Belleville, Bloomfield and Nutley Fire Depts to Receive State of the Art Fire Training Tower

BELLEVILLE, NJ - New Jersey Assemblyman Michael Venezia, Assemblywoman Carmen Morales, and Sentaor Britnee Timberlak announced a grant for the Belleville, Bloomfield and Nutley Fire Departments to ensure proper training at Belleville Fire Headquarters.

A grant of $500,000 was awarded to the fire departments to build a state-of-the-art fire training tower in Belleville to train the three municipal fire departments. From that grant, $175,000 will go to a fire training tower and $325,000 will go towards training classes, certification courses and the necessary equipment. The shared services training tower will be built in Belleville. The location is not yet decided.

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Officials present at the event included Senator Britnee N. Timberlake; Senior Undersheriff Amir Jones; Belleville Mayor Michael Melham; Nutley Mayor John V. Kelly III; Belleville Deputy Mayor Thomas Graziano, councilman-at-large; Belleville councilman Vincent Cozzarelli and Frank Velez; Bloomfield Council Sarah Cruz, Jenny Mundell and Monica Tabares; New Jersey Firemen's Mutual Benevolent Association (FMBA) President Ed Donnelly, Belleville Fire Chief John Olivieri, Bloomfield Fire Chief Lou Venezia and Nutley Fire Chief Paul Cafone.

Senator Britnee Timberake said about Belleville that it starts with having a vision for the entire township.

Timberlake is married to a firefighter. “We understand the sacrifice, we understand as families who have public servants in the family, you never know what the call is going to bring. Safety starts with staffing and training,” she said.

According to Timberlake, they are working on a greater package of legislation for about nine months now that will have more training and staffing ratios, not only for these three municipalities but statewide. “If we do it right and get our wish, we are even going to see collaborations with not just the three fire departments represented here but for marine firefighter training,” she said.

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Assemblywoman Carmen Morales said this was one of their priorities when they went to Trenton to fight for money to be allocated for the townships. “This funding is going to be significant because it is a financial boost and a testament to our unwavering commitment to our public safety,” she said.

According to Morales, this investment will ensure that the fire departments will have high standards of readiness and capability.

Assemblyman Michael Venezia said that this came together through conversation with the Belleville mayor about a fire training tower. “He then spoke with Morales and said when it was time for a budget request they should ask for bigger. “Within a day we got the three chiefs together to come organized and come up with a bigger request,” he said.

With the fire training tower, they will also receive equipment for the departments. The training will help with the shared services. “Mutual aid, we all know that when there is a fire, chances are that Bloomfield is responding to Nutley and Belleville is responding to Bloomfield. [...] This has a huge impact on the three communities,” he said.

Michael Melham explained how the idea started. He and Deputy Mayor Thomas Graziano had a discussion with the Belleville Fire Department and asked them what they needed.

Melham spoke of the hard work of Venezia, Morales and Timberlake, “Today we see some of the fruits of that labor.”

Ed Donnelly, FMBA president. “I like to call it the trifecta. When you have the union, the administration of the fire department and our elected local officials working together, that's how you accomplish stuff like this. That's how it gets done. It's such an easier process when we are all growing in the right direction,” he said.

He added, “[...] to get our money back into local government to make our firefighters safer, better equipped, smarter, which in turn puts a better firefighter on the street to protect our residents.”

Donnelly said that shared services are a large part of why this was accomplished. According to Donnelly, it’s just the beginning.

Bloomfield Fire Chief Lou Venezia spoke on behalf of the three fire chiefs. “We are going to put this money to great use.” [...] Bloomfield, Belleville and Nutley, we work very well together, we’re brother and sister communities, so we are going to continue to do that to make all of our residents safer,” he said.

Nutley Fire Chief Paul Cafone said, “Good things happen when we all work well together. We have a tremendous working relationship. We actually do go to lunch maybe once a month and sit down and toss around ideas on how our different municipalities are doing things, and we bounce ideas off each other.”

Nutley Mayor John Kelly III spoke next about how great shared services are for the residents. “Our taxpayers get hit the hardest. I hear complaints from them all the time. Anything that can help ease our taxpayers' burden and make public safety even safer, is a tremendous help.”

Kelly spoke about his great-grandfather who died in the line of duty. “So firefighters always have a special place in my heart. So anything that we can do to make active duty firefighters even safer. We don't want to see any more active duty firefighters get hurt. Training and safety is a priority,” he said.

Not present but acknowledged at the press conference included Bloomfield Mayor Ted Gamble and Nutley Public Safety Commissioner Alphonse Petracco.

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