Assembly Homeland Security and State Preparedness Chair Annette Quijano said Friday she plans to sponsor a resolution urging the United States Congress to help better protect New Jersey and the country’s first responders by passing the HEROES Act.
This federal legislation, co-authored by NJ Congressman Steve Rothman and New York Congressman Peter King, would provide funding for first responders to update their radio communications equipment to digital, narrowband systems in advance of the 2013 deadline laid out by the federal 9/11 Commission. The legislation is currently stalled in the House.
“Municipalities are responsible for executing this mandate before 2013,” stated Quijano (D-Union). “However the mandate is unfunded and municipalities are already struggling with anemic budgets and declining state aid. The HEROES Act would ensure that first responders would be in compliance with federal guidelines and more adequately prepared to handle emergency situations. The upgrades this act facilitates would provide police, firefighters and emergency management personnel with unparalleled communications coordination for the most effective response possible, but only if Congress chooses to act.”
“We need to send a message to Washington that passing this bill is important for the security of every state, not just New Jersey,” continued Quijano. “September is State Preparedness Month, and I can think of no better time to come together in a bipartisan way to make the entire country safer.” TLS.
Here come the Democrats spending money WE don’t have!! When is this madness going to STOP!!! How do you try to make a law that has no funding and tell everyone it must be done.
Make jobs for the private sector, that will generate money for the projects. This law to be is just another tax hike that we cannot afford. The only purpose of this law is to put it on their campaign posters “look what I did”.
Go fix the economy, create private sector jobs, save Social security, that can go on your campaign posters.
FYI…One of the sponsors of the bill, Congressman Peter King, is a Republican. I am neither a Dem or Rep, and maybe if the two parties and their members stopped pointing fingers and blaming everyone else for this Country’s woes, they could get something productive done.
And one last thing #1, it was proven by the 9/11 commission, that one of the biggest reasons for loss of life in the FDNY, was poor, dysfunctional radio systems, that were supposed to be upgraded after the 1st World Trade Center Attack and were not. Many fire fighters and police officers alike, were unable to receive radio communications from their supervisors on September 11th and missed the order to evacuate. And on one last note, why should the government help the private sector? Is it not the CEO’s of this country’s largest banks and financial institutions, one of the largest reasons from the current economy? Is it not these financial institutions that irresponsibly gave mortgages to people with adjustable rates so they could make a sale? Or how about the CEOs who were giving themselves million dollar bonuses on the taxpayers backs?
The Democrats are just trying to fund a mandate that was created under THE Republican administration that FORCES all of the nations emergency services to upgrade their radio systems. Maybe if the Republicans had the foresight to fund it years back we wouldn’t have to fund it now that townships and cities are broke. This is mandate important though because right now radio bands are overlapping eachother causing departments from New York to step all over departments from New Jersey and vise versa and this is happening all throughout the country. It is also from my understanding its supposed to switch to bands that your average scanner can’t pick up so that criminals and terrrorists will have a harder time listening in on emergency services.
Maybe we would have funding if we pulled our troops out of some these countries we have no business in that Republicans and conservatives seem to think make us safe. I think the last couple of monthes are proving its not boots on the ground occupying foreign countries but intelligence, fact finding and tactical strikes that is making us safer (we just killed Bin Laden and now al-Awlaki on the 30th). We could cut our military’s budget in half and still drastically outspend the rest of the worlds militaries. That money could be used to reinvest in our economy, provide education and retraining and upgrade our crumbling infrustructure (bridges, roads, rail, communications, etc.)
No one likes to pay taxes my friend (I certainly don’t want to pay them)but they have been around since the dawn of civilization and they will be around till the end. Get used to it.
# 3 you couldn’t have said it better
if they wont be fully protected by the government then they should not respond in those emergencies period !
i know someone who passed away from working near ground zero when the city lied and stated it was ok to go there and i hope his family sue’s them for it
as a fire fighter i agree we can use better radio’s in fact in lakewood the system we have is pretty bad.. that said please can we stop spending money ….. please we dont have the money to spend…. dems repub tea party i dont care who just stop spending