The latest revelations of the Davis firefighters taking out their anger at the Vanguard on a struggling local business, Westlake Market, is a reminder of a much larger issue – that of a pattern of abuse of union power and misconduct on the part of the Davis firefighters.
The latter was covered thoroughly by the local media, but for all the salaciousness of the drunken firefighters sleeping it off at the local station, it was perhaps a very minor point of a much more serious string of misconduct.
In January 2009, the council majority of Ruth Asmundson, Don Saylor and Stephen Souza voted to prevent the full viewing by the council of the follow-up investigation by City of Davis Ombudsman Robert Aaronson. Sue Greenwald and Lamar Heystek voted to allow the council to view the entire report.
Instead, then-City Manager Bill Emlen, with the consent of the council majority, allowed the council in private to read a heavily-redacted version of the report, but not keep it. At the same time, the public and the press received a synopsis of the report authored by Bill Emlen, omitting many of the facts and findings. Only later in February 2009, a month after the council meeting, did the Vanguard, due to its Public Records Act request, get a version of the report which is even more heavily redacted than the one that the council had previously read.
As a result, the findings of Mr. Aaronson’s report, both the full version which council did not read and the heavily-redacted version that they did read, were swept under the rug and the public was not well-informed. To make matters worse, city staff deliberately chose to schedule this important issue on the council agenda to come up late at night. Therefore, by design this matter was not taken up by city staff and the council until 1:30 a.m., by which time many councilmembers were clearly too tired to properly think and ask critical questions, and the public was not watching.
The Vanguard has always viewed this failure of disclosure as an abuse itself – an abuse of public process and the right of the citizens and their representatives to be fully aware of all of the facts. That the three members of council who voted not to read the entire report received tens of thousands in campaign contributions from the firefighters union only further tainted this process.
More than two and a half years after that 2 a.m. decision by the council, the Vanguard has not given up, and has now received a less-redacted version. In light of new allegations of wrongdoing against the Davis Firefighter’s Union President and Fire Captain Bobby Weist, it seems like a good time to again highlight some of the misconduct that was buried in the recent past.
As we mentioned, much was made of some firefighters sleeping in stations when they were off-duty and intoxicated. While it looks bad to allow intoxicated individuals to sleep in public facilities, it is clearly better than being drunk and driving on the road.
The bigger issue was the by-product of drinking, where Mr. Aaronson noted: “There was a clear perception amongst Davis police officers that drunken off-duty firefighters were a small, but visible presence downtown some evenings. On occasion, they presented enforcement issues to the officers.”
Mr. Aaronson’s report references three known incidents, one in which he described the firefighters as blameless and attempting to prevent a third party from being injured, with the other two more serious.
The third instance is a matter of some concern, though Mr. Aaronson takes care to thinly veil the incident. Information that was newly un-redacted shows that in that incident there was what Mr. Aaronson believed “may” have been a felony assault committed by an off-duty firefighter who was intoxicated and involved in a barroom disturbance.
A previous version sanitized this incident, redacting the phrase “felony assault.”
He noted that the matter was never forwarded to the district attorney, citing a lack of cooperation from the victim. Based on the report, he believed that the matter should have both been followed up more vigorously by the police department and forwarded to the fire chief for an internal review.
Based on his description, it seems that this was a matter that was not appropriately handled by those in charge. This is bolstered by Mr. Aaronson’s observation that “police officers perceive that off-duty intoxicated firefighters have received preferential treatment by the police department.”
Those inclined to defend the conduct of the firefighters will undoubtedly point to the relatively few incidents as evidence that they were isolated events and that all organizations will have those who commit transgressions.
Indeed, this would mark but a footnote if there were not a pattern of overall abuses from members of the Davis Firefighters Union, whether it be in the form of off-duty excesses that were improperly dealt with, complaints about a rigged promotional process, or a hostile work environment in which people feared retaliation.
Indeed, in closing, Mr. Aaronson even noted “an abiding concern” that members of the Davis Fire Department would be subject to “workplace harassment/retaliation” for their cooperation in this investigation.
He based this conclusion on the fact that “the discontented employees who voluntarily interviewed with me all expressed fears of retaliation from the Chief and union loyalists if the substance of their interviews were divulged.”
The fear is not necessarily just overt retaliation, but a social stigma for dissent.
Wrote Mr. Aaronson, “As one union dissenter admitted, he’d been called names and confronted in connection with speaking out, but he did not consider any of it retaliation or harassment.”
He added: “Speaking out against the union means ‘you definitely lose a lot of friends.’ ” And he then noted: “The same firefighter clarified that any retaliation would be limited to ostracism, despite the fact that a couple of union members are perceived to be ‘enforcers’ for the board.”
If the tactics are subtle, the points of them are still not lost.
The Vanguard over the last several years has published much on the preferential treatment that the firefighters union may have received during multiple processes of collective bargaining, as the result of the efforts by the firefighters to bundle cash contributions in an effort to avoid the city’s $100 campaign finance laws and exert a disproportionate influence.
The issue of the union “hours bank” has come back up recently – and in many ways it represents the most stark example that exists nowhere else in government, of union excesses that directly financially benefit Union President Bobby Weist and a few of his associates.
No other department or bargaining unit gets paid money to organize and train.
According to the MOU with the fire department, “The purpose of this Union Hour Bank is solely to provide educational training and development opportunities to Union members and should not involve conducting or participating in other agencies’ unions activities.”
But the lack of any oversight means that Bobby Weist and his associates could potentially be paid for an entire array of activities well outside the stated purview.
By agreement, the City deposits 24 hours per year per firefighter into this fund, which amounts to about 1,080.
Some have suggested this is a small amount of time and money. But if one looks at the distribution of that time and those hours, one recognizes a considerable problem.
The Vanguard has not updated its data since its 2009 report on the matter, but at that time, Union President Bobby Weist utilized 724 hours from 2004 to 2008. His assistant union leader, fellow Fire Captain Emily Lo, received another 321 hours.
