To the Editor:
Again, it was with great sadness when I once again read about the death of my friend and fire company brother Peter Becker in The Altamont Enterprise this week.

Repeating this over and over is not only distressing to his family and friends but to his fire family and the town employees who all loved Peter dearly. Yes, there are lessons to be learned here but we don’t need to be tortured over and over.

Everyone can point fingers all they want but sadly it was a tragic accident in my opinion, and sadly seems to me Peter broke standard procedures of working on large apparatus by not properly chocking and cribbing the wheels on that truck.

Even if, as being reported, the town didn’t have that rule in place Peter would have known that as the former chief and assistant chief of the fire company who was in charge of the fire trucks that are as big if not bigger than the town trucks.

What’s also sad is these guys in our small towns work so hard to save their fellow town residents money by working on these trucks where larger towns have these trucks towed in for service at the cost of the tow and over $200 an hour to work on them and hardly anyone appreciates what they do for the towns.

As far as the six energy violations, in my opinion, they had nothing to do with the truck falling on Peter.

As every heavy-duty equipment worker knows, the rules and regulations are in place to keep you protected and make sure you go home at the end of the day alive to your family.

All of those rules and regulations that were violated should have been in place long before Randy Bashwinger won the election and took over the position as the town of Berne highway superintendent (or before Sean Lyons was elected as supervisor for that matter).

As having worked in the same type of occupations as Peter, as a fireman and diesel mechanic for 40 years, I know safety is the first thing you learn. When I was promoted to foreman/supervisor in the railroad diesel shop, safety rules are always in place and it is the workman’s responsibility to know what procedures to follow in whatever job he is assigned.

Shortcuts do happen and sadly in this case, proved fatal.

As the foreman, I had 20 guys working for me spread out over 50,000 square feet and there was no way for me to watch their every move, nor is it even remotely possible for Bashwinger to watch every move of the town employees as they could be, and most days are, spread out all over the town of Berne, which is 64.80 square miles, so in my opinion to blame Bashwinger for not being on the scene is absurd. 

As a foreman, my job was to get the paperwork done, assign jobs, make sure work was done, order parts as needed for the jobs being done and make sure the work was done. I would equate Bashwinger’s job as very comparable.

I was a scheduled salary employee but according to the Association of Towns, the highway superintendent can work what hours he deems necessary to get the work done and is not assigned working hours. Personally knowing some of the men who work under Bashwinger, they told me that Bashwinger works as hard as they do and puts in many more hours than they do.

Bashwinger goes out in the middle of the night and checks the town roads before calling in the workers on overtime, which the residents have to pay for, to make sure it is justified, and the public is safe. Every one of the town highway employees I know respect him highly. 

And just one comment on the complaint of the person who drove around the “road closed” sign as she originally said it was a “shortcut” for her, but in my opinion, it’s a free country and people are free to be stupid, for which the town superintendent is not accountable.  

Maybe it’s time for all the finger-pointing residents of the town of Berne to vote to pay to employ more town highway employees, or use their time to volunteer instead of complain, and train to work for the town as flaggers and safety watchers for jobs.  

Richard Filkins

Westerlo

Editor’s note: Richard Filkins is a Republican Westerlo councilman.