FEMS - Greater Greater Washington

Bite your tongue

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:22:00 EDT

A DCFEMS spokesman has been placed on administrative leave with pay after asserting that criticisms of the department's leadership were racist. The comments were made on his personal social media accounts. (Washington Times)

Comment

Blogs and social media change the conversation on transit (Oct 26, 2011)

Confusion burns

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:40:00 EDT

by David Edmondson

The DC fire department is abuzz over orders allegedly issued regarding behavior for firefighters attending Mayor Gray's State of the District address. A DCFEMS spokesman denied the orders had ever been issued. (Washington Times)

Comment

Gray keeps Harriet Tregoning! And others (Dec 17, 2010)
Mayor Gray must refute mediocrity, or fall victim to it (Oct 14, 2011)
Gray deserves more credit for One City One Hire (Jan 27, 2012)
Should urbanists be nervous about Vince Gray? Part 1 (Jul 20, 2010)
Which mayoral candidate is more like George Bush? (Sep 8, 2010)

Major changes for firefighters

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:27:00 EDT

by Eric Fidler

In addition to staff cuts, the fire chief wants firefighters to switch from 24-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts. The 40% of firefighters who live more than 30 miles from the city are unhappy with the proposal. (Examiner)

Comment

Then and Now: Columbia Road @ Sherman Avenue (Aug 20, 2010)
Track fire this morning, carols tonight (Dec 13, 2010)
Get the Florida out of the Rhode Island Avenue streetcar (Nov 2, 2009)
Let's stimulate with a major bike sharing program (Mar 6, 2009)
Proposed Metro service cuts take more from DC (Feb 25, 2009)

Mayor Gray must refute mediocrity, or fall victim to it

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 10:03:00 EDT

by Geoff Hatchard

Members of Vincent Gray's administration have been both quoted and sourced on background as being unhappy with a city employee going above and beyond the call of duty on the job. The mayor must explicitly quash such thinking if he doesn't want to send a signal to all other city employees not to work very hard.

Lon Walls. Image from Twitter.

Lon Walls, the communications director for DC's the Fire & Emergency Medical Services (FEMS), gave Mark Segraves some revealing statements regarding the ongoing saga of Pete Piringer, who ran the DC Fire & EMS twitter feed (@dcfireems).

Walls told WTOP, "We had a discussion, I told Pete he was going out of his lanes in terms of other agencies." One of those "lanes" apparently included tweeting about fallen trees and crime scenes. It seems other agencies were miffed that @dcfireems was tweeting about things slightly outside their core competency, and that was "making [other agencies] look slow and unresponsive."

Washington Life Magazine listed Walls as one of the "Titans of PR" last year. He ran Walls Communications prior to becoming the head of communications at FEMS. (It appears that the regular website of his firm has been scaled back, with a more detailed site residing here.)

The site boasts of "transforming [communications] challenges into successful and measurable results." Is less communication with residents the kind of results the city is looking for? (Incidentally, Walls is on Twitter, but he doesn't appear to have mastered use of it as a communication forum.)

Put simply, Pete Piringer ran a fantastic service while working at FEMS. I'm one of the three people who worked on compiling the Struck in DC (@struckdc) twitter feed, and we relied on timely information from @dcfireems to keep people aware of how many pedestrians and cyclists had been victims of incidents involving vehicles in the city for over a year. Without the information that Piringer supplied, our service has withered on the vine.

In September, the feed went silent. Concerned reporters and blogs initially thought Piringer had just gone on vacation, but officials later revealed that they'd stopped the feed.

Walls told DCist, "I'd rather be slow and right than fast and wrong," and, "Social media is for parties. We ain't givin' parties." Instead of a sneering, derisive taunt, Walls should be able to see, as a communications professional, the value of actually "communicating" with citizens.

In response to objections, the Mayor promised on September 22 that @dcfireems would not be "filtered" or "silenced." This temporarily assuaged frazzled nerves, but the goodwill was short-lived. The @dcfireems feed has not mentioned a single struck pedestrian or cyclist since August 29. While it would be wonderful if no such crashes have occurred since then, we already know that's sadly not the case.

Since September 22, @dcfireems has tweeted more about the fire chief's weight and pictures of the mayor with McGruff the Crime Dog than the information it was known for prior to September 1. That's a shame. A valuable service is gone.

Meanwhile, Piringer has been moved to work for the Office of the Secretary of the District of Columbia, where he will work on publicizing things like ceremonial documents.