We are talking about the union leadership getting over 1000 hours of time over a five-year period. As the city acknowledged in their records request, they do not keep track of what city purpose or benefit to the taxpayers this served. We are talking about over $100,000 in city money going to two individuals for purposes that are completely untracked. Overall, nearly $200,000 went to all firefighters for this purpose.
As Mr. Aaronson wrote in his report, “The union does not maintain records of how these hours are utilized and the City has never requested an accounting from it.”
To add to the excesses of Mr. Weist, Mr. Aaronson reported that, on top of receiving his hourly salary, overtime payments and union bank hour payments, Mr. Weist also received a union salary paid out of union dues, as a stipend.
Mr. Aaronson estimated that the latter amount is in the “low five figures.”
He wrote, “The union ultimately voted to give it to him, but only after a dispute triggered by the board’s insistence that the voting be by a show of hands and not a secret ballot.”
Mr. Aaronson later noted, “There is a perception amongst some firefighters that Chief Conroy has been one of the beneficiaries of the union’s dues and hours, in connection with her attendance at professional conferences. Chief Conroy categorically denied this to me.”
“Based on her undisputed reputation for extreme ethical integrity, I credit her denial. But this is an example of the price the union (and the Chief) pays for the union’s lack of transparency in the details of how its assets are used,” he concludes.
Mr. Aaronson no doubt understates the significance of this lack of transparency, but it creates an overall picture of the union acting with impunity, having no one to tell them no.
But things have clearly changed since the days of this Grand Jury report. Gone is a city manager that allowed this report to be buried, gone is the fire chief for whom the union machinery was oriented toward serving and upholding. Gone too is a complicit council, willing to look the other way and avoid taking strong action when these abuses come to light.
Stripping away these layers of protection exposes the firefighters union in ways it has never previously been exposed.
However, recent examples, particularly the boycott of Westlake Market, make it clear that a continued trend of abuses and retaliation has not abated.
The matter is now one for the city council, with four of its members no longer currently bought and paid for, to address. The Westlake boycott demonstrates that the firefighters still believe they can do anything they want, and as Bobby Weist has told many people, “We run this town.”
The time has come for the council and good citizens of this community to show them otherwise.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote][i]”But things have clearly changed since the days of this Grand Jury report…Gone too is a complicit council, willing to look the other way and avoid taking strong action when these abuses come to light….as Bobby Weist has told many people ‘we run this town’. The time has come for the council and good citizens of this community to show them otherwise.”[/i][/quote] A few questions to help us see how just how much things have changed:
1. Has the new mayor instructed the city staff to provide the city council unredacted copies so they’ll know what they’re (supposed to be) dealing with? What has the acting or new city manager provided?
2. Where can we download a copy of the versions you’ve received via FOIA requests?
3. Where can we see the emails, official responses, etc. associated with the latest firefighter misconduct and how it’s been handled by city officials.
4. What new instructions, policies, etc. have been issued about the matters detailed in the 2008 Grand Jury Report and the Aaronson report?
5. Where can we/you find a copy of the revised format for reporting “union bank” charges, assuming there’s been plenty of time since the abuses were made public to get a handle on the reporting flaws? (Is the council satisfied that city’s purpose in establishing the “union bank” is being honored by the firefighters who earn and charge the hours? If not, should it be eliminated during the next round of negotiations?)
6. Has the mayor continued to refuse comment on how he plans to improve the management practices and oversight problems that allowed spending tax money to support the grocery store boycott? If you’re still being shuffled off to Harriet to obfuscate the matter, has she enlightened you about how the city intends to keep this waste and corruption from continuing at the firehouse?
7. Has the council committed to conditions of employment for the new chief that might advance the cause rather than fight it? For example, is even possible we’d unknowingly hire a fire chief who’d publicly argue against moving to three-person crews? Who is working on this stuff before screening gets underway with applicants?
Since you’ve much more informed than most everyone else (maybe more than the council?), I know you have your own Top Ten list of ways to measure progress. What might they be?
Excellent questions, unfortunately I don’t know the answer to all of them.
1. I’m not privy to that information, but perhaps Mayor Krovoza can answer that question
2. I will upload them this weekend
3. I don’t know
4. I don’t know – we should follow up on the City’s response to the GJR
5. I’ll have to request them again
6. I’m working on this
7. That is an interesting question.
In terms of progress, there is internal stuff that needs to be handled properly, the resolution of the boycott issue is important, three men units is even more crucial. I’ll try to flesh this out more in a few days. Today’s really busy.
Great, thanks. I feel better knowing someone cares about this and is keeping it from getting buried in the bowels of City Hall for decades to come.
As you imply, the firefighters will find out soon enough by responses to these new issues whether they still “own Davis,” or, more accurately, whether they still own the Davis City Council.
Nice work!
Under Bobby Weist’s 20 year union rule the Davis Firefighters are unlike any other city employee bargaining group. They gorge on the public dime and are at the top of the list of reasons why our city is on the verge of becoming insolvent in future years due to their excessive, unaffordable and unsustainable salaries and benefits together with an early retirement formula – 3% of their final yearly salaries multiplied every year accrued and eligible at age 50. Couple that with a decade of weak city management and firefighter bought council members who agreed to exorbitant raises the city treasury has been given away to them and placed our town in financial peril. Weist & Company have worked the political system to their advantage becoming a protected class of employees (and in some cases scoundrels) at the expense of other city workers (upper management excluded) who work for modest incomes and retirements. Because of Weist & his cronies the citizens of Davis are stuck with diminishing city services and increasing local tax burdens.
Dear Concerned Citizen: The “scoundrels” should include, Ruth Asmundson, Don Saylor and Stephen Souza, no?
THE WORLD WILL END BECAUSE OF FIREFIGHTERS ?
