Special Commentary: The Failure of Firefighters’ Union President Bobby Weist

Firefighters Desperate Moves Backfire, Series of Failures Pile Up- As I exited the Council Chambers in the early morning hours of January 14, 2009, having watched the firefighters union who showed up, nearly all of them united and successful in getting the council and city staff to whitewash the fire report, it was difficult to imagine that this would be the pinnacle of their power.

Sure it was a 3-2 vote, but it was a strong and solid 3-2 vote as it would be at the end of that year when the council by the same vote approved the 2009 MOUs.  Union President Bobby Weist in 2009 was arguably the most power political figure in the city of Davis – inspiring fear and respect.

Four years later, he cannot buy a victory.  A series of setback and miscalculations have brought the firefighters union, once the most powerful force in the city of Davis to the brink of irrelevancy.  The latest move, a futile vote of no confidence that will change absolutely nothing against an interim chief who has been in charge for six months already, shows the depths of that desperation and lack of political calculations.

The 2009 council that presided over the fire report and the MOU was comprised of three members – bought and paid for through huge amounts of fire union money – was solidly in the pockets of Mr. Weist and his union members.  By 2010 and 2012, no one was willing to take firefighter money.

Instead of adjusting to new political realities, the firefighters have been a force for obstruction for any sort of change.  Had the firefighters been willing to change their ways, they might have been able to compromise on key issues, undercut community concerns and criticism, and forge new alliances.  Instead, they have dug in and eventually lost on every critical issue.

We can argue that this really started in spring of 2011 when Mayor Joe Krovoza and Mayor Pro Tem Rochelle Swanson put forward a proposal to cut $2.5 million in personnel cuts from the 2011-12 budget.  The firefighters and 150 other city employees packed the room for two consecutive meetings, but at the end of the day, Dan Wolk held firm on a 3-2 vote.

That should have been a signal that times were beginning to change.  But the firefighters failed to learn their lessons.

In spring of 2012, the Vanguard filed suit to release the 2008 Davis Fire Report.  The firefighters belated attempted to intervene and when they did, they were ultimately forced last fall to pay the Vanguard’s attorney’s $23,000, more than twice what the city had to pay in attorney fees.

It was an ill-fated and misguided attempt to conceal the report from the public.  The firefighters failed to realize that they no longer had protection of the city council and that the law was not on their side.  Nevertheless, they intervened and when they lost, they had to pay mightily.

Their demise was complete this past month when Judge Dan Maguire ruled that there was no lawful reason to withhold the rest of the report from the public when the city was now willing to release the entire report, four and a half years later.

For a long time, the city had been looking for ways to go back from four firefighters on an engine.  The city instituted this policy in 1998, but in the last five years, they are in the vast minority of cities.  After failed efforts by the consulting group CityGate, City Manager Steve Pinkerton brought in Scott Kenley to be interim chief.

His job would be to audit the fire department and create a way forward towards things like joint management, boundary drop, and fire staffing cuts.

Last fall he released his report and a few weeks later recommended reforms to the fire department.  While the Davis City Council voted to continue discussion, Union President Bobby Weist got up to the speaker’s podium to complain that the union had been excluded from the process.

The problem was that Mr. Weist was not telling the truth and the Vanguard learned that in fact the union had been given numerous opportunities to participate, but they had chosen not to.

When it became clear in the spring that the council was inclined to go with staff recommendations to reduce staffing from 12 to 11, the firefighters fought back with a series of public meetings, precinct walking, and the forming of an astroturf group, Friends of the Davis Firefighters, supposedly made up of community members concerned about safety in the wake of staffing cuts.

The move largely backfired.  While the campaign triggered letters to council, many of those letters actually supported the staffing changes.  The firefighters had sparse attendance at their meetings and only a dozen or so supporters from the community showed up on their behalf.

What started out as an effort to show the council the public was behind them, turned into confirmation that the community was not concerned about the impact of the cuts.

Ironically, the firefighters were able to pick off two councilmembers, but it was a 3-2 vote against them that sealed their fate on fire staffing.

The firefighters have held out on the new MOU and that process is about to go to impasse, this time with strong council support to impose the same contract as all others have received.

During those talks this past spring, the firefighters complained about the lack of a full-time fire chief since their favorite, Chief Rose Conroy “retired” in January 2010.  The animosity between the fire union and Chief Kenley was palpable during the roundtable process last winter and spring.

