If all goes as planned, by the end of the day today, the city could conceivably wrap up lengthy issues involving fire and water. But as we know, things rarely go as planned, and while water has gotten the bulk of the attention with a highly contentious election wrapping up at 8 pm tonight, fire will take center stage this evening before the ballots are all counted.
The firefighters’ union, led by Bobby Weist, their president, have worked hard to drum up support from the community.
The community has been peppered with fliers asking, “Did you know that the City Manager is proposing to reduce staffing/service level of the fire department?” and requesting that the recipients contact the Davis City Councilmembers whose email addresses are provided.
A funny thing happened though, while 20 people as of midday Monday had contacted the city in support of the firefighters union – 12 people contacted the city in support of Interim Chief Scott Kenley’s proposal.
One person wrote the council, “Last week I received an anonymous flyer on my doorstep beginning ‘Did you know that the City Manager is proposing to reduce staffing/service level of the fire department?’ “
The writer noted, “I knew this was being considered, and I think it may make sense for Davis to do this. You all know better, than I, the state of the city’s finances and what choices need to be made. I cannot be at the meeting Tuesday March 5, but I trust you will discuss this and decide to do what seems best for the city.”
Some of the letter writers clearly got their marching orders from Mr. Weist, and many of them had their facts confused.
Writes one this weekend, “Many of us are very, very upset with this former Stockton city manager, Pinkerton even considering cutting or messing with the fire department and police department in our fine City of Davis.”
Mr. Pinkerton, of course, was never city manager at Stockton, but he did work there for a time and Bobby Weist last week referred to him as the city manager from Stockton.
The writer continues, “We need a fire chief, not Mr. Scott Kinley, an unknown [now going to the police department weekly to ‘consult with Mr. Black’] he needs to go back to the law firm he works with.”
One would think you might want to get your facts at least remotely correct before spouting off an angry letter.
But they continue, “We do not need to merge with UCD, Joe Krovoza has almost conflict of interest working for UCD in a apartment complex that is going south, and is in need of a fire house there and wants the City of Davis to help him in saving that complex.”
“We need goals in the fire Dept. to make our fire dept. a class 1 fire house to reduce our insurance rates in our community. We need to work with the Insurance Services Office (ISO), and the Public Protection Classification (PPC) programs. I do not see that listed as goals on any of the staff reports and the recommendations Mr. Kinley writes,” he writes, clearly picking up some technical details. As we noted last week, Davis has a Class 4 insurance rating, a tick below Class 3.
Continuing, he writes, “I may have missed these items, but I have read most all dealings in the fire department issue as hospital administrator I have worked with fire departments and police departments on my disaster and fire plans for 40 years. I built Woodland Memorial Hospital and was the first Administrator for 12 years and without the excellent working relations with that fire house we would not have been so successful.”
“I have talked with many city managers since Mr. Pinkerton has come, he has poor morale with city workers, never visits departments, stays in his office and has an air of ‘hiring consultants to clean house.’ Lets hope we do not turn into a ‘Stockton City!’ he writes and adds, “If you want to cut budget, call me and a few other citizens to sit in on the budget review,[at no charge] and we can start with all the overhead in the CM office, like assistants, consultants, and some with questionable qualifications.”
A retired firefighter, Kevin Kelly, clearly has a vendetta against myself and Rich Rifkin. His subject matter reads: “Please don’t make a short sided decision about your ‘FIRE DEPARTMENT AND THE CITIZENS THEY PROTECT,’ by listening to a blogger & a angry columnist !!!!!!!!!!!!”
“I’m a retired firefighter with 28 years of service with the City of Davis, and have lived in Davis since 1983,” he writes. “I’m e-mailing today to ask you not to cut firefighters. I’ve worked with 3 person engine company and I’ve worked with 4 person. I can tell you first hand the difference one firefighter makes.”
He then gives three examples of where an extra firefighter would help, but he fails to note most of these scenarios would have at least a fourth and fifth firefighter arriving within two minutes of the first unit, maybe sooner with the boundary drop and enhanced cooperation with UC Davis.
He concludes, “By cutting the level of service, you are going against what Davis is all about, a progressive and an innovative city. The population has grown from 46,000 to 65,000 since the 90’s.The number of calls the fire department responded to has gone from around 2,500 to 4,600 annually in that time period. 9 line personnel positions have not been filled in over 5 years. You have a group of well trained, professional firefighters who risk their lives to protect the citizens of your town 24/7.”
