The fire department is receiving 150-thousand dollars in the city's 2007-2008 budget for a traffic light intervention system. Fire Chief Larry Shifflett says that's not enough money to complete the system, but it will be enough to put the transmitters on lights at busy intersections such as Main Street and Route 33.

"But when you're talking about the types of situations that we respond to, seconds are critical," says Chief Larry Shifflett. "Minutes are even more critical but the criticality involves the seconds that you can save not necessarily the minutes you can save in a response."

Shifflett says it would cost half a million dollars to equip all city traffic lights with this system.