When Chief Kenley ran out of service time, the City Manager, not wanting to put in place a chief that could be coopted by the union, instead installed Police Chief Landy Black as the head of all public safety and appointed Assistant Police Chief  Steve Pierce to head up the administrative side of fire, leaving the operational control in the able hands of four division chiefs.

This week, the city announced that Scott Kenley would return to be project manager for three very specific projects.

Chief Kenley has been asked to perform three specific tasks: “the feasibility of a joint management team responsible for providing executive and operational management and oversight for the delivery of fire and life safety services to the City of Davis and UC Davis,” identify a site for the relocation of the central fire station, and finalize “the City’s Standard-of-Cover document and coordinating with UC Davis Fire the development of a joint Standard-of-Cover document.”

Chief Kenley’s advocacy of boundary drop and reduction of staffing makes him a flashpoint for firefighter discontent.

The firefighters union responded with a vote of no-confidence.  It is a strange and ultimately toothless move.

As the city notes, the timing is curious, “Why the no confidence vote was announced this week is also not clear. The Department’s operational and temporary management structure has not changed since January. The only change this week was the City’s announcement that it is hiring former interim Fire Chief Scott Kenley as a project manager for three specific projects.”

The union cited legal reasons for the vote of no confidence, but those legal reasons would have existed in January when the change was first made and there was no protest at that time.

Moreover, as we noted, the legal basis for objection is questionable if not dubious.

“California State Law is very clear about the required qualifications of a City Fire Chief.  Government Code section 38611 requires that a “fire department shall be under the charge of a chief who shall have had previous training and experience as a fireman,” the vote of No Confidence stated. “While Chiefs Black and Pierce are both good people – and probably excellent police administrators – neither have had any previous training or experience as firefighters.”

Mr. Weist is correct that under Section 38611 of the Government code, “The legislative body of a city organized under general law shall establish a fire department for the city. The fire department shall be under the charge of a chief who shall have had previous training and experience as a fireman.”

However, Mr. Weist neglects to cite Government Code 38630 which was added in 1998 through SB 1452.  That section notes, “In municipalities which provide for police and other emergency services through a consolidated public safety agency which includes traditional law enforcement, fire protection, and other emergency services, the chief, director, or chief executive officer of such an agency shall control the agency.”

In those cases, “The chief, director, or chief executive officer of a consolidated public safety agency is a peace officer…”  It continues, “No one who fails to meet all of the above requirements of a chief of police and peace officer shall be appointed to the position of chief, director, or chief executive officer of a consolidated municipal public safety agency.”

In other words, the law allows city to combine their fire and police departments into one public safety department and that a Public Safety Director can oversee the department.  Under those conditions, the director must be a police officer.

The city for their part claims they have legal authority to do this, writing, “The City analyzed the legal propriety of having Police Chief Landy Black and Assistant Police Chief Steve Pierce oversee Fire Department management (as Interim Public Safety Director and Interim Fire Chief, respectively) prior to their taking over these roles in January.”

In the end this is a desperate powerplay by Mr. Weist and the union.  But it’s a grave error.  Why waste the vote of no confidence bullet on the interim chief when their real battle will be over the new chief, presumably hired later this fall.

In the end, the response from the fire union and its leadership is questionable on a whole series of issues.  They have fought change whether it be salary and compensation concessions, boundary drop, and staffing changes every step of the way and they have lost every vote.

In the process they have turned community opinion against them and made themselves out to look like obstructionists.

Better leadership could have made them partners with the city for change and given them the greater ability to influence who will be the next chief – which might be the next critical step assuming that the city has legally dotted the “I’s” and crossed the “T’s” on impasse.

Bobby Weist from 2002 to 2010 was probably the most powerful force in this city, but rather than embrace the new direction of council and city leadership, he has turned himself into an irrelevant sideshow.

It is time for Mr. Weist to retire and allow new and fresh leadership to emerge that can work with the city and the community, not against them.

The rank and file firefighters need to honestly assess whether this current course is likely to bear fruit after a series of devastating setbacks.

The time has come to embrace reform and change.  Obviously that cannot happen as long as Mr. Weist, who remains a leader in the statewide firefighters union remains in place as union president.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

Categories: