THE CATHOLIC CRISIS

Sexual abuse committed by catholic clergy at virtually all levels upon innocent children and young seminarians over the past half century has dragged the church into a damaging crisis. Church leaders have proven to be incapable of resolving this problem. Failure to resolve this terrible problem has lead, or at least seriously contributed, to millions of the faithful walking away from their churches - many of which have closed their doors for lack of support, and the burdensome cash settlements to thousands of the victims of predatory priests and bishops.

Latest estimates say that there are 40, 500 catholic priests in America. It is also estimated that between 15 to 52% of these clerics are homosexual. (Wikipedia) Now that may or may not alarm you, but when you consider the fact that only 4% of the American population is homosexual, that is a pretty overwhelming population of the occupants of our rectories. You might ask; what has this got to do with our sexual abuse crisis? In the balance of this essay I will try to justify my sense that the dense population of homosexual clergy are at the very root of the problem.

We were all taught very early on that our priests are holy men and deserving of all of the respect and dignity of a “man of God.” These men in black suits with roman collars are a symbol of our church and respected by everybody in our neighborhoods, Catholics and non-Catholic’s alike.  We call them “Father.” Many of our mothers dream of the possibility that one of their sons will grow up to have a call to the vocation of the priesthood. We go to the confessional and bare our souls to them. We depend upon their hands to deliver the Holy Sacraments, The body and blood of Christ, they baptize our children. We seek out their guidance in troubled times. We trust them. These are very special people. They are the walking around representatives of Jesus Christ. Much is asked and much is expected of these men of God.

These men are no slouches. It is not easy to become a priest. A four year degree in Philosophy, and 4-5 years in Graduate School, and Seminary earning a Master of Divinity Degree. This is a long and difficult process during which candidates for the priesthood are shaped and molded every day of their lives with the goal of the Holy Sacrament of Ordination. Every man is keenly aware of the requirements of Canon Law that dictates the obligations and functions of a priest. They are fully aware of their required vows of obedience and celibacy which will govern the balance of their lives as a priest. During those 8-10 years these adult men have ample opportunity to decide if this is the way they want to dedicate their lives to Jesus Christ and his followers.

There is no doubt in my mind that each of these men has a keen understanding of their sexual preferences. History of seminary life has proven that at some point they will be tested by a homosexual priest or fellow seminarian. Read “Goodbye, Good Men” to learn why so many young men have abandoned the seminary to escape predatory homosexual men. It is an obvious matter of fact that many men have proceeded to their ordination, fully knowing that their same-sex preference, at the very minimum, will eventually and adversely negatively impact their lives as a priest. In effect they are FRAUDS. Their homosexual persuasion fly’s in the face of their sacred vows to strictly adhere to Canon Law.

Code of Canons Chapter III:

Can. 277 1. Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy.

2. Clerics are to behave with due prudence towards persons whose company they keep that can endanger their obligations to observe contenance or give rise to the observance of their obligations.

Among all of the Canons, and there are many that our priests vow to observe, these two are the most germane to our subject:

Continence refers to self-restraint, especially in regard to sexual activity temperance and moderation.

Celibacy refers to remaining unmarried.

These two Canons, although controversial in some circles, are clear and unambiguous.

In all of our lives and work we must comply with law. As children we must obey our parents and teachers. At work we must comply with established rules and regulations of our employer, and law governing the operation of businesses. We are also taught and learn by example to follow and adhere to the social mores of society. Failure to comply has consequences, anywhere from “go to your room,” “you’re fired,” or you are “guilty as charged” and go to jail.

There are many “oaths” and/or vows that most of us take at one time or another, whether it is jury duty; entering the military; or getting married. The question here is; how seriously do you take your pledge to uphold the law, to tell the truth or join in Holy Matrimony? There can be very serious consequences if you fail to keep your promises. Few, if any vows are as important or weigh as heavily as the vows seminarians take at the time of their ordination. Unlike any other vow, these men have dedicated a decade or more in preparation for this magnificent moment. This is clearly the most pivotal moment of their lives.

The decision to take that final step into the life of the priesthood must and should be made with no reservations. There must be no doubt that you can, with the help of God, spend the rest of your life as a spokesman for Jesus Christ and to administer the Sacraments that He created, and to uphold Canons Law.

In recent years the church has modified its views on homosexuality. Essentially the church is saying that it is ok to be homosexual so long as you abstain from sexual activity. That is the same rule for heterosexual people. In short, sex outside of marriage is a sin. I get that. The church is trying to be politically correct in the era of inclusiveness. This edict does not seem, in my opinion, to address homosexuality in the priesthood. The bar is set much higher for the clergy, and it flies in the face of Canon Law.

Let me pose this question: How do we come to know that one priest or another is homosexual? How does the subject surface? Generally speaking most folks do not go about flaunting their sexual preferences. Or do they? When we meet a traditional married man we assume that he is heterosexual because of his marital status, a reasonable assumption. On the other hand, in polite society when we meet a single man or a priest we do not ask him about their sexual preferences. As it says in Holy Scripture, we will be judged by our deeds. Rightly or wrongly mortals judge their fellow men essentially by what they say and do, and how they do it. Unfortunately we come to know that a priest is homosexual by his words and deeds. Usually it is not good news. The damage has been done.

Some say that a “gay” priest is ok so long as he abstains from sex. I’m not buying that. For some reason that I do not understand, homosexual men historically are extremely promiscuous. Don’t take my word for it, check it out. Much has been written. Homosexual men are widely known to have had as many as hundreds of sexual partners, whereas heterosexual men may have 8-10 sexual partners in their lifetime. This leads me to believe that achieving sexual gratification weighs more heavily on the minds of homosexual men. To me that sounds like a bad habit, an obsession, a controlling factor, and a distraction in our day-to-day comings and goings. A dominant factor!

There are those who claim that pedophilia has nothing to do with homosexuality and vice versa. That may be, but the record speaks for itself. Something like 98% of the victims of sexual abuse by clergy are young boys. That is a male-on-male homosexual act. Since most of the victims are 16 or under that makes the homosexual perpetrator a pedophile.

Why do you suppose most of the victims are youngsters? Simple answer, they are easy targets, “low hanging fruit” They trust their priests. Their parents trust the priests. In seminary life older priests are in very powerful positions. Many have abused their high office to lure young men into their bedrooms. Tough to swallow, but true.

In life we come to know the “bad actors” in our world mostly by what they do. This is especially true in the priesthood where clergy live and work together in a very close relationship. They call it collegiality. These men get to know one another the same as you get to know your close friends, family, classmates, work mates etc. In a diocese everybody knows everybody. Priests, as the saying goes, “know where all the bodies are buried.” If there is a homosexual priest among them, chances are very high that they will know about it. Given that situation, and since the hierarchy has not effectively dealt with the predatory priest problem, I believe that it is incumbent upon priests themselves at the parish level to do something.

It is way above my pay grade to spell out what actions priests may take to address this problem. As I have said before, these men are no slouches. They will figure it out, each in his own way. In the final analysis it comes down to decisions and choices. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. The late comedian Flip Wilson playing the Character “Geraldine” used to say: “The Devil made me do it.” That line always got a lot of laughs, but we all knew who the guilty party really was.

Let us pray: Dear Jesus, as you drove the money changers out of the Temple, please give our holy and faithful priests the faculty to find a way and means of cleansing our churches, rectories and seminaries of those who harm our children and seek to destroy your Holy Church.

Amen

JACK BLACK

Just about everybody that I know is aware of the fact that I worked in a movie called “The Polka King” starring Jack Black in the summer of 2016.  The Polka King was directly released to Netflix in December of 2017 and is still there.  If any of my folks haven’t heard about the movie yet it’s not my fault. I have plugged the film with everybody, even total strangers. I am totally shameless!

