FRESNO – Monday council members spent about seven hours deciding whether to approve the mayor’s cuts to Fresno’s budget.
They have to trim nearly 30 million dollars. In the end they decided to keep fire stations 10 and 18 open but go ahead with firefighter furloughs. Mayor Ashley Swearengin says it may result in poor coverage as firefighters have to spread out.
“It’s not the best decision for public safety. I think it makes people feel better about the fact that a fire station may be open but in the terms of fire response times it’s actually not the best decision,” she said.
The council also voted to preserve the city’s attorney who prosecutes graffiti crime. Scores of P.D. layoffs of un-sworn employees will stand.
“that was a very painful process. Anytime you have to talk about laying off employees in the city, laying off veteran employees, it’s a very painful process for all of us, for the administration, the council. The people who were probably going through the most pain today are the employees being impacted by this,” Chief Jerry Dyer said.
Council members differed on other votes, such as the decision to trim the city’s payment to the SPCA for animal control. The SPCA budget will be cut by 100 thousand dollars for 2010. Councilmember Henry T. Perea voted against it. He says it was one of the hardest days for the council.
“The only hope that I have for the future is that the administration will provide us with several plans that the council can react to and choose from instead of just one,” Perea said.
Mayor Swearengin can veto the council’s votes. If she does, the council has the option to override her vetos.
Story by kmph.com
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The initial plan was to close two stations, Station 10 and Station 18. Two slower stations on the periphery of the City that annually run approximately 700 calls.
The ‘new’ plan is to close two companies from our four remaining two company houses and relocate the crews. This is the second time we have lost two companies and relocated them.
What everyone, including our super supportive media, fails to address is the furloughs. When the furloughs are put in place, firefighters will be sent home, no overtime will be used to fill the vacancies. This will account for the closure of at least two additional apparatus per day.
There are plans to close another apparatus to compensate for sick calls, injuries, vacations and other types of leave due to loosing the OT budget. This will leave us with 63 firefighters on duty per day in the city of Fresno. With a 110 square miles and just over 500,000 people should be a ‘fun’ place to work…
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