WHAT WORLD ARE YOU LIVING IN ?
WACHTOUT PEOPLE THEY LIVE AMONGST US .
THIS DEAD HORSE NEEDS ” CPR ” , david give it a try .
[quote]The matter is now one for the city council, with its [u][b]four[/b][/u] members not currently bought and paid for, to address. [/quote]David, are you saying that one current member IS ‘bought and paid for’?
[quote][b]GreenandGolden[/b]
Dear Concerned Citizen: The “scoundrels” should include, Ruth Asmundson, Don Saylor and Stephen Souza, no?[/quote]
Indeed. Because of Weist & his cronies (i.e. Asmundson, Saylor, Souza, Bill Emlen and Paul Navazio) the citizens of Davis are stuck with unaffordable labor contracts, unfunded liabilities, diminishing city services and increasing local tax burdens.
[quote][b]Avatar[/b]
THE WORLD WILL END BECAUSE OF FIREFIGHTERS ?
WHAT WORLD ARE YOU LIVING IN ?
WACHTOUT PEOPLE THEY LIVE AMONGST US .
THIS DEAD HORSE NEEDS ” CPR ” , david give it a try [/quote]
To the alter ego Avatar. We live in the real world Bobby – one in which there is a finite amount of municipal revenue. Over the past decade you, the firefighters and your cronies have eaten up an ever growing share of a diminishing city treasury to the detriment of other city employees and the community. Along the way you have shown yourself to be a myopic glutton, a whiner, always casting yourself as a “victim.” Some victim – your gravy train is coming to an end.
I say only 3 person teams on fire trucks NOW!
Rusty… to clarify… you recommend layoffs immediately?
If that’s what it takes.
Well, unless we pay folks to sit around the stations when they are not needed to respond, that appears to be what it takes… there are no savings if the fourth person stays behind to watch Oprah, Days of Our Lives, Jeopardy, NCIS, etc.
Remember that the 3% at 50 pensions were first adopted by 5/0s by Wagstaff, Boyd, Harrington, Greenwald, and Freeman. Say what we will about misleading information, bad negotiating process, overly rosy assumptions from the financial people who made money off the calculations and selling products, but the fact is that the five of us went along with Grey Davis’ madness, as did many, if not most, jurisdictions in California.
Later CC piled on, and really gave away the farm, but it started in 2000.
Reading about Davis firefighter transgressions reminds me of Lord Acton’s comment: [quote]Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.[/quote] This appears spot on to apply to Bobby Weist, the Davis firefighters and their cronies.
What has occurred due to a corrupting influence of campaign contributions and other political favors given to former council members Asmundson and Saylor and current councilmember Stephen Souza as well as other local politicians is the opportunity in turn for Weist to demand and receive huge contracts and favors, enriching himself and his close union buddies with extra goodies like “union bank hours” and protection and cover from inappropriate conduct and corruption, both on and off duty.
City management and the favored politicians never said no to Bobby and the firefighters. This is no doubt why Bobby Weist says “We run this town.”
A few days ago I saw a handful of Westlake boycotters aka Davis firefighters–wearing their uniforms–carrying union signs, which identified them as members of Local 3494, asking passing drivers for money for a food bank.
Obviously, I have no problem with anyone doing charitable work on their own time. However, because these boycotters aka firefighters were in uniform, I have to wonder if they were not on the clock? Or perhaps Weist was assigning them to overtime duty, using up some of their Union Bank hours? In other words, perhaps they were being paid $75 per hour* by the taxpayers of Davis to raise $20 an hour for the poor?
If they were on the clock doing charitable work, they need to repay any money the taxpayers gave them for the hours they were doing that.
If they were completely off the clock and doing asking for money from passersby, I think they deserve to be suspended by Chief Weisgerber for abusing the privelege of their uniforms. It is completely unethical, when they are [i]promoting the cause of their union[/i]–that is why Weist had them hold up signs which said they were in Local 3494–to be doing so in the uniforms that represent the City of Davis Fire Department. (And further, those uniforms are paid for by the taxpayers.)
*Including pension and other benefits.
[i]”Well, unless we pay folks to sit around the stations when they are not needed to respond, that appears to be what it takes… there are no savings if the fourth person stays behind to watch Oprah, Days of Our Lives, Jeopardy, NCIS, etc.”[/i]
HP, if we go back to 3 on a truck and a 4th guy shows up at his fire station and wants to watch TV when the others go out on a call, that won’t cost us anything. He won’t be on the clock. He could make as much money sitting at his house in Elk Grove or San Jose or Redding and watch TV.
The fact is, once we implement a 3 on a truck staffig model, the Chief only needs to schedule 3 people per truck per shift.
The real question is: do we lay off 9 firefighters in order to avoid the costs of their benefits?
My own preference–going back almost 5 years now, when I first recommended that the DFD revert to the old 3 men on a truck staffing model–was to not lay off anyone. But because of the dire financial shape the city is now in 5 years later, that option is closed. We are going to go back to 3 on a truck. We are going to lay off 25% of our firefighters (though no captains). It is just a matter of how soon.
And it really does not matter what the opinion of Chief Weisgerber or Citygate is. It matters that without this cost savings, our City is going bankrupt.
[quote][i]”…but the fact is that the five of us went along with Grey Davis’ madness, as did many, if not most, jurisdictions in California. Later CC piled on, and really gave away the farm, but it started in 2000.”[/i][/quote]It’s so great to come across a thoughtful, serious post from you, I can’t let it pass without some positive acknowledgement. There’s got to be something honorable in making a special effort to claim partial responsibility for putting Davis enroute to bankruptcy.
I don’t mean to be all psychoanalytic about this, but is it possibly you and Sue are water compensating for your earlier fire judgement errors? It seems so elemental.
What was Grey Davis’ “madness,” and why was it so catching at the time? Were you still in the picture when municipalities started curing themselves, and, if so, why didn’t Davis return to smaller crews back then?