I have a confession to make… Before I was cast in the part of Ed Krzyewski I didn’t know Jack Black from a hole in the wall. I did not know what a “super star” he is, at least among our younger generation. When my granddaughter, Brianna heard that I was going to work with Jack she went ballistic with excitement. Since then, I am pleased to say, I have gotten to know the man quite well. We worked closely in about eight scenes over the month or so that I worked on the movie.

“On-set”, as it is called, the cast spends most of its time waiting between shots sitting around with fellow actors shooting the breeze. It is really only during those times that you get to know your fellow cast members. I want to add here that the cast and crew of The Polka King were great. Not just great performers, but really nice and friendly folks, just like you and me.

On the first day of shooting on location in Cranston, Rhode Island, during our lunch break, I was walking from the lunch room to my trailer when Jack came out of his RV and called me. He asked if we could talk for a minute. Trust me when I tell you that I was nervous, wondering what the hell the star of the movie wanted to say to me. We had worked on our first scene that morning and I thought that it went rather well. Jack said to me, and I have to paraphrase a bit; “Kevin, you’re a natural and so believable.” I was shocked… In my 20 some odd years in the business I have never had anybody, never mind the star performer, ever pay me such a wonderful compliment.  It doesn’t stop there. I told him that my granddaughter was a huge fan of his. Jack wanted to know if she could come to the set, that he would love to meet her. When I explained that was not feasible because she lived so far away, he said that we would have to take a picture for Brianna. That afternoon we shot a picture of Jack and her grandad on set and I sent it to her.  That did it for me, this guy is the real deal.

Jack is a great family man, and talked about his two boys all the time. He stays in touch with them via phone and text messaging. I met Jacks parents on set on my first day when we were shooting the band scenes at the German American Club in Pawtucket.  We were on break sitting at tables around the dance floor. This nice lady was sitting at the table with several of the cast. She was doing background work in the scene we had just shot. I spoke to her and said something like, if they ever really want to solve the shortage of electricity in America all they have to do is shove a wire up Jacks’ ass. I was referring to the tremendous amount of energy that Jack had just displayed singing and leading the band. She roared laughing and said that she couldn’t wait to tell Jack what I had said. I asked if she knew Jack, and she said that she was his stepmother. OMG! Jack’s father was sitting at the next table and she went and got him asking me to tell him what I had said about Jack. His dad cracked up and sat down with us. We had a great chat. You can’t make this stuff up folks.

One day we were in a van driving from a remote shoot at a restaurant in Providence and I asked Jack what it was like to work Shirley McClain. Jack had co-starred with Shirley in “Bernie.” Jack said that he really loved Shirley and that she was just great to work with. Then he went on to tell us about the time that Shirley invited him to accompany her to a huge Hollywood event celebrating 100 years of filmmaking. All of the iconic movie stars who were still with us were going to be there and Shirley did not have an escort, so she asked Jack if he would take her to the show. He was blown away.

Jack is a junk food junkie. We talked a lot about our favorites, from Mexican to Pizza. Jack had never heard of Rhode Island Hot Wieners. After describing in detail all the steps that accompany this particular culinary delight he made an entry in his cell phone to give them a try.

 In the room that was Jan Lewan’s office set there was a great big couch. In between shots we would take to the couch to relax, even catch a few winks. Jack noticed that I was struggling to sit down and get up from the couch. I explained that I had a really bad knee. Next thing you know, Jack told one of the production assistants to find something that I could prop my leg up on. I really appreciated that. To me that was a display of compassion and caring for his fellow actors. Kind of rare.

I guess all actors have their own way of getting into character. In Polka King, Jack plays Jan Lewan, a Polish immigrant band leader. Jack developed a Polish accent for the part, and stayed in character all of the time, I mean all of the time. In fact, he had fun with it. To him, he became this Polish man. This takes a lot of discipline and dedication. Jack is the consummate professional. He has enough talent to go around. In addition to his musical skills, he has a great singing voice. Jacks rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at a sports event is wonderful. Check it out on YouTube.

