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by MICHAEL SCHOLL
Although the city Fire Department says it can't afford to station an engine company in Rossville, it recently found enough money to establish a new rescue company in Lower Manhattan.
Rescue Co. 6 quietly began operations on Aug. 2, the day after the Homeland Security Department issued a terror warning for financial institutions in New York City, Newark, N.J., and Washington, D.C.
The company, which operates out of a firehouse at 251 Lafayette St. in SoHo, was created to bolster the Fire Department's ability to respond to terrorist attacks and other emergencies. Its primary response area is the area below 23rd Street in Manhattan.
Council minority leader James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn) and Councilman Andrew Lanza (R-South Shore) said they don't doubt the need for an additional rescue company in Manhattan. But they questioned why the city Fire Department is not moving to meet a similar need for an additional fire company on Staten Island's South Shore.
"It's a matter of priorities," said Oddo, who has been urging the department to install an engine company in the recently opened ambulance/fire station in Rossville.
The $10.7 million station is located in Lanza's district at the corner of Rossville Avenue and Veterans Road East. Although it was designed to house an ambulance battalion and an engine company, it currently only has ambulances because officials said the city couldn't afford the $1.6 million in annual funding necessary to support an engine company.
Oddo and Lanza have denounced the pleas of poverty, saying the city can't afford not to provide the rapidly growing South Shore with additional fire protection.
"We still have gaping holes in fire protection on the South Shore of Staten Island," said Lanza, who said having an engine company in Rossville was "absolutely vital" to the safety of the borough.
"There is no good reason not to open that firehouse," Lanza said.
Neither Oddo nor Lanza criticized the decision to open Rescue 6, but they said its establishment shows the city has enough cash on hand to pay for important public safety improvements.
"I think the budgetary issue has been a contrived one from the beginning," said Oddo.
Oddo said the Bloomberg administration may be holding off on stationing an engine company in Rossville because it doesn't want to offend the politicians representing neighborhoods in which the FDNY closed six fire companies last year. Four of those companies were located in Brooklyn, one in Queens and one in Harlem.
Fire Department spokesman Michael Loughran said Rescue 6 would be made up of firefighters reassigned from other elite rescue and hazardous materials units, including Rescue Co. 5 in Concord.
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