Letters to the Editor
Vulcans' FDNY Non-Solutions

To the Editor:

The final week of June saw a young Indian girl being rejected for admission to Mark Twain Junior High School in Brooklyn because it filled its quota of 40-percent minorities. Outrage followed and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein called for the abolishment of the quota system.

If he is not successful, I would hope the same outrage exists if my two children, who will test for Mark Twain in two years, are not admitted because the school filled its quota of Caucasians.

The latter part of the week featured John Coombs, president of the FDNY Vulcan Society, as the Daily News guest editorialist. Although the Vulcan president has changed, the whine remains the same. Firefighter Coombs starts by telling us that bigotry in the FDNY existed in the late 1800s. No kidding. The predominantly Irish Fire Department hated everyone, especially Italians such as myself.

He further rambles about the current testing procedures and how a candidate who gets a 90 or even an 80 could be better-qualified than the one who gets 100 on the exam. Wake up, John. The candidate who scores a 90 on a basic comprehension exam is not the best candidate, and the one who scores an 80 is a borderline idiot.

Firefighter Coombs then calls on the FDNY to "stop perpetuating a system that keeps this great city career as the domain of those who often live outside the City and are disproportionately the sons, brothers and nephews of firefighters." Shame on you for leaving out the daughters, sisters and nieces of firefighters.

His solutions to solving the lack of interest by African-Americans in joining the FDNY are shallow. A five-point credit for any candidates with a New York City high school diploma and the launching of a serious recruitment effort (not to be confused with the multi-million-dollar drive that the department ran for the last exam).

Another idea of his is that the written test be pass/fail and the physical be competitive. How naive of him to think that white males won't do better in a competitive physical than blacks. It also sounds racist.

He also states that the FDNY had its chance to come to the table with the Vulcans and resolve problems with them informally (quotas), but it refused. Kudos to Commissioner Scoppetta.

Now the Justice Department has filed its lawsuit, and again to the credit of our Mayor and Fire Commissioner, they vow to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. And fight they should. Candidates of any race and gender must seek out the job of FDNY firefighter the old-fashioned way. They must earn it.

On a final note of interest, a recent survey of music shows that among rappers, 99 percent are males and 97 percent are black. Where's the justice?

MICHAEL F. GALA Jr., Battalion Chief, FDNY