Ditto to JustSaying above. Mr. Harrington deserves credit for acknowledging his role in the debacle. Again, it is foolish to blame a union leader for getting a good deal for his members–that’s his job. The problem is not a union leader asking for more–it is a politician who can’t say “No.”
[quote]1. Has the new mayor instructed the city staff to provide the city council unredacted copies so they’ll know what they’re (supposed to be) dealing with? What has the acting or new city manager provided? — [b]Just Saying[/b][/quote]Just saying: We have a weak mayor system. The mayor only chairs the meetings, serves as ceremonial head, and helps with the agenda preparation. The mayor has no additional extra authority.
I don’t believe that the mayor can “instruct” the city manager regarding what should be redacted and what should not be redacted. If the mayor or any other councilmember thinks that an unredacted version of the report should be made available, that councilmember can ask that the item be put on the long-range calendar. This is usually done in open session during the discussion of the long-range calendar. Then, the council as a whole in consultation with the city manager and city attorney would, at a publicly noticed closed or open session, decide whether changes should be made regarding redaction of the report.
[b]Mike Harrington[/b]:
This is true. At the time, PERS and the finance director said that 3% at 50 was completely sustainable. I felt that it was quite dangerous for men and women over 50 to wear hot firefighter gear and do strenuous work in our 100+ degree weather. I think heart attacks under these conditions is a real danger.
However, people who choose retire at 50 should prepare for a second career, as many firefighters that I know do. I was assured that the costs of the early retirement would be picked up by salary concessions.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. A few years later when the next contract negotiations came around, the firefighters asked for a salary increase of about 36%, even though, during the interim, PERS reversed themselves and revealed that 3% at 50 would cost far, far more than they had estimated.
I argued vigorously against this increase. I did not get the firefighers’ endorsement in the next election.
“Again, it is foolish to blame a union leader for getting a good deal for his members–that’s his job. “
While true on its face, there are ends and means at stake here as well. The tactics that the report lays out, really, shows that there is substantial blame that needs to go the way of the firefighters.
[quote]We are going to go back to 3 on a truck. We are going to lay off 25% of our firefighters (though no captains). It is just a matter of how soon. [/quote]You speak directly… I respect that. Rusty did not speak directly as to whether he was filling to call for layoffs.
[quote]Has the mayor continued to refuse comment on how he plans to improve the management practices and oversight problems that allowed spending tax money to support the grocery store boycott? — [b]Just Saying[/b][/quote]Again, we do not have a strong mayor system. We are a general law city without a directly elected mayor. All councilmembers have equal authority and equal responsibility. Policy is made by majority decision.
If there are any problems with management and oversight that are not being corrected by the city manager, we are all equally to blame.
Rich
This is an interesting point that you are making about uniformed firefighters, on or off the clock soliciting for charity.
It brought to mind for me uniformed firefighters, apparently on the job outside one of their stations soliciting for the first responders survivors fund immediately after 9/11. I gave them contributions because it felt like the right thing to do. I never thought about the Sacramento taxpayers inadvertently supporting their efforts. Your thoughts about this ?
Just Saying Said: “It’s so great to come across a thoughtful, serious post from you”
Nearly all are. I think it’s plenty serious when I try to get a public vote on what is going to be at least (with the usual cost overruns for large projects) a $500,000,000 suck of cash out of the wallets of Davis and Woodland residents. Wouldnt you agree that is some serious cash, indeed?
[i]”Again, it is foolish to blame a union leader for getting a good deal for his members–that’s his job. The problem is not a union leader asking for more–it is a politician who can’t say “No.”[/i]
This used to be my opinion, as well. I do think most of the problems in our labor contracts need to be blamed on the members of the Council (going back well before Harrington or Greenwald were first elected) who failed to properly represent the taxpayers.
That said, the fire union (Local 3494) has done everything possible to be a corrupting influence in our elections. It is illegal for the union to hand over $4,600 to a candidate for city council as a union. So Weist and Lo and their lackeys hand over $100 each, 46 times. Just a coincidence that they all agree on how much to give and whom to give it to? Obviously not. (I have been told in person by former firefighters how much pressure Weist puts on those who didn’t want to give money to his candidates. But because of the power Weist wields, they all buckle eventually.)
It should also be said that part of the blame lies with the voters, who have (up until the 2010 race) not seemed to care if the candidates were acting ethically in accepting thousands of dollars from the fire union, and then weeks later turning around and voting for a huge raise for the firefighters, voting for union bank hours, voting for the richest medical plan for members of Local 3494 (more expensive per person than all the other bargaining grous), voting for an unaffordable pension plan, 3% at 50 and voting against implementing a more modest 2% at 55 plan, etc., etc. Don Saylor has taken more money from the firefighters than anyone else who ever ran for city council. He did more to pay them back than any member of the city council. I used to run into Don at City Hall, when he was wearing a DFD t-shirt in the company of firefighters. Yet when Don ran for council, or later ran for YC supervisor, the voters overwhelmingly approved him. So at some point one has to blame the voters for their bad votes.
[i]”I never thought about [u]the Sacramento taxpayers[/u] inadvertently supporting their efforts. Your thoughts about this?”[i]
I’m not sure I know what you mean here by “the Sacramento taxpayers.” It is the taxes — regular sales tax, special 1% sales tax, property tax, transient occupancy tax, parks tax, public safety tax, etc. — paid by people in Davis which pays the costs of our fire department*.
As to the collections after 9/11 … I never understood them. The union firefighters in New York who were killed or injured on 9-11 got full medical and death benefits. Each surviving widow got her spouse’s pension benefits and life insurance benefits. Also, the federal government (aka the taxpayers) gave huge amounts for other dependent benefits, like scholarships, and everyone who was killed or injured (including first responders) qualified for other direct cash benefits which were agreed upon to make sure the airlines did not go broke defending themselves from lawsuits.
