Senator Palacios is calling the stations...beware!!

Team GFD, guess what I found out? I have heard from a direct source, that Senator Palacios is calling fire stations requesting information about our station supplies, firefighting equipment, etc. All this without consulting with the Fire Chief's office to work in unison for a positive purpose.

If he is not working in conjunction with the Fire Chief's office, then it leads me to believe that he is up to something. I cannot say whether it is something good or something bad. I will leave that up to you, but I have my own thoughts on the matter. But I will tell you this, if he is not working in conjunction with the Fire Chief's office, which is the most appropriate method, then his method is stealthy to say the least. 

I think he is calling around looking for "bullets" to use against our Fire Chief in Chief Salas' bid for confirmation. What gets me is that if Sen. Palacios has firefighters calling him up complaining about the compensation of our uniform firefighters performing administrative functions and other things, like he has been saying, then why does he need to call around to the fire stations asking for more info?

A Senator can act on information received, but to solicit information from an agency's employees without the consent or in conjunction with that agency's Director is underhanded in my opinion. If Senator Palacios is that concerned about the current status of the Guam Fire Department, and he does not want to work with our Fire Chief, then he should call for and schedule an oversight hearing . That would be the proper way to do things.

To further illustrate Senator Palacios' actions, he called one station, and introduced himself to the firefighter that answered, who was not the Officer-In-Charge, and told that firefighter that he was taking a survey. Senator Palacios asked questions about our station supplies. How often do we receive the supplies. There were other questions to include questions about our manpower. Senator Palacios asked how many fire stations do we have and the firefighter told him that we had 12 fire stations plus the "rescue". At that time Senator Palacios remarked words to the effect of, "See, they could put those 11 firefighters at each station. You know, Chief Mike Uncangco and those guys are full of shit". Those were the exact words that the firefighter told me that Senator Palacios used. That firefighter, whom I elect not to identify, told me that if he needs to testify to those statements and any other part of the conversation, he would.

Well, need I say more? Here is a Senator using (alleged) that type of vulgar language to a Government of Guam employee, who he does not even know, regarding one of our Fire Chiefs and other fire personnel. Is this the behavior that one would expect to come from a Guam Senator? I think not, nor would I trust someone like this.

Later I was informed that Senator Palacios had paid a personal visit to another fire station asking questions specifically regarding the personal opinions of fire personnel towards the uniform firefighters working administrative duties. I verified this visit . Again, all this without the acknowledgement and approval of our Fire Administration.

Well, all I can say is something does not smell right. I guess if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it must be a duck. And that is putting it in a nice way. But then again, these are all just my opinions.

Until next time....