Let me sum up by claiming that Jack Black has a New, Dedicated Fan. I have sought out and watched as many of his films that I can find on the internet. He is an extremely versatile and talented man. A wonderful actor and a real caring, compassionate human being.   Check him out.

Love you Jack!

He's Back!

No applause folks, just throw money. Sorry folks, just my feeble attempt at humor.

They say that absence makes the heart go fonder. I'm not so sure about that. What I am sure about is that it is great to be back to writing in my Blog.

While I have been absent from these pages, I have not rolled over and died. Close, but no cigar. My mom used to say that getting old is not for sissies. Boy did she have that right. Seriously, I have to confess that I really got fed up with the local political scene, got back into motorcycling and revived my acting career. Please checkout my latest film work with Jack Black showing now on Netflix. The movie, as you might expect with Jack, is a comedy called "The Polka King,"

Right now I am focused like a laser beam on the crisis in the Catholic Church of which I have been a lifelong member since 1931. I have always had the greatest respect for the church hierarchy, but boy have they really messed up the resolution of the problems with  sex abuse of mostly young boys by priests and yes even Bishops.

I am right in the middle of writing an essay on the subject and hope to post it in the very near future. I had a meeting on the subject with my Pastor this week to discuss the issue, and have sought out input from a well known professor and Canon lawyer.

Stay tuned

Troubled Waters

If you check the date on my last posting, you are probably wondering if I left town or died or whatever. To tell you the truth I decided to take a little time off from local political activity in the aftermath of last November's elections. In addition to that, since the completion of the Wilbur and McMahan school renovation project, relatively speaking, things have been pretty quiet. That is until the recent upheaval on the school committee.

All you local political junkies know that there was a hard swing to the liberal left in the last School Committee election. Polly Allen, Lori Craffey, and Patrick McHugh were swept into office and quickly assumed the majority position and snatched the leadership of the committee away from the hands of the more conservative former leadership.

It was clear right from beginning that things were going to be different. None of the newly elected troika had ever served in elected office before, and they stumbled into power. Apparently high on their agenda was the replacement of Superintendent of Schools Kathy Crowley. Tom Alder and Peg Bugara along with Lori Craffey apparently were unhappy with the new chair Polly Allen, and her approach to unseating Crowley. So a power shift developed that has resulted in dumping Polly Allen, and electing Tom Alder to the position of chairman.

Needless to say that the natives who banned together last November to take over the school committee were restless. They showed up in strength yesterday evening at an emergency meeting of the school committee. There was a lot of hostility in the audience. New chairman Alder imposed limits on public input, requiring those who wished to participate to sign up, and would be limited to one appearance not to exceed four minutes. Few of the speakers paid any attention to the time limitation, and beat up on Tom Alder like a rented mule. Especially former school committee member and chairperson Michael Harrington who spoke for what seemed like an eternity, lecturing Alder, talking down to him, reminding him that it was Harrington who appointed him as chairman of the former school building committee. Harrington instructed Alder that all he had to do was go to the records and find all the information he needed to write a job description to use when advertising for a new school superintendent. He said that he knew they were there because he did it twice. Harrington, a member of the bar, seem to be challenging Alder on how the agenda for yesterday's meeting was established. I smell a rat there, my sense tells me that Harrington has an open meetings violation on his agenda. Some of you may recall that the Harrington led school committee had been found in violation of the Rhode Island open meetings act during his tenure as chairman.

I know Tom Alder, we are not friends, but I know him from his hard work on the School Building Committee. Tom is a hard-working dedicated honest civil servant. He deserves our gratitude. My advice to Tom is to wear protective equipment at all times and watch your back, because Michael Harrington who was defeated for reelection to the school committee is out to get you. The handwriting is all over the place.

