NY City to Appeal Ruling to Up Fire Department's Staffing
By Tim Fenster
Source Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, N.Y.
Fourth Ward Alderman David Wohleben is planning to move ahead on a resolution that would allow the Common Council to hire outside counsel to appeal an arbitration decision in favor of the city's firefighters union.
Wohleben said he prepared the resolution because Mayor Michelle Roman had previously said the city should accept the arbitrator's ruling and increase fire department staffing levels.
The ruling requires the city to increase Lockport Fire Department's minimum staffing level from six to nine per shift. To comply with that ruling, the city would have to hire 12 new firefighters and retain four others whose positions are funded by a grant that will expire next year. Finance Director Scott Schrader said the first-year cost of 16 firefighters would be about $1.3 million and require a 10.5 percent tax rate hike.
Roman subsequently changed her mind and said Wednesday that she will direct city attorneys to file an appeal in State Supreme Court to vacate the arbitration decision.
Wohleben, who is Roman's opponent in the November mayoral election, said he will move ahead on his resolution to ensure the council "continues down this path." That resolution will be up for a vote at the council's Oct. 2 meeting.
"I want to put the Common Council on record: we support an appeal, and the majority of us are unified in that," Wohleben said. "We switched course in less than one week, I want to make sure we don’t switch course back.”
Roman said Thursday that her initial plan — to negotiate a deal with the union to phase-in the new firefighters, in order to lessen the impact tax impact — fell apart because she lacked the support of most council members.
"The majority of the council would have to agree to anything we came up with, and that wasn’t happening," Roman said.
She added that the city fire board, which makes recommendations to the council, refused to convene ahead of their next scheduled meeting Oct. 8.
Also Thursday, Lockport Professional Fire Fighters Association slammed the city's planned appeal as a "waste (of) taxpayer money," and affirmed its commitment to higher staffing levels.
"Current staffing of six on-duty firefighters puts the residents of Lockport at risk as well as the firefighters," LPFFA President Michael Barnwell said in a statement.
Barnwell also said the union would work with council members and city officials to offset the cost of the additional firefighters through new revenue streams. Roman has suggested the city return ambulance service to LFD to lessen the tax impact of the new hires.
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