On the other side, however, is a retired firefighter for Davis for 33 years.
“It appears to me that many of the issues that have been brought up are incorrect assumptions. There will be no increase in response time of an engine and crew if there is a reduction of staffing since it obviously takes no more time for an engine with three personnel to respond than an engine with four personnel,” he writes.
“The statement that there will be an increase in the frequencies of no available resources is also not legitimate because the issue is how many personnel will be arriving on an engine, not how many engines will be dispatched to a given emergency. Certainly more work can be performed in a given timeframe by 4 persons vs. 3, but the same argument holds true for 5 persons vs. 4, 6 persons vs. 5 etc,” he continues.
“The OSHA regulation often referred to as ‘Two In, Two Out’ has been cited as a reason to continue maintaining a minimum of four person engine companies so that there will be no delay of entry into a burning building and for more efficient use of resources,” he writes and then notes as Scott Kenley did that there are exceptions to the IDLH rule.
He quotes, “If, upon arrival at the scene, firefighters find an imminent life-threatening situation where immediate action may prevent the loss of life or serious injury, such action shall be permitted with less than four firefighters on the scene, when actions are based on appropriate concepts of risk assessment and management.”
The most interesting point, however, follows, “It is widely accepted that the City of Davis Fire Department was the only department in the State of California to implement four person engine companies based solely on the OSHA ‘Two In Two Out’ regulation. And it should also be considered that 70-80% of requests for assistance to a fire department is for emergency medical calls and then there are two ambulance personnel responding.”
He adds, “A look around to surrounding fire departments show that many are operating safely, effectively and efficiently with three person engine companies. Several members of the Davis Fire Department live in these communities and some reside in communities that may have two person companies and they feel that their families and property are safe and they do not feel that they need to move to communities that have higher staffing levels.”
He concludes, “I support the findings and conclusions from Interim Fire Chief Scott Kenley and urge you to continue to adopt the recommendations he proposed. The recommendations are prudent, well thought out and fiscally responsible for our community.”
“In South Davis this is going to be a huge impact to you,” Mr. Weist told one resident at last week’s meeting. “If your house is on fire and we’re not here trying to tell you that if this happens, you’re going to die. We’re not trying to scare anybody or anything.”
But that is what they have done. They have scared a lot of people into writing panicked and ultimately uninformed emails to council.
“As a Davis resident, employee of a small Davis company, and mother of a growing family, I have great concern for the proposed service cuts for our Davis Fire Department,” one resident wrote. “As a North Davis resident, I understand that our response time from the city’s currently staffed fire department time is greater than five minutes, which is one minute too late if oxygen deprivation is the emergency situation. Our residents need a fully staffed fire department to provide quality and safe care in emergency situations, especially when in transition with EMT ambulance services.”
They conclude, “I urge you to look at other cost-saving measures, within all departments, before cutting from any of our public service providers.”
Having panicked and uninformed communications from the public is not helpful for public discourse, and ultimately will not help the firefighters achieve their goals.
The council is clearly going to read most of these comments as either coming from parties that are self-interested or parties that have been presented one side of the story that they do not even fully comprehend.
Last week, Bobby Weist repeatedly said this was not about anything other than their concern for public safety in the Davis Community. But the firefighters want to preserve the status quo completely.
They have been unwilling to take pay cuts, they make a full $1000 a month more than their police counterparts, and have been unwilling to make any concessions at the bargaining table.
If they believe that preserving that extra firefighter is so important, than perhaps they can make a good faith effort to bridge the income gap with police officers to show that they are sincere about this.
Otherwise, this looks a lot like trying to have their cake and eat it too, while scaring the residents with half-truths and distortions.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I don’t understand why the firefighters are singled out, yet other positions at the City of Davis have higher salaries, and less long term health dangers. See previous article re: city salaries. Thank you.
“yet other positions at the City of Davis have higher salaries”
That’s not accurate. The firefighters bargaining unit makes the highest average salary in the city by a large margin. The only positions that make more than firefighters, are upper management in the city and with overtime, there have been times when the highest paid city employees have been rank and file firefighters.
As public safety, they make 3% of their final salary for each year of service and retire at the age of 50.
They are being singled out in part because they used their political organization and money bundling to elect and control the council for about a decade.