As such, my sense was that they firefighters in towns like Davis after 9/11 were just exploiting the goodwill of people who wanted to help. I think the people of Davis at that time would have done more good contributing to the Davis Community Clinic or STEAC or the emergency shelter or giving money or clothing or other goods of use to organizations which do good locally, like the Salvation Army or Goodwill.
*The only exception I know about in this regard is sometimes the federal government will partially fund major equipment purchases for a new fire truck or something else very expensive.
[i]”The only exception I know about in this regard is sometimes the federal government will partially fund major equipment purchases for a new fire truck or something else very expensive.”[/i]
I would be shocked, by the way, if this was not the direct result of the companies which manufacture fire equipment and fire trucks bribing the Congressmen they need to bribe. I assume you know how American “democracy” works: the manufacturers form a lobby; the lobby raises millions of dollars; the lobby gives maximum donations to the chair and ranking member on the Appropriations committees; the lobby gives maximum amounts to members in whose districts the trucks and so on are built; the members who get the money (save those who are in very competitive districts) funnel the money to the leaders in their party, especially committee chairs; and then the “will of the people” is accomplished when the Appropriations bill includes a clause saying that the feds will match funds (50-50) with local governments who are in need of this new fire equipment or that. (If a manufacturer does not go along, the description of what qualifies for matching funds and what does not will almost certainly exclude the products of the free-rider.) … In case this needs more explanation, the reason the manufacturers want this subsidy is largely because it allows cities like Davis to replace their perfectly adequate fire trucks in 7 years instead of 12 or 15. That rapid turnover makes a lot more profits for the companies. And the Congressmen who have these truck builders in their districts get to ride on a fire truck in a parade, bragging that they brought home the jobs for the workers in their districts.
Thanks for the “weak mayor” reminder. Who is responsible for [u]deciding[/u] the agenda? If the mayor “helps with the agenda preparation,” what would it take for Mayor Krovoza to agendize an item on, say, “union bank policy review: existing procedures and historical use”? What would it take for him to assure that each of you gets an unredacted copies of related personnel documents and relevant reports such as Aaronson’s?
If “the mayor has no additional extra authority” (above that of any council member?), that suggests he’ll need two more votes to get the tiniest thing accomplished (and he’ll be unable have confidence that the votes are available ahead of time thanks to the Brown Act).
Once those hurdles are overcome, where does the city manager’s authority rest in questions, for example of whether the council gets unredacted documents? Does the city attorney make any calls or just e
Some of us may be a little more critical of the council’s role than we should be due to inadequate appreciation for the power realities you describe. It looks as though anyone with the ability to plan ahead, get organized and develop convincing materials has more than a fair chance to have their way with the mayor and the rest of our council. That could include employe groups, developers, utilities and others with business interests with city government, even well-managed non-profits.
The problem is that that the union hours bank is part of the MOU, so until it is negotiated out, there is not much the council can do policy wise.
[b]JustSaying[/b]:It’s a slightly awkward system, especially with the Brown Act forbidding us from talking with each other about council items outside of the open session meetings. There is no specific direction as to what happens if the mayor and city manager disagree about the agenda. Usually, the city manager and mayor or working within the confines of the long-range calendar, which we all discuss.
The easiest thing to do is for the mayor or anyone else to ask for council support to put an item on the agenda. If there isn’t majority support for this, then every councilmember including the mayor can put an item on the agenda as “item submitting by councilmember”.
The only time we really run into trouble is if the issue is time-sensitive.
[i]”… so until it is negotiated out [b]… or until the council imposes new terms on the firefighters which do no include union bank hours …[/b] there is not much the council can do policy wise.”[/i]
Fixed.
It should be noted that the firefighters have no power to resist the imposition of terms. A strike or even a sick-out by them is statutorily illegal. Such job actions, in a number of California cities, have been deemed just cause for mass sackings.
… I doubt our police force is stupid enough to try any such tactics, but case law (though not statutory law) also prohibits them from striking if they don’t like their contract.
[img]http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/11/1/1288642474134/Firefighters-in-Euston-go-006.jpg[/img]
[i]Just Saying Said: “It’s so great to come across a thoughtful, serious post from you”
Nearly all are. I think it’s plenty serious when I try to get a public vote on what is going to be at least (with the usual cost overruns for large projects) a $500,000,000 suck of cash out of the wallets of Davis and Woodland residents. Wouldnt you agree that is some serious cash, indeed? [/i]
A thoughtful post is objective and fact-based. Most of what we’ve seen from you is histrionics. Most of us value facts and logic, and post accordingly. Unfortunately, you aren’t part of that group so we just dismiss your posts as the stuff from the floor of a bull-filled barn.
[quote][i]”I was assured that the costs of the early retirement would be picked up by salary concessions. Unfortunately, that was not the case.”[/i][/quote]Who was it who gave you assurances it was an even trade? It must have been a discouraging surprise when the planned “salary concessions” turned into massive pay increases at a time when everyone had learned the move would be financially unsustainable.[i][quote]”I felt that it was quite dangerous for men and women over 50 to wear hot firefighter gear and do strenuous work in our 100+ degree weather. I think heart attacks under these conditions is a real danger.” [/quote][/i]Was this was the council’s rationale for supporting a 3% at 50 plan or just the thing that tipped your personal vote? Who was it who gave you assurances that the Davis firefighting environment invites unnecessary heart attack risk at 50 vs. 55?
I don’t think that there should be second thoughts about policies that save our firefighters’ lives (by pushing them generously to retire early) just because it didn’t turn out to be the “free” council decision you’d expected. More important is the “science” used to establish the high heart attack rate that drove the decision. Or was there some terrible, real world experience that justified the call for Davis even if there wasn’t an overwhelming statistical basis for it.
