Concerned, I am going to assume you have some sort of pubilc safety experience.  You seem to have a good sense of the problems with this whole thing.  My question would be, would we ever even think of having our police chief operate under such conditions?  I all ready know the answer, it is no.  So why do we make the fire chief operate under these conditions?  I can't believe any councilmember would ever try to defend this ordinance.  I hope the career staff gets their union involved and seeks the assistance of the other fire department unions in NOVA.  I would also suggest to them they contact the union reps of any volunteer who is career somewhere else and remind them they are career staff and should stay out of this issue in Manassas.  I for one would vote for my departments union to assist the career staff in Manassas with their issue.  It is time the citizens of Manassas know what is going on with this issue and get both sides out.  The chief's only fault is he has been way to accomodating in the whole issue.