South East Bexar County Awareness: ESD6 and County Commissioner Rodriguez --- Shameless

A recent followup interview left me with more disturbing information about the safety of the South Bexar County residents. Ms. Mendelsohn, with the blessings of the County Commissioner of Precinct 1, Chico Rodriguez have put the lives of the South Bexar County community in terrible danger. While many in the area are not aware of the dangers that pose them in case of a fire or medical emergency.

FACTS:

• ESD6 Board, Sylvia Mendelsohn, Luisa Vargas, John Wood, Norberto "Robert" Chavez and Joe Hearn have distanced themselves from communication with the volunteer fire departments. The VFD's have been told to go through the Administrator/Secretary, Shiela Staggs, with any concerns. Calls to the ESD6 from the VFD's are not returned.
• ESD6 Board has refused to pay for insurance on the VFD's trucks needed to fight fires in areas like Big Oak, where this summer they had a major fire and homes were evacuated. These trucks have been grounded. Community members that live in the Big Oak area and others like it will no longer have appropriate fire protection as there are no trucks currently running that will be able to fight those fires.
• ESD6 Board, while maintaining ownership of fire trucks in the possession of the VFD's, through a restructured plan by Ms. Mendelsohn; are no longer being funded for repairs leaving fire stations with vehicles that are not safe to run or cannot run all together. AtaBexar VFD has a truck without a siren and other repairs needed, leaving the truck inoperable.
• ESD6 has devalued the vehicles in possession of VFD's as to cut the cost of insurance. Documentation showed where last year a vehicle was stolen from a VFD and because the trucks value had been dropped, the ESD did not have enough insurance money to cover the cost of repairs, etc, let alone replacement of an $18,000 truck that had been devalued to just over $6000.
• ESD6 board has now given a list to the VFD's of what it will pay for and not pay for. Keeping VFD's at minimal pay for expenses, with more and more funds diminishing.
• Sandy Oaks Volunteer Fire Department has had to sell their ladder truck in order to salvage their other trucks.
• Sandy Oaks VFD, is down to one firefighter that is available to make calls on a regular basis. This firefighter had 4 calls in one day, almost back to back.
• AtaBexar VFD is down to one paid firefighter during the day, one in the evening.
• South Bexar Fire & Rescue has had to assist the Sandy Oaks VFD due to lack of manpower and vehicles.

The ESD6 Board recently hired someone to "objectively" audit each fire station and see what items were necessary and which were not to "better" budget the ESD6 funds. The auditor told the fire departments that for the area that they battle fires in, it was imperative that they keep the all terrain fire trucks. These are the same trucks, that Ms. Mendelsohn chose to cut funding for. Is it ignorance, arrogance or just plain maliciousness on the part of Ms. Mendelsohn?

One thing that is evident, that the three volunteer fire departments have joined together to keep their community safe, but for how long? It is also evident that Ms. Mendelsohn and Chico Rodriguez are intentionally stripping the volunteer fire departments of all their security and funding to accomplish whatever ulterior motives they are working towards.

There are no other words to describe Ms. Mendelsohn and County Commissioner Rodriguez, other than cold hearted and shameless.

Emergency Service District #6, last year took out a payday loan to help pay for expenses the last month of it's budget year; due to the fact that they were broke.

This year in 2012, the ESD6 voted to take out another payday loan this time they took it out with over 3 months left in the budget year and for double the amount of last year.

Where is Chico Rodriguez and why is he allowing a bankrupt entity to continue to be run by someone who obviously has no idea how to run it?