So, Sue, how did the city’s good intentions work out in practice? Have we ended up with a Davis firefighting corps that no longer has anyone over 50 years old in the force? If so, you should be pleased with your life=saving decision regardless of the cost.
Another statistics question that now intrigues me is what percentage of the force lives in the town they serve and protect? We excuse most city employes because their low incomes don’t permit them to buy or rent here, right. I get the impression that members of the firefighters’ union are at least as well off as most of us who live in town.
If not, maybe we could redirect our failing affordable housing programs toward them–at least, we know they’ve got a steady income and they’re capable of meeting the financial requirements that have undone many of our outer affordable tenants.
[i]”I was assured that the costs of the early retirement would be picked up by salary concessions. Unfortunately, that was not the case.”[/i]
I don’t want to make it seem like I am piling on, because this happened a long time ago, because what matters is what we do from here forward, and because I truly believe the members of that council Harrington was on were victims of a con-job** by CalPERS. But what Mike H. says in his defense is not correct (though perhaps what he intended to say was different from what he said).
The truth is almost exactly the opposite: it was not the case that “the costs of the early retirement would be picked up by salary concessions,” but rather that the costs of early retirement to the firefighters and to the police officers would be picked up by substantially higher salaries, right away.
How did that work? The big added expense for 3% at 50 (up from 2% at 55) was [u]the 9% of salary that employees on this plan had to pay in[/u]. So what the CC did in 2000 for fire and in 2001 for police was [i]to increase the base pay rate for those moving up to 3% at 5[/i]. Then on top of that, each of those bargaining units was given a big COLA.
That made this enhanced retirement program extremely expensive right off the bat for the people of Davis. (The CC raised taxes immediately thereafter to cover these added costs.) But perhaps even worse, it made the unfunded retiree medical benefit, which they already had in their contracts, 2 to 3 times as costly, because now firefighters and cops started “retiring” five years younger, and that difference was huge when it came to the costs of medical, as all of it was pre-Medicare and a large share of these young “retirees” (most of whom started earning a new wage and new pension with a non-PERS agency) had wife and a child on their plans or no wife but 2 kids. It is really eye-popping to notice the difference in costs for the taxpayers of Davis between a 52 year old “retiree” and an 82 year old retiree. The latter has no kids, gets Medicare to pay half his bill and often has no dependent spousal benefits.
**Part of the con-job gullible city council members bought into was the reduction in the “employer contribution rates.” The reason that was possible was because of the dot-com bubble. CalPERS was making super-normal returns on its investments. As such, it was able for a couple of years, when it and its unions were selling enhanced retirements, to charge agencies like Davis nothing for the employer contributions. (Keep in mind that the stock market was way down in 2001. But there is a 2 year delay in how PERS sets rates. So that was swept under the rug when the DCC gave the enhanced retirement to the DPOA.) Once tht bubble burst, employer contribution rates had to rise a bit (two years later). Once returns on investment for the PERS fund fell well below their needed 7.75%, the system became unsustainable without massive increases in employer contribution rates. Those rates are still skyrocketting. In 2013-14, the rates will go up massively to 30.3% for the employer contribution rate for safety. Keep in mind this was 0% a decade ago. So for the $100,000 per year fire captain, it will cost us $30,300 a year more to fund his pension than it cost us 10 years back.
[i]”So what the CC did in 2000 for fire and in 2001 for police was to increase the base pay rate for those moving up to 3% at 5. Then on top of that, each of those bargaining units was given a big COLA.”[/i]
I did not make that clear: what the CC did in 2000 for fire and in 2001 for police was to increase the base pay rate [b]by more than 9%[/b] for those moving up to 3% at 50. In other words, the fact that the safety employees have always paid the employee share is a trick. We raised their salaries by the amount extra they have had to pay in to cover that cost.
So a fire employee who was making $91,000 before the change in 2000 got a raise to $100,000 before going on 3% at 50. He then had to pay $9,000 of that to cover his employee share, which brought his salary back to even. But then the CC gave all of them a COLA, making the taxpayers much, much worse off.
[i]”I felt that it was quite dangerous for men and women over 50 to wear hot firefighter gear and do strenuous work in our 100+ degree weather. I think heart attacks under these conditions is a real danger.” [/i]
Show me any stats to back up this claim. It would be very easy to study. All you have to do is take 1,000 firefighters who work for agencies with a 2% at 55 pension and compare their work-related death and injury rates with 1,000 firefighters whose jobs come with the 3% at 50 pension. I suspect you will find almost no difference.
One of the terrible shames of our encouraging cops to “retire” so young–they don’t really retire, of course; they go to work as deputy sheriffs for Sacramento County or one of the other large counties which is not affiliated with PERS–is that we tend to lose our best investigators. They learn how to really do good police work from age 20 to 50. But from 50 to 65 they can exploit that wisdom to solve crimes or prevent crimes. They don’t need to run the 100 meters in 10 seconds or less. Age calms most people and being calm is a huge asset for a cop when he is interacting with the citizenry. Yet by getting rid of our cops when they are in their primes hurts the effectiveness of our police force. (I should note that I have been told this by a couple of ex-cops in Davis and one ex-police chief confirmed for me that was his view, too.)
When we go back to 2% at 55 and we again have some mature cops on the force, I think a smarter option than having them retiree young would be to retrain them to do other jobs that are less physical for the City of Davis.
Some police and fire retire due to disability. (In fact, that number is a high percentage of safety retiree–35%!) But most are perfectly capable of doing other city jobs, if we gave them some training.
Rich, look at the picture at the to of this page. I think it’s common sense that, on days when the temperature can be well over 100 degrees, this would be dangerous work for older men and women. Look at what they have to wear while doing physically challenging work. Think of the heat.
Obviously, the current system is not working. There are a number of possible solutions.
But are people in their early 50s those people? Did you bring in doctors and other health experts to discuss the issue.