Good Old American Inginuity

After six plus years of countless meetings, professional architects, endless negotiations with the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) the Little Compton School Committee has taken action to overcome one of the major saftey problems that prompted the failed efforts to build a $35,000,000 new school.
At a special meeting of the School Committee last Wednesday, they announced plans to build a new emergency exit for the cafateria.
Superintendent Kathy Crowley was given the green light to essentially knock a hole in a wall and install the Fire Exit.
Tom Alder, long time Chairman of the School Building Commitee who is a professional builder, and Architect Mark Rapp who has also been on the Building Committe from day one will get it done. Mark is doing the design work pro bono. Kudo's to Tom & Mark.
Want to help? Contact Cathy Crowley at the Wilbur & McMahon School.

June 24th LCTA Newsletter


Retrospective of the June 4th 2011 LC Taxpayers Association Newsletter
Considering the limited space, cost of printing and postage, The LCTA Newsletter did a fine job in providing a historical overview of the never ending School Building Project.
Since I am not burdened with such space limitations and postage expense I want to expand upon some of the historical events that were not reported in the Associations Newsletter.
Following the earthshaking fire inspection in August of 2005 there was a great deal of hand wringing and head scratching. I recall hearing remarks highly critical of then Fire Chief, Harry Hallgring who was recently appointed. Chief Hallgring brought with him many years of experience in fire prevention procedures and knowledge of current fire safety codes, the likes of which apparently had never visited the inside of the Wilbur & McMahon School.
The Wilbur & McMahon facility is akin to “the house that Jack built.” It is a mish mash of buildings going back to 1929. The building makes no sense in terms of layout, traffic, dead end hallways and vast wasted space. All of that notwithstanding, it is a fine educational institution with an exceptionally good track record when it comes to producing a quality education for LC youngsters.
But there were/are physical plant problems with the facility. For openers it does not have a fire sprinkler system. There is a ton of outdated heating and air movement equipment, electrical services that were installed by Tom Edison, a leaky roof and a major egress problem.
The Newsletter states that JCJ Architects was hired by the Facilities Needs Committee. In fact JCJ was hired by the School Committee specifically to design a “new school” and to guide The Facilities Needs Committee through the RIDE approval process for State funds to reimburse the taxpayers to the tune of approximately 1/3 of the most of the costs associated with building a new school.
That is precisely where the process started to go astray. First of all, Stage I in the RIDE process requires the School District to submit a “Letter of Intent” and to appoint a “School Building Committee.” That process was not done for close to 18 Months and then only when then Superintendent Ron Devine became aware of the mandated process in a conversation with Mr. Joseph da Silva of RIDE. Clearly JCJ was ignorant of the process, and when confronted with the problem they tried to blame Joe da Silva for revising the process after they had been retained. This was not true; the process had been revised in the middle of 2007 six months before JCJ was hired.
Prior to Dr. Devine’s course correction, the Facilities Needs Committee had laid in plans for an extensive Dog & Pony Show to sell the more than 35 million dollar proposed building project, leading up to a Special Financial Town Meeting to approve funding. This process was in direct violation of RIDE published practices. Yet more wasted time, effort, and money.
So the School District was forced to go back to square one, hastily prepare a letter of intent, and appoint a School Building Committee and subsequently dump JCJ. Close to two years were down the drain, not to mention the $118,000 architectural fee. It has been all downhill ever since.