And they are being singled out because unlike every other bargaining unit, except DCEA, they have not taken concessions.
Also all of the other bargaining units have taken staffing cuts, reduced hours, etc during the recession and they have not flood city hall with protests and distributed leaflets around the city.
i would like to shake the hand of the second firefighter who wrote an articulate, well thought out letter that I think I would have written had I still lived in the community.
[i]I don’t understand why the firefighters are singled out[/i]
I don’t understand why anyone except someone that directly benefits from the obscene pay and benefits going to our firefighters would ever ask that question. The firefighters have been enjoying a clearly unfair and unsustainable boondoggle for a long time. Those that got in and got theirs are lucky. Now it is time to turn off the crazy show and get back to reality.
And anyone that tries to paint the demand for us to get back to reality with what we are paying our firefighters out to be some anti-firefighter crusade deserves a massive smack down.
FYI, apparently crime in Davis is on the rise. I have heard from several police in town that assaults and property crime have jumped. There is some suspicion that AB 109 is a cause. In any case, I would prefer we stop making millionaires out of firefighters, and pay both police and firefighters a reasonable market-rate for their labor, go to three person fire engines, and hire some more cops. I live in West Davis and I rarely see a police car.
I think that it is correct that a 3 person truck can arrive at the same speed as a 4 person truck. I think that a 4 person truck can respond to as many calls as a 3 person truck. I believe that working with UC Davis an obviously smart thing to do. I would want to continue with a non-union manager of the Fire Department that isn’t best friends with the Union president and has a professional relationship with the employees, so people are meritoriously promoted and hired. Since many (most) of Davis Fire Fighters do not live in Davis, we could look at where they live and what kind of fire service they have in their home towns to see what is really acceptable for them in terms of staffing. This was a spot on observation.
JimmysDaughter wrote:
> I don’t understand why the firefighters are singled out
It might have something to do with so many of them making more per year than the Governor of the state (working half as much) and either retiring at 50 (20 years before most of us expect to retire and 25 years earlier than our Governor who is still working full time). Let’s not forget that so many firefighters “retire” at 50 then take another fire job in a department in a different pension plan so they can “double dip” and get a pension AND a paycheck (until they retire again and get two pension checks every month making more per month than 99% of retired Americans)…
P.S. I have to admit that I’m a little jealous of my college dropout Firefighter friend who makes so much money that he has over $150K of toy cars (that sit in the three car garage he built on his property to store them) and took his family skiing in Switzerland this year (he only needs to take two paid vacation days to get 10 days in a row off)…
[i]I have to admit that I’m a little jealous of my college dropout Firefighter friend[/i]
SOD, if I wasn’t paying for it I would not care. But it is absolutely crazy that anyone other than someone directly benefiting from this crazy boondoggle would continue to defend it.
I have a theory.
Remember the TV program hosted by Robin Leach named “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”? That was a popular show. However, today I think it would just piss off too many people plagued with class envy. What changed?
The US has always been a different country in how people of varying economic classes got along. I think a big reason for this had been income mobility and the fact that many people from lower economic classes fully believed that they too could strive and achieve greater income levels… with a shot at actually becoming rich in their lifetime. That belief was centered on an understanding that starting and growing a business in this country could lead to great personal wealth.
I think we turned a corner on this belief system when the Great Recession hit, and we elected a bunch of politicians with a collectivist, big-government mind set. These politicians didn’t cause the shift, but they were the nail in the coffin of private-sector free-enterprise thinking that started eroding with the outsourcing of our manufacturing and service industries to Asia.
During and after the tech stock boom of the 1990s, we start redefining what it took to become wealthy from someone that creates real tangible products and services, to someone that does well gambling and gaming with other-people’s money. Making a killing in the financial markets isn’t a reasonable dream for the guy renovating cars in his garage… a guy that previously held to a belief that he too could make it big one day if he kept at it and did the right things.
What more people dream about today is to land a cushy public-sector job that pays six figures, 100% healthcare and provides a fat pension and early retirement date.
I think the reason more people are not absolutely incensed over the unsustainable practice of giving public-sector workers like our firefighters $150,000 per year salaries for working the equivalent of 70% of the average number of hours for a full-time employee, 100% healthcare for life, and a retirement at age 50 with 90% of their top earning paid for life… is that they don’t want that “new wealthy” dream to go away too.
