Firefighters Get the Boot at Giuliani Rally

CAPE MAY — Approximately 20 professional New Jersey and New York firefighters were asked by a hotel representative to go off site to speak to the press, prior to Republican Presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s public appearance for a speech outside of Congress Hall Hotel here Oct. 1.
The speech was held on the great lawn of Congress Hall, the historic “summer White House.”
The event was billed a “Tribute to Heroes” — a community salute to the courage and sacrifice of police, firefighters and EMS teams. Though members of local squads were in attendance, as well as an estimated 500 supporters and members of the public, Giuliani made no mention of the men in uniform during his ten-minute speech, and focused his remarks on giving political support to state Senatorial candidate Nicholas Asselta (R-1st) and other local Republican candidates.
The event was also a fund-raiser for the Republican party, with patrons reportedly paying close to $1,000 a plate inside the hotel for a brief chance to shake hands with the presidential hopeful.
But at the same time a display stood on an easel near the podium depicting firefighters as heroes, professional firefighters critical of Giuliani were asked not to hold press interviews on the property, only dozens of feet away.
PFANJ President Keith Kemery told The Herald that members of his association, the Professional Firefighters Association of New Jersey (PFANJ), along with members of the New York State Professional Fire Fighters Association (NYSPFFA), attended the event specifically to peacefully and quietly protest Giuliani’s record with regard to firefighters, police and emergency workers, to members of the press and public.
Kemery said his firefighters were not displaying any protest signs; they quietly distributed a press release to members of the media in attendance and stood toward the back of the crowd in order to be available to the press or public, while the crowd waited for Giuliani to arrive.
“We weren’t there long and representatives of the hotel came to say that they don’t want to have any disturbances within Giuliani’s appearance,” said Kemery. “We acknowledged to them ‘Neither do we, we have no problems.’ Then by that time, members of the media who had read our press release began to approach us.”
Kemery said the association’s legislative vice president, George Borek, was conducting an interview with a member of the press in the back of the property, when he was interrupted.
“He was having a private conversation in the back of the property — I would say several hundred feet from the stage area — Mr. George Borek was conducting an interview, and he was approached by a representative of the hotel and advised that he would not be able to conduct a press interview on the site, he would have to leave the property.”
Kemery said Borek did that, he went to the sidewalk, finished the interview, and then returned to the site.
“It wasn’t long that he (Borek) was approached by other members of the media, and another representative from the hotel – I believe it was the same person — said, ‘I told you once, you can’t do that,’ ” Kemery told the Herald.
When Borek responded, “We’re not disturbing anything and we’re not doing anything,” he was ordered to leave, said Kemery.
“At that time, to make sure we didn’t have any further problems, myself being the president of the organization and responsible for all the participants, I approached a police officer and asked him why were we told to leave, and the police sergeant told me, ‘It’s their property they can do what they want.’ ”
After that, at least one other reporter approached Kemery, he said, at which point he told him he’d be happy to talk off the property.
“We conducted a few more interviews on the sidewalk, and then we left. That was approximately 5 p.m.,” he said, although he stated the group left before Giuliani arrived, which was approximately 4:30 p.m.
Patrick Logue, operations manager for the hotel, said he was the one who spoke to the firefighters and that he considered the exchange to be cordial on both sides. He said he approached the group as soon as the first television camera was raised and after the interview was complete spoke to the spokesperson.
“I let him know that we were hosting a private event and I hope there wouldn’t be any conflict. We were hosting a private event,” he said.
Logue said he asked the spokesperson for the firefighters to step off the property on a subsequent interview. He also said the hotel has hosted both Republican and Democratic political events.
Kemery attributes the actions by hotel staff on Oct. 1 to Giuliani, himself, and his staff.
“They obviously knew we were there, we issued the press release,” he said.
“Cape May is not the first time Giuliani has stepped on firefighters’ first amendment rights,” said Kemery. “When the firefighters union in New York City protested the swoop and dump operation of remains, they were arrested at the site of the World Trade Center.”
Kemery was referring to an incident on Nov. 2, 2001 at Ground Zero.
According to a New York Times account, a dozen firefighters at that time were arrested and five police officers were injured in a “brief but emotionally wrenching scuffle” at the World Trade Center site. According to the Times, the two-hour protest concluded outside City Hall with firefighters calling for the ouster of Mayor Giuliani and Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, while demanding the right to retrieve the remains of dead colleagues.
The protest was the culmination of actions taken by the administration that gradually removed control of the site from firefighters — a reduction from 64 to 25 firefighters permitted on the site to recover the remains. Firefighters’ code requires proper disposition of a firefighters’ remains. Instead, said Kemery, firefighters’ remains ended up in the Fresh Kill landfill when the city administration ordered what he refers to as the “swoop and dump” of debris at the site in order to have the site cleared by December, 2001.
Firefighters from the associations accuse Giuliani of not being sensitive enough to the recovery of firefighters remains at Ground Zero; that he ordered the bulldozing operation only after a cache of gold bullion was found at the site while bodies of firefighters and others were still unrecovered; that firefighters’ radios were not working in the towers and the city administration should have known they would fail, as they had failed during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and were never replaced; that because of that radio failure 121 firefighters did not receive the evacuation order that went out prior to the buildings’ collapse; and, that when firefighters protested the bulldozing operation at Ground Zero on Nov. 2, 2001, the administration squelched the protest and firefighters were arrested.
The PFANJ represents approximately 4,000 professional firefighters, emergency management services professionals and members throughout the state. It is the charter state organization of the International Association of Firefighters which has 282,000 members across the United States and Canada.
Contact Avedissian at (609) 886-8600 Ext 27 or at: savedissian@cmcherald.com.