One of the biggest myth perpetrated by the 3 at 50 proponents was the idea that firefighters and police officers due the stress of their jobs did not live as long as other workers, we now know that is false.
Oh, man…I thought there was no crime, corruption, drug abuse, gangs, or other issues of an anthropogenic nature, in the People’s Republic of Davis, where many people beleive they are better than others who happen to reside elsewhere…
[i]”I think it’s common sense that, on days when the temperature can be well over 100 degrees, this would be dangerous work for older men and women. Look at what they have to wear while doing physically challenging work. Think of the heat.”[/i]
I think you are looking at this question illogically. You are right to think that it is more likely that a man in his 50s is more likely to suffer a heart attack than a man in his 40s. That is common sense and it’s backed up by CDC stats.
But the fact is that firefighters in their 50s are no more likely to suffer a heart attack than non-firefighters in the same age range are. As such, the “danger” is not being a firefighter in one’s 50s, the danger is not a handful of days where the temperature in Davis might be over 100 degrees, the danger is just being in one’s 50s. And if that is your standard for retirement, then you should want secretaries and cops and parks maintenance workers and city planners to retire at 50, also. Those other work groups have the same elevated risk of a heart attack after age 50.
Again, if it were the case that the actual job of a firefighter–which in Davis is largely sitting around doing nothing or riding to a medical 911 call and helping out until the ambulance crew arrives and takes over–was in and of itself killing off our firefighters over age 50, then the rate of heart-attacks and/or the death-rate for firefighters would be higher than it is for the general population. Fortunately, it is not.
Further, if you think that a 53 year old man is not physically capable of doing the job of a firefighter–which probably depends mostly on how much effort the individual has put into keeping in shape–then we should have a program in Davis to retrain him for another job, such as a public works laborer or parks maintenance worker or promotions manager, where he can pose for pictures on top of an old-time bicycle.
The worst possible route is to pay millions of dollars for his retirement from the City at age 50.
I should also note that the City Council did not just give the firemen this very early retirement plan. You also voted in favor of it for cops. Yet I have not noticed you arguing that being a cop at age 52 is killing them off due to the heat in Davis. What is the great societal benefit of cops retiring at age 50 with 90% of their pay?
[b]Rich[/b]: I am not saying it was a good decision or the best solution for protecting firefighters’ health. It clearly wasn’t. But given the conditions under which firefighters work, especially in this heat, their health has to be a consideration.
Of course, 3% at 50 was not the solution. This is what happens when you have inexperienced councilmembers; I was inexperienced. I learned pretty quickly not to trust staff and not to rely on the experience of senior councilmembers. I went to PERS seminars, educated myself and learned to trust my own judgment.
I fought against raising the firefighters’ pay by 36% in the next contract, and fought against early retirement for management and PASEA. I fought against the battalion chief plan which would have raised the rank and pay of 10 or 11 firefighters even further, without increasing the number of firefighters. Plan would have cost the city approximately $400,000 more a year. It was narrowly defeated on a split 3/2 vote, with Ruth Asmundson finally providing the swing vote (thanks Ruth).
[i]”I fought against raising the firefighters’ pay by 36% in the next contract, and fought against early retirement for management and PASEA.”[/i]
Are you saying that you voted ‘no’ on the 2005 fire contract? My recollection is that it was a unanimous vote in favor of it. In fact, I think the council unanimously approved all the 2005 and 2006 contracts. I could be wrong. Please let me know.
Also note, that while the firefighters got the biggest raise in the 2005-2006 cycle, most of the other groups got very large salary raises as well. City staff took down those contracts from the city’s website, but my recollection is that the salary raise for the police was well over 20% for their 4-year MOU.
Given that the income to the City normally grows at roughly 3% per year, depending on how much new housing comes on line, any 4-year compounded raise in total comp over 12.55% was unsustainable. And of course, much of the increase in total comp for all employees has been the skyrocketting pension funding costs, the medical benefits costs, the retiree health care costs and other elements outside of base salary.
*The City’s operating tax revenues have grown much slower than 3% per year since 2006.
We are faced with three critical questions regarding the firefighters:
(1.) How to hold them accountable for their misconduct both on and off duty?
(2.) How to reorganize the fire department so it is more efficient and cost effective?
(3.) How to reduce their compensation packages so they are affordable for the Davis taxpayer?
There must be an open discussion and acknowledgement that business as usual with the firefighters can not continue.
On February 27, 2010 the People’s Vanguard of Davis published online [b]“The Truth? They Can’t Handle the Truth. But You Need to Learn the Truth.”[/b] a comprehensive analysis on the collusion between the Davis Firefighter’s Union, Local 3499 with specific city council candidates and city management demonstrating a “pay to play” scheme and influence peddling effort corrupting Davis city government.
[u]https://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3270:vanguard-firefighter-brochure-hits-davis-mailboxes&Itemid=79[/u]
Publication of the analysis resulted after two years of reporting by the Davis Vanguard on the political influence this union had on the city council for over a decade.