The problem is that they haven’t figured out that they are actually paying for all that public-sector labor largess. They also haven’t figured out that it is completely unsustainable and without a significant downward adjustment, it will hurt the average person much, much more than they benefit from the value of these new dreams they entertain.
We need to get back to the old dream, because the current direction is the same trajectory as is much of Europe that is suffocating under mountains of public debt with anemic economic growth.
Re: Jealousy–
I’m not jealous by nature, but the story of a guy I knew at UCSB made me a little envious.
He dropped out of college after 2 years. His plan was to become a cop. But (for reasons I don’t know) he became a firefighter in Los Angeles County. (His station-house was in the unincorporated area near Bell, CA.) He made a good living and rose through the ranks, eventually becoming an arson investigator.
While he was a firefighter, he apparently had a lot of free time. In his mid-20s he completed his BA at CS Dominguez Hills; and later he finished some sort of professional certification for arson investigation. Also, while working as a firefighter, he opened up a bar and ran it in his spare time, which apparently is plentiful. In his 30s he opened up a second bar, and then his first restaurant. Before he retired last year (at age 48*), he and his wife owned and operated 3 bars and 3 restaurants, all in the Gardena, Bell, Bell Gardens, Hawthorn area.
So now he is a successful businessman who used his 20 to 25 days off each month to run those businesses, and he has full medical coverage for life for himself and his wife (and until age 26 his kids) and he is making $15,000 a month in his pension, which he will have for life. Again, I am not jealous. He took what they were giving, which anyone would. But I am a bit envious.
*How did he get his full 90% pension at age 48? I don’t know. The person we know in common (a good friend of mine who lives in Orange County) didn’t know. But I do know that a lot of police and fire contracts with CalPERS allow someone under age 50 to purchase service time. So maybe–with the LA County retirement system (not CalPERS)–he did something like that.
[i]How did he get his full 90% pension at age 48?[/i]
I think he could just cash in 2 years of accured leave time, correct?
I’m not jealous.
I’m not envious.
I’m just pissed… 100%… at anyone that defends this unsustainable and clearly irrational situation. I’m also pissed at those that remain quiet about it.
Your friend didn’t really earn that wealth other than having the good sense or luck to drop out of college and become a firefighter. Without that compensation base and free time, I am quite sure he would have never opened the bars and resaurants because generally people working for a living don’t have time to open bars and restaurants on the side. Tax-payers funded his pursuits. Now, maybe he was a very good firefighter and arson investigator. But what would a comensurate job pay and require for work days? He would make about 2/3 the pay, half the benefits, have to work a full 50 weeks a year, and retire at age 65 with a mostly self-funded retirement.
I make a reasonable living, but my job can compensation is always as risk related to my performance, and I have to work an average 50 hours per week to keep it going. What I would not give for a protected $150k per year job with 20-25 days off each month. I would also have multiple businesses by now.
“Your friend didn’t really earn that wealth other than having the good sense or luck to drop out of college and become a firefighter. “
what do you mean by earn wealth? how do you believe people earn wealth if not by working?
[i]how do you believe people earn wealth if not by working?[/i]
Ok, let me clarify this point. I should have written that he did not earn this wealthy without the kind of help that most people do not have access to.
Let’s say you have this dream to open a bar and restaurant, yet you don’t enough money or time (really the same thing since with more money you could buy more time).
Your only option at that point is to find an investor.
If that investor puts his money at risk backing your bar, he is going to take a large percentage. In fact, you would likely only get 5-15% ownership stake and would be paid a wage if it was not your money.
This guy had the money and time because tax-payers were his investor. They over-paid him and allowed him to work less than half time.
However, in this case he got to keep 100% of the ownership.
So, he did not earn the wealth. It was largely given to him.
I ‘m no fan of the firefighters but until the City of Davis is willing to admit it’s stupid to pay an “urban forest manager” $7,800 a month I have to back the firefighters. There are enough tree huggers in Davis that that is one job that I’m sure could be done for free.
[b]Other questionable positions[/b]
The city also appears to have it’s own childcare dept…..
Child Care Coordinator: [b]4772[/b]
Child Care Financial Analyst I: [b]3164[/b]
Child Care Financial Analyst II: [b]3692[/b]
Child Care Associate: [b]3943[/b]
Child care Supervisor: [b]5909[/b]
Child Care Manager: [b]7123[/b]
Child Care Program Assistant: [b]3719[/b]
Child Care Supervisor: [b]5727[/b]
I had no idea the city was so involved in childcare. With benefits typically calculated at as a third of the cost of their salary, this is $607,000/yr for childcare programs.