So then the new School Building Committee was off and running if you can call it that. The School Committee under the inept leadership of Michael Harrington appointed a 20 member committee. I don’t know if you have ever served on an elected or appointed committee, but let me assure you that a committee of that size is non-functional. Results to date confirm that judgment!
RIDE mandates eight (8) appointees including the Superintend of Schools, The Principal, a person familiar with maintaining the building, a teacher, a representative of the town governing body (council member), a financial person, a citizen with either engineering, construction or architectural experience, and at least one member of the School Committee. Mr. Harrington Appointed himself and three other members of the School Committee plus a group of interested citizens making up the 20 member committee.
From the get-go there were organizational problems. Nobody, it seemed wanted to step up and be nominated to lead the committee. Mr. Harrington assumed the chairmanship during several meetings until he handpicked Tom Alder as Chairman. Tom is a nice guy but even he admitted that he was had no prior experience managing a committee that was faced with such a huge responsibility and the potential of committing the town to spend possibly more than 30 million dollars. Tom went on OJT.
Among the many vital tasks the new committee had to perform was the hiring of yet another architect. The selection process was a nightmare and was in violation of the State of RI process for hiring architects and engineers. State Law requires a Qualification Based Selection (QBS) process. The process that the building committee followed was a circus that ended up hiring the least qualified most expensive of more than 20 applicants. The deal was awarded to Durkee-Brown at the infamous Memorial Day meeting of 2010 which resulted in a violation of the Open Meetings Act.
A major stumbling block became time. The committee and its inexperienced architect had to complete the Stage I submission and get RIDE approval by November of 2010. The RIDE requirement is that the project must be submitted and Stage I approved within one year of the date of the approval of the Districts Letter of Intent submission. A real wrench in the gears came when the Town Council agreed only to allow the Stage I Submission to go forward with a huge caveat. The Council slapped a 14 million dollar construction cost cap on the project.
I want to take you way back to a time very early on in this whole crazy process. It was at a regular meeting of the School Committee that I asked Chairman Michael Harrington what the committee would do if the plans for a new school failed to be approved by the voters of Little Compton. He said that they would have to deal with it. I asked if there was a “Plan B” or an alternative plan. His response was; “there is no Plan B.”
Well guess what, now there is a Plan B, and as pointed out in the LCTA Newsletter it is to FIX THE PROBLEMS following the RGB model.
A bit more on RGB… RGB was the child of the LCTA. Roger Lord made a comprehensive Power Point presentation at the annual meeting of the LCTA which dissected the original Mount Vernon Group (MVG) study and the subsequent JCJ review of the MVG findings. There were enough holes in the inflated (18.5 million dollar) JCJ review to sink a ship. Subsequently Roger gave his presentation to the Town Council. Mind you, this all took place when there was still a School Facility Needs Committee deliberating how they were going to sell the plan for a new school. Don Gomez, Chairman of the Facilities Needs Committee was present at Roger’s presentation to the Council. Even he agreed that there needed to be yet another engineering review.
Subsequently the Needs Committee published bid specifications and RGB was hired. If not for Roger, that never would have happened and there would be no “Plan B” as we know it today. Kudos to Roger and the LCTA Board of Directors.
So as you can see, there has been a sordid history in the evolution of the School Building program. As the late Paul Harvey used to say at the end of his broadcasts; “Now you know the rest of the story.”
Sarge