According to the analysis [b]“In 2008, the Firefighters gave over $12,000 directly to their candidates: Don Saylor, Steve Souza & Sydney Vergis. Additionally they spent over $8,000 in independent expenditures supporting Saylor, Souza & Vergis.” In total in that one election the firefighters spent $20,000.00 to elect their candidates.[/b]
[b]But a closer look by the analysis shows much more has been paid to their favored candidates in the past decade – nearly $42,000.00. From 2000 through 2008 the firefighters paid out:[/b]
[b]In direct contributions:[/b]
Stephen Souza – $8,100.00
Don Saylor – $7,850.00
Sydney Vergis – $3,800.00
Sue Greenwald – $3,300.00
Ted Puntillo – $1,900.00
Ruth Asmundson – $1,300.00
Joe Boyd – $900.00
Stan Forbes – $800.00
Susie Boyd – $100.00
[b]In indirect independent expenditures:[/b]
Stephen Souza – $3,243.21
Don Saylor – $3,243.21
Sydney Vergis – $2,666.67
Ruth Asmundson – $2,029.20
Mike Levy – $2,029.20
Sue Greenwald – $494.67
Due to the revelations by the Vanguard of the undue political influence by firefighters on previous city council candidates, in [b]2010 candidates Joe Krovoza and Rochelle Swanson rejected efforts by the firefighters to contribute to their respective campaigns. Good for them, as we now have two councilmembers who were elected without firefighter money, maintaining their independence. Any responsible city council candidate in 2012 must do the same.[/b]
To Rich and Sue
I would like to remove at least a little of the speculation from the medical portion of this conversation. In the temperatures that we encounter here in Davis, the more aooropriate concern is about the risk of heat stroke rather than heart attack. According to the Mayo clinic staff report on heat stroke risk, age does affect the body’s ability to cope with extreme heat. However, it is not until age 65 that the central nervous system, which controls temperature regulation, deteriorates to the point where the ability to cope with temperature change becomes compromised.
This does not mean that I favor firefighters performing their full range of duties until 65, but I do believe in evidence based decision making.
To me,this points out the danger of making decisions which have major social and economic consequences without an adequate understanding of the facts, as you both have pointed out. In this case accurate information could have easily been obtained through a phone call to a UCD cardiologist or gerontologist whom I am sure would have been happy to share their expertise and provide their name for free.
Maybe it is time for the Vanguard to reprint “The Truth? They Can’t Handle the Truth. But You Need to Learn the Truth.” In light of the continuing abuses and corruption by the firefighter’s union and their boss Bobby Weist as well as their continuing efforts to strongarm city government the public would surely benefit from another read. Or better yet, an updated version including their recent transgressions.
[quote]Who was it who gave you assurances it was an even trade? It must have been a discouraging surprise when the planned “salary concessions” turned into massive pay increases at a time when everyone had learned the move would be financially unsustainable.–[b]JustSaying[/b][/quote]As I said, the finance director at the time, Karl Mohr, said it was no problem. PERS had told him it was no problem. I think this came up during my first year on the council. I remember clearly, the following year, when Karl looked concerned and muttered something about the 3% at 50 being for more expensive than they had thought, and that projections were dire. Then the property tax from the housing bubble bailed us out.
I wasn’t surprised. I was surprised when all the “experts” said it would be no problem. That is when I learned just how far I had to dig over and above what staff and the experts in the food chain said.
The next contract: The next contract when, the firefighters asked for a 36% increase, was very contentious. I argued vigorously against that contract, and voted against it in closed session. Ted Puntillo was the mayor then. When it came to open session, he waited until I left the room for a bathroom break and he changed the order of the agenda and held the vote and recorded it as unanimous. When I came back, he told me he had done that. I didn’t object; I had lost the vote anyway. I wasn’t thinking of posterity at the time, or politics. The firefighters knew, all right. I never got their endorsement after that contract.
If you want to confirm these events, call Ted Puntillo. He was quite proud of his little maneuver.
Since we don’t record council discussion, I am very careful to record “no” votes now, even though I am often criticized for not being a team player and going along with the majority after it is clear that I have lost.
Sue,
Are you telling me that the City Clerk knowingly participated in holding a vote, you were missing, and recording it as YES? THis makes zero sense to me. It violated many ethics, and CC politicos may huff and puff and game the system, but there is no way that the City Clerk would allow that. Who was the Clerk, and what date for the vote?
I didn’t pay attention to that detail of the minutes. I wish we kept video recordings. It has always bothered me that we don’t take complete minutes; we just record the votes. There should be a more complete record.
medwoman: The question of retirement age and people who do hard physical labor of any kind has always bothered me. It is one thing to sit at a desk and do mentally challenging work until the age of 62 or 65 or 67. It is another thing to do hard physical labor at that age.
Raising the social security age to 67 might make sense for desk workers; it is very, very troubling to me when applied to those who do hard physical labor.
Sue et al,
I’ve long been curious as to why firefighters deserve the pensions they get, as compared to veterans who retire from the military. Our veterans are provided with a retirement plan, generally after 20 years of service, but it is not nearly as lucrative as what cities such as Davis feel compelled to provide. And because the compensation plans for firefighters have been so attractive, there are long waiting lists for positions. For most institutions, that situation would lead to a change in compensation or work conditions.
Adam Smith,
I have been explaining that 3% at 50 is unsustainable for years. I have been making the same arguments that you have. I just think we need to grapple in general, as a society, with the fact that some jobs can be performed by older workers and some can’t, and devise humane but sustainable pension systems that either find less strenuous jobs for older workers in the strenuous fields or allow them to retire somewhat earlier with a reasonable pension that we can afford.
Thanks Sue. I’m glad to know you are thinking about it. I just never see any municipality, including Davis, make and publicize the comparison to military pay and retirement, even though the firemen continually make reference to the danger they encounter and safety they provide.
For those who have not been paying attention, here is how much it has cost the last two years and will cost the next two years to fund the pension of our $100,000 per year firefighters (who get paid to sleep, eat, watch TV, etc.):
2010-11: $31,846
2011-12: $34,907
2012-13: $35,800
2013-14: $39,300
CalPERS has not yet said how much they will charge in 2014-15 or beyond. However, it likely will exceed 40% of salary.
Sue
I am in complete agreement with you that some allowance should be made for the type of work being performed and the physical limitations of the older worker. And in the interest of fairness, I believe that all workers who face similar circumstances, should have similar considerations. Therefore other types of workers subjected to extreme temperatures such as field workers, factory workers, some warehouse workers, etc. should all have these type of protections. What I have not decided is whether it would be better to retrain the older worker, thereby keeping them employed, but taking a job from a younger worker, or if it would be better to allow them to retire early with a pension that provides adequately for them. Your thoughts on that particular balance ?