Fallen Idyllwild-based firefighter returns home to San Bernardino County
August 8, 2017 by admin
Filed under Latest Lingerie News
Comments Off
Expand
Fallen U.S. Forest Service firefighter Brent Michael Witham made his final journey home to San Bernardino County on Monday from Montana, where he was killed last week in the line of duty.
The solemn rites of firefighter mourning were on display the whole way, and will continue this week as an honor guard keeps watch over Witham’s body until his interment Thursday following a public memorial service at the National Orange Show in San Bernardino.
An orange-and-white Forest Service airplane, normally used to transport firefighters who parachute into remote areas, touched down at San Bernardino International Airport at 3:36 p.m., carrying Witham’s casket that was covered by an American flag.
The plane taxied to a tarmac where Witham’s colleagues, the Idyllwild-based Vista Grande Hotshots, waited for the 29-year-old Mentone resident as they stood at attention and held their caps over their hearts.
Witham also was greeted by mourners who had never met him. Among them, 7-year-old Xanti Marquez and her mother, Carmen, held American flags where spectators had gathered at the airtanker base on the airport grounds.
Carmen, of Temecula, wore a Forest Service Smokejumpers shirt and Xanti wore a tank top that said Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service. Carmen’s brother was a smokejumper and a hotshot.
Carmen said she wanted to represent those who couldn’t make it to the solemn ceremony.
“We felt compelled to come out to honor and show respect and condolences to the firefighters, families and Brent,” she said.
As the plane rolled near, Witham’s family and friends were escorted toward it and an honor guard approached. The back of the airplane opened, the honor guard transferred the casket to a hearse, and uniformed personnel saluted.
The hearse drove under a flag between two fire trucks before leaving the airport. A procession of firefighters and law enforcement officers then escorted it to a mortuary Colton.
The route was designed to pass by the San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor’s Office on Tippecanoe Avenue. A long row of U.S. Forest Service engines staged along the road Monday afternoon to pay their respects.
Phil Hernandez, captain with the Arroyo Grande Hotshot crew in the Los Padres National Forest, was among those saluting Witham.
“It’s real important to show support today because we’re basically the same; we just have a different name,” Hernandez said. “The hotshot community is tight.”
Other mourners also lined the roads, some waving flags as the procession passed by.
Hotshots are elite 20-person firefighting crews that battle flames by hand after hiking or being dropped into remote areas.
Witham, a graduate of Redlands East Valley High School, was killed Aug. 2 when a tree fell on him as his crew was battling a forest fire in the Lolo National Forest southwest of Missoula, Montana.
Witham’s family members released a statement last week that said they were comforted knowing how many lives Witham had touched. They have asked for privacy.
The honors for Witham began Monday morning when a procession led by Montana Highway Patrol cars delivered his casket to the Missoula Aerial Fire Depot, the Missoulian newspaper reported. Some 500 people watched and bagpipers played “Amazing Grace” as Witham’s casket was loaded onto a Forest Service plane.
Memorial service, condolences
Memorial service: 10 a.m. Thursday (doors open at 9 a.m.) in the Orange Pavilion at the National Orange Show in San Bernardino. Open to the public.
Condolences: Email withammemorialinfo@gmail.com with “CONDOLENCES” in the subject line, or send mail to the San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor’s Office, 602 S. Tippecanoe Ave., San Bernardino, CA 92408. Emails and letters will be passed along to the family. The supervisor’s office also will have two large condolence “cards” available for signing from noon Tuesday, Aug. 8, through Wednesday, Aug. 9.
Donations: The Forest Service will be setting up a Brent Witham Memorial Fund.
More information: The Forest Service has established a blog at www.withammemorialceremony.blogspot.com
Share and Enjoy
Why Cuomo must bear the burden for the MTA’s failures
August 8, 2017 by admin
Filed under Latest Lingerie News
Comments Off
Mayor de Blasio was doing well. He was sticking up for New Yorkers against an absurd proposal made by Gov. Cuomo to bail out the MTA to the tune of more than $400 million. The governor wants the city to save the MTA from the governor’s own disastrous management.
But then the mayor figured something out: He could use the governor’s failure to squeeze Gotham’s rich. And the mayor loves to squeeze the rich — even if it means losing a battle against the governor that he — and New York City — should have won.
For nearly a month, Cuomo has been deflecting attention from his own failures. Only 61.7 percent of subway trains run on time, sure — nearly a one-third drop since he took office.
But it can’t be the fault of the governor, or the MTA board that he’s appointed.
Instead, it must be de Blasio’s fault. No matter that the mayor recommends only a minority of the board members to the MTA and has no day-to-day responsibility.
The MTA’s problem must be a lack of money, in the governor’s recent thinking — and who has a lot of extra money lying around? The city of New York, with its $4.2 billion surplus.
Thus, the MTA has cobbled together an $800 million plan to fix the subways — and wants half of that from Gothamites.
No matter that the MTA’s own budget has increased by $3.4 billion since the governor has been in a charge, from $12.3 billion to $15.7 billion.
No matter, either, that much of that increase is due to the governor’s union deals. Payroll at NYC Transit, which runs the subways, has grown from $3.5 billion annually to $4.4 billion — a 26 percent increase, although inflation is up only 11 percent.
It’s easier to blame someone else: the mayor.
The mayor would be a great victim here — and was for a while. Three weeks ago, in response to the governor’s bullying, he said that “it’s not an issue of more money right now. It’s an issue of management.”
That was correct. The MTA cannot spend its existing money for capital investments. As of May, the MTA had only spent 22 percent of the money it has for tracks and switches.
Now, though, the mayor has changed his mind. He wants New York taxpayers to put up an extra $800 million annually for the MTA, increasing the authority’s budget by 5 percent.
Why the turnaround?
The mayor has figured out a way to soak the rich. He would get this money, he says, from a 13 percent hike on city income taxes that couples making over a million dollars pay.
This “millionaire’s tax,” the mayor lectured Monday, would fall on the 32,000 New York families “who typically travel in first class . . . It would make a huge, huge difference.”
Not really. The MTA already takes in more than $5.5 billion in annual taxes — including $1.7 billion from a payroll tax that, because it is a percentage of earnings, disproportionately falls on the wealthy.
As for voters who “want to see the wealthy pay their fair share,” as the mayor primly said Monday, good news for these folk: The top 1 percent of city taxpayers paid 49.3 percent of city income taxes in 2014, the last year for which city data is available.
De Blasio is ready to sacrifice up his own rich to look virtuous. But why should Westchester and Long Island millionaires get a free ride? They live in the MTA region, and benefit from mass transit.
The mayor is trying to look like a good socialist, but he looks like a chump, letting suburban millionaires slide.
Practically speaking, the money won’t do much good, even if the governor agrees to it.
On Monday, MTA chief Joe Lhota had lots to say about wanting more cash now: “I can’t wait till next year.”
But he had little to say about what the MTA is doing with the money it already has. Asked “what work has started,” Lhota said, “I can’t answer that specifically.”
Only in New York do a governor and a mayor argue, in an economy providing record amounts of taxes, on how to increase the tax take — without worrying about whether they’re spending that money wisely.
Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.