City OKs $3,200 exercise machine

By David Skolnick

The mayor defends the purchase, citing the importance of keeping firefighters physically fit.

YOUNGSTOWN — Despite facing a $1.5 million deficit and employee layoffs, the city is buying an exercise machine for its firefighters to keep them in good shape.

The purchase, approved Thursday by the board of control, is the first of what will eventually be new exercise machines for the city’s eight fire stations.

The elliptical-exercise machine for the downtown fire station costs $3,202.50.

“We should all be sensitive to the economic environment,” Mayor Jay Williams said.

The fire department has been at the forefront of reducing the city’s expenses, Williams said.

An early-retirement buyout approved by the firefighters union last year saved the cash-strapped city more than $1 million.

“To invest $3,000 for the health of our officers is worth it,” he said. “People can make a mockery of it and spin it any way they want.”

Firefighters need to be in good shape to properly do their jobs, Williams said.

“If I’m in a burning building, I’d want a Youngstown firefighter getting me or my family out safely,” he said. “Have you seen them? Those aren’t guys you want to mess with.”

The exercise-machine expense is a small price to pay, Williams said.

“They spend 24 hours on duty; do you want them sitting around or staying healthy?” he said in defense of the purchase. “If it was a flat-screen TV or a Wii [video-game console], I can see an issue.”

There are exercise rooms in each of the city’s eight fire stations with free weights and exercise machines, said Fire Chief John J. O’Neill Jr.

Some of the equipment, all at least 10 years old, needs to be replaced.

“We need to have the firefighters in the best shape they can be in,” O’Neill said. “Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer of firefighters because of exposure to carbon monoxide. Exercise obviously improves cardiovascular health.”

No other city department, including the police, has an exercise room.

“It’s beneficial for the city for us to be in good shape,” said David Cook, president of the city’s firefighters union.

When asked if it would be beneficial for all city employees to be in good shape, Cook said, “Well, yeah. But a secretary doesn’t have to be in the same shape as a firefighter.”

Exercise equipment at full-time fire stations is common, said Rodger Sansom, secretary-treasurer of the Ohio State Firefighters’ Association.

The firefighters aren’t required to use the exercise equipment, but most do, O’Neill and Cook said.

Not only do firefighters use the equipment during their 24-hour shifts — they then get 48 hours off duty — but some come in on their days off to work out, O’Neill and Cook said.

“Do you want a healthy firefighter or have them on workers’ compensation?” Williams asked.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the city and the firefighters union split the cost of exercise equipment at the stations.

Around 2001, that deal ended with the city’s agreeing to maintain the equipment at the stations, Cook said.

But in the union’s latest contract, the city agreed to buy new exercise machines to specifically help with the cardiovascular conditioning of firefighters.

There are supposed to be three purchases this year, three next year and two in 2011 so that each of the eight stations will have a new machine.

The new machine was purchased from Jump Stretch Inc. of Youngstown.

“We found a good deal,” Cook said. “It was surplus. We got it from the factory with a discounted price. It’s a $6,500 machine.”

The documentation provided by the fire department to the board of control for the purchase of the machine doesn’t state the make and model.

Union contracts with those who work in the police department include a provision to give officers about $160 a year toward the purchase of a membership at the downtown YMCA to keep them physically fit.

While there is a provision in the firefighters’ union contract for that same YMCA reimbursement, only those who work a steady eight-hour daily shift are eligible for the money under that same provision.

That means about five fire department employees are eligible for the YMCA reimbursement, O’Neill said. No one in the fire department utilizes the reimbursement, according to records at the city’s finance department.

skolnick@vindy.com