AS I LIVE AND BREATHE – OR NOT?

WARNING! The story that you are about to read is absolutely, positively intended to scare the hell out of you. If you are not fully prepared to read a “Fictional Tale” of a tragedy that could happen to any Little Compton family, then stop right here and hit the delete button on your keyboard.

It is 1:20 AM in our quiet seaside community. The family of four was all sleeping soundly on the second floor of their beautiful Colonial home overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The children were tucked in around nine, tomorrow was a school day, and the parents turned in after watching Jay Leno on the TV in the first floor family room.

A fire was smoldering in Dad’s recliner, started from a cigarette ash. The demon fire was rapidly sucking the oxygen out of the air for a long time before it burst into flames. Fire, just like people needs oxygen to live. It does not take long before the level of oxygen in the air is lowered to the level where humans loose consciousness. So now the family was no longer simply sleeping, they were anesthetized and had no sense of what was happening around them. If they were not rescued soon they would all suffocate and die.

A neighbor returning from a late night party spotted smoke coming out of the house and a glowing red through windows on the first floor. He rushed across the road and rang the doorbell and pounded his fist on the door. He tried to open the door but it was locked and the door knob was hot. He quickly ran back to his home and called 911.

It was 1:30 AM when the dispatcher answered the call. He wrote down the information that he heard from the desperate caller and sounded the alarm. The public address system barked the address while the two firefighters on duty at the Public Safety Complex quickly donned their “turnout” gear. Engine One roared to life and left the station at 1:32 AM.

The Fire Truck pulled up in front of the burning home at 1:37 AM, only five minutes had elapsed. But time was quickly running out on the family trapped in the house. One of the firefighters deployed a hose line while the driver engaged the pump and charged the line with water. They started fighting the fire at 1:39 AM. Almost ten minutes had elapsed since the neighbor had alerted the fire department.

Meanwhile off duty firefighters and volunteers were alerted with some heading directly to the fire scene, while others went to the Fire Station to get the 3000 gallon tanker, the Rescue Ambulance and the back-up Fire Truck. The first back up personnel started arriving at the fire around 1:40 AM. They quickly deployed a second hose line off Engine One to assist in fighting the fire which was quickly spreading to the second floor.

Meantime the tanker truck and Engine Two were on the way and arrived at 1:45 AM, and began setting up the reserve water supply. They removed the portable folding 3000 gallon canvas reservoir from the truck and started transferring the water from the tanker to the reservoir. It was 1:50 AM, 20 minutes after the fire was reported. The water in the reservoir still needed to be pumped to Engine One.

At approximately 1:51 AM the 1000 gallon water supply carried on Engine One ran dry. The fire was now raging on unabated and was coming through the roof.

At 2:00 AM the back-up pumper started pumping water to Engine One, more hose lines were deployed and they started pouring more water onto the burning structure, now fully involved in flames. At 2:25 AM the fire was proclaimed to be “under control” no longer spreading. Thirty minutes later firefighters were able to safely enter the remaining structure and search for victims. It was a little more than an hour after the fire had been detected, reported, and fire apparatus was on the way. Four souls had passed on to their Creator.

The Headlines said: Little Compton Family of four perished in overnight fire. Firefighters fought the blaze for more than an hour. The Fire Chief reports that once again limited water supply hampered firefighting efforts. He said that at one point the first unit on the scene actually ran out of water. The Chief went on to say that “maybe now the town will do something to get us more men and more water. We pray for the family that perished, but we did the best that we could with what we have to work with.” End of Story….

Could there have been a different outcome? Absolutly yes!



Same time, same fictional story line, but a totally different response and result.

The two on duty firefighters respond with Engine Two the recently acquired Compressed Air Foam System (CAFS) Pumper. Within two minutes after arriving at the fire they have begun applying Compressed Air Foam through the windows of the family room, three minutes later the fire is knocked out. They are then able to safely enter the home with their self contained breathing apparatus and rescue the family from the smokey second floor. The family is quickly transported to the hospital where they are treated for smoke inhalation.

Now I know that there those who will say that this is a bunch of B.S… They might say that the family would have been awakened by their smoke detectors that were inspected when the house was built. Have you checked the batteries in your smoke detectors lately? They might say that the first responders would have immediately entered the building and rescued the victims. But then of course there is “the two men in, two men out rule” that prohibits entering a burning building until there are four personnel on the “fire ground.” There will be this and that said to shoot holes in this fictional story.

But you have to ask yourself one question. Could it happen? You bet your life it could. Does CAFS do a better job than water? You can bet your life on that too. Should the Fire Chief do the right thing and change his procedures and deploy our CAFS pumper first on all fire calls? He should bet his job on it!

Why you might ask have I gone to such an extreme in writing this frightening fictional story? The answer is quite simple. I and other concerned citizens of Little Compton have had it up to here with the failure on the part of Fire Department Management to deploy the Pierce CAFS equipped pumper. All we have had to show for our more than $200,000 investment in enhanced protection of life and property are excuses. This truck was delivered two years ago! Personnel have not been trained! There is no strategic plan to put this state-of-the-art pumper on the “front line.” Our new Fire Chief is of the opinion that CAFS is just another “tool.” OMG!

Sarge