Because Pete Piringer was busting his butt, he got busted down a notch (contrary to what Lon Walls would like to have us believe). Instead of other agencies stepping up their game to try to match his, we instead get the lowest common denominator. It's depressing to think that might be official policy from the executive branch.

Members of the Gray administration have essentially declared that those who perform above and beyond the call of duty will be punished for their hard work. If Mayor Gray himself does not see this for the "buck stops here" situation that this is, we can only assume he condones such thinking. If I were an ambitious employee looking to make my name as a civil servant, I certainly would look somewhere besides the District of Columbia to ply my trade.

Cross-posted at The District Curmudgeon.

51 comments

Vacation behind missing Struck in DC tweets (Oct 13, 2010)
Struck in DC this week: Unknown (Oct 11, 2010)
Gray keeps Harriet Tregoning! And others (Dec 17, 2010)
Should urbanists be nervous about Vince Gray? Part 1 (Jul 20, 2010)
Should urbanists be nervous about Vince Gray? Part 2: Getting things done (Jul 22, 2010)

And...

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 08:45:00 EDT

by Jamie Scott

Adrian Fenty is hosting a fundraiser for Jack Evans (DCist) ... Don't give beer to DC firefighters (NBC Washington) ... Pepco wants to raise rates to pay for upgrades (WTOP).

Comment

Fenty budget sets stage for huge transit cuts (Apr 2, 2010)
Which mayoral candidate is more like George Bush? (Sep 8, 2010)
Another good project and annoying press (May 29, 2008)
Evans still doesn't understand parking limits (Aug 25, 2011)
Ask the Ward 2 Council candidates (Jul 8, 2008)

Steps forward and back for transparency

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 08:07:00 EDT

by Eric Fidler

Mayor Gray reversed the fire chief's decision to censor tweets. (Post) ... 9 councilmembers booted reporters from an internal ethics chat. Closed-door sessions are permitted in some circumstances. (DCist)

Comment

DC officials tweet, but with varying enthusiasm (Jun 24, 2011)
Create an independent ethics commission for DC Council (Apr 26, 2011)
To move forward, it's time to move past Fenty vs. Gray (Jun 30, 2011)
Should urbanists be nervous about Vince Gray? Part 4: What the heck happened with the streetcars? (Aug 17, 2010)
Orange win would make DC Council most colorful in history (Apr 25, 2011)

Agency communications turn gray

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:27:00 EDT

by Eric Fidler

DC public safety officials will now encrypt police radios and censor the popular Fire & EMS Twitter feed. Journalists sparred with Mayor Gray over whether this breaks transparency promises. (Post)

Comment

Struck in DC this week: Unknown (Oct 11, 2010)
Should urbanists be nervous about Vince Gray? Part 5: Who would Gray hire? (Aug 19, 2010)
Gray keeps Harriet Tregoning! And others (Dec 17, 2010)
Should urbanists be nervous about Vince Gray? Part 2: Getting things done (Jul 22, 2010)
Should urbanists be nervous about Vince Gray? Part 1 (Jul 20, 2010)

Policies impact pregnant, breastfeeding first responders

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:42:00 EDT

by David Alpert

The police union is concerned that MPD is forcing breastfeeding officers to work the street. Some officers want the option to work desk jobs while breastfeeding. (Examiner) And recent fire department changes have limited part-time duty options for pregnant firefighters. (Post)

Comment

Arlington PD follows up personally with cyclist (Feb 17, 2011)
To reduce enforcement errors, MPD wants traffic division (Mar 17, 2011)
Police catch Met Branch Trail attackers, but dispatch problems remain (Jun 6, 2011)
Crime remains high, police understaffed east of the river (Feb 3, 2011)
911 dispatchers not aware of Metropolitan Branch Trail (Jun 16, 2010)

Vacation behind missing Struck in DC tweets

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:49:00 EDT

by David Alpert

There wasn't a grand conspiracy behind DC Fire & EMS stopping tweeting pedestrians and cyclists struck; the employee who does it, Pete Piringer, was just on vacation. He said he does them whenever he notices one in the reports, but is working to make it more automatic. Sadly, the reports of pedestrians and cyclists struck have already resumed.

Comment

Struck in DC this week: Unknown (Oct 11, 2010)
Struck in DC this week: 7 pedestrians, 3 cyclists (Oct 24, 2010)
Struck in DC this week: Don't be a jerk edition (Nov 28, 2010)
Struck in DC this week: 8 pedestrians, 4 cyclists (Aug 8, 2010)
Struck in DC this week: 8 pedestrians, 1 cyclist (Nov 14, 2010)