OCC is looking to find instructors to fill the void created by the walk-out. The OCC academy is currently set to start in September 2008 and will have 39 students in the program. Only 4 of the students are police officers who are working on their training for the public safety department. The article also states that seven senior fire fighters will be offered positions in the new public safety department if they attend the police academy in the next year.
Visit the Freep article
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A rhetorical question might be “How do the four police department staff view this new assignment?” This plan is odoriferous…like the familiar scent of beans being counted.
There has been an update according to the MPFFU web-page
http://www.mpffu.org
Dear Instructors,
Your previous refusal to teach the upcoming firefighter academy was greatly appreciated by the Harper Woods firefighters. Because of your efforts, officials of the City of Harper Woods have stated publically on several occasions that no fire fighter layoffs will occur because of the cross-training of police officers.
It was just brought to our attention that you have been given a deadline of noon today by OCC to decide if you want to teach in the upcoming academies. As many of you may know, the MPFFU has an established history of supporting and encouraging our members to be involved as instructors. Since it appears that the academy will go on, with or without you, we would prefer that you continue to be involved as instructors, even if these police officers are in the class.
Please pass this information on to anyone else that you believe should see it so everyone can notify OCC by the noon deadline of their intentions.
Secretary-Treasurer
Michigan Professional Fire Fighters Union