Coverage Moves AC Mayor To Talk About Fire Department

Exactly one day after our most recent critical coverage about Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small’s failure to demonstrate leadership on Fire Department staffing and equipment issues, Small is now prepared to speak.

Small is set to publicly address both issues tomorrow, Tuesday, May 3, 2022, at 12:30 p.m.

The Mayor’s update will take place in the Atlantic City Hall, 1301 Bacharach Boulevard, 7th Floor conference room.

You can view the news conference online on Facebook.

Small will appear with Atlantic City Fire Chief Scott Evans, who is also a former Mayor of Atlantic City.

We have maintained from the beginning of the staffing and fire apparatus crisis, that Chief Evans has been properly engaged and has long been appropriately requesting increases in both areas.

This problem has been escalating in severity for years

There is little doubt that our coverage, which has featured retired battalion chief Tom Foley and the current Atlantic City professional firefighters local 198 President John Varallo has moved Small to publicly comment tomorrow.

We have also shared communications with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy about the staffing and equipment crisis within the Atlantic City fire department.

Words get overused these days. The word crisis fits in the current Atlantic City situation.

If you missed our previous coverage last Friday and earlier today, here are links to both articles for your review.

Hope is not a strategy, however, the fire professionals and residents in Atlantic City are praying for answers.

The circumstances have deteriorated so much so that Atlantic City, a multi-billion dollar gaming Mecca is relying on the kindness from Ventnor and Margate … who have been loaning their equipment to keep Atlantic City going.

Here’s to hoping that Small will finally bring answers to these long suffering problems within the Atlantic City Professional Fire Department.

In order to give you an advanced preview of tomorrow’s announcements, we have been told by confidential Atlantic City Hall employees, who have advised us that:

Mayor Small will announce that approximately 22 new Atlantic City Firefighters will be included in the upcoming budget … along with two pieces of new apparatus … due to arrive in October or November, 2022.

Additionally, we have been told that Atlantic City intends to buy a reserve piece of equipment from Ventnor City, sometime in May or June, 2022, when Ventnor’s new engine arrives.

If all of this comes to fruition, it will be of great assistance to the Atlantic City Fire Department.

SOURCES: John Varallo, Tom Foley, Atlantic City Hall confidential sources.