Other interesting positions…..
Eligibility Worker I-Russian: [b]3380[/b]
This position only deals with Russian speaking only “eligibility applicants” or ??? I never knew Davis had such a big Russian population. Are they all being kept hidden in some secret gulag?
Public Relations Manager I: [b]6163[/b]
Public Relations Manager II: [b]7123[/b]
Looks like the city already has a “communications director” that David feels is necessary.
Small Tree Specialist: [b]4505[/b]
Urban Forest Manger: [b]7835[/b]
Urban Forest Supervisor: [b]5638[/b]
We have a small tree specialist who has to be supervised so we need a supervisor, but a supervisor can only supervise, and management is a separate function so therefor the manager. Who takes care of the medium and large trees? Do we need a shrub and small plant specialist, a turf specialist?
Wildlife Resources Specialist: [b]7146[/b] Do we need a full-time position at $86K/yr + benefits to manage the occasional coyote?
I’m just glad that we are finally looking into ways to save money AND the citizens of Davis appear to understand whats going on. The public sector unions should see this as a message, we are no longer going to allow ridiculous agreements to continue no matter how you try to scare us.
I think that we should reduce the starting pay/benefits for all new openings. It is clear when you have thousands of applicants for every fire job in the area that the pay is out of whack. Have you ever heard of a city saying that they have been unable to attract qualified firefighters?
wesley506: Thanks for the list. I had no idea the city had all these roles and was spending so much on child care. Child care for what, for whom?
This is the problem with government… it only knows how to grow. It does not know how to shrink back to sustainable. I’m sure we would get the argument that all these positions are essential. We would hear that there is nowhere to cut… they have already cut and any additional cuts will hurt the residents, the children, the poor, the needy, seniors, the downtown, minorities, women… anyone and everyone with some politically-correct group affiliation.
That’s the gig. The Obama Administration is working it at the Federal level. The Brown administration does the same at the State level. So, why not do the same at the local level? Instead of cutting headcount, pay and benefits back to normal and sustainable, just punish the public for not giving up more of their hard earned pennies to keep feeding the blob.
God I hate this game. I hate the walking on sensitivity eggshells about government employee job security and compensation. Why is every government job so damn sacred? Why is it a local tragedy of epic proportions when we make cuts to public sector business… while people in the private sector get sliced and diced and re-invent themselves on a regular basis?
Sorry all you good city employees. Your situation is no different than it is for every other working stiff. Management screwed up and hired too many, and paid them too much. Now the company is broke and leadership needs to put on their big-boy pants and do the necessary cutting.
BTW, amazingly, in the Davis Enterprise tonight was a story of the city looking to hire some new Chief Innovation Officer at a high salary. What I want to see is a list of objectives for this new role, and a quantification of the beneifts weighed against the costs. I want to see a balanced scorecard for this and all other discretionary hires. Then, if the position is not meeting this committments and expectations, it needs to be cut. This should be reviewed every single year.
It’s interesting to see the words “supervisor” and “manager’ in so many titles. This reminds me of a friend who used to work for McDonnell Douglas building military helicopters. He only had a GED, functioned as a clerk inventorying spare parts, and said he would often have several months at a time where he did nothing but read magazines. MD gave him a job title of Engineer. He said he was told the contract with the govt. was such that payment was determined in part by how many Engineers were working on the project. The MD solution was to pad the project with unnecessary staff and give almost everyone the title of some sort of Engineer.
Some comments here sound envious that certain professions didn’t get a four plus year degree to succeed. Davis intelligentsia? Many Davis college degree professionals with four plus year degrees over-charge their services to pay off their student loans. Then, when the loans are paid off, they continue to overcharge to afford their high mortgage in Davis. Therefore, private sector people also take high salaries for their services, and many of them don’t risk the long term serious health issues, that plague firefighters. Re: health insurance for children until they are 26 years: no one should go broke in this country due to astronomical health care. It’s just the right thing to do: give employees that kind of health insurance. I know many young folks in Davis who would have no insurance (minimum wage jobs) if their parents’ plans didn’t cover them. Nothing wrong w/giving firefighters excellent health coverage.