IAFF Local 1014

Friday Update 4-14-23

Updated On: May 30, 2023

Brothers & Sisters,

Today our Los Angeles County Fire Department family came together to remember and never forget one of our own. Firefighter Specialist, Engineer Jeff Windle was honored at a Department's traditional Flag Ceremony at Fire Station 94 in Lakewood. Fire Station 94 was joined by Engine 56, Battalion 9, and many other active and retired LA County Fire Fighters and Fire Personnel to stand with Jeff’s mom, sister, and girlfriend as well as his closest Fire Family members to give honor to his 22 years of service on our job.

Special thanks to the LACoFD Honor Guard members and Pipes and Drums, Piper Big Pete Martinez for framing the day. Always there to set the tone for our fallen, these selfless and amazing men and women from our ranks delivered without fail to fold the flag last flown above the station Jeff spent most of his FF and Engineer time. The Windles were embraced and shored up in this time of grief and sorrow. We will help them make the turn, and we also let them know things that need to be spoken of will not go away. Chief Marrone and President Gillotte spoke to some of those items that will be taken up another day. Mental health/behavioral health issues are every bit as powerful as physical injuries and we cannot and will not look away from the work in progress. We thank the Windle family for engaging to help.

Jeff was an amazing Firefighter and had a love of the people he mentored and helped along in their careers. Chaplain Vince Roldan perfectly captured his friend Jeff’s positive impact on so many who crossed his path. Serving 22 years, the service Jeff gave to our communities and the people we help is also part of his amazing story. Thank you to Chaplain Roldan and also to the team of Fire Department members who helped with food and bunting and flowers and more to capture a tender and powerful moment in time for the Windles.

Please join us at a paddle out in Jeff’s memory April 16th at Huntington Beach Cliffs 19215-19399 PCH, Huntington Beach CA, 92648 at 10am. Longboards and SUPs are welcome. Please send cards and flowers to The Windle Family at 17041 St. Andrews Lane, Huntington Beach, CA 92649.

Finally, thank you to Fire Chief Anthony Marrone for standing up and powerfully speaking to represent us all in the love and embrace we gave to the Windles. The Fire Chief’s voice and words matter, and his compassion and heartfelt and soulful stance is what we need in times like this.

Fire Captain Tim Strack - Riverside City Firefighters Local 1067

This week, we also honored a longtime friend and labor icon Brother Tim Strack who passed tragically from a cardiac arrest while playing hockey with his fire department brothers. Brother Strack was celebrated with members from throughout the state as departments converged on Riverside to stand in Solidarity. We helped Wendy Strack and her family through this sudden and unexpected loss.

Tim was 53 years old and lived a life rich with service to the community of Riverside and also served as the 1st District Vice President of CPF and President of Riverside City Local 1067 for over a decade, with 21 years as 1067’s President. He was responsible for helping get signed into law our Firefighters Bill of Rights, PTSI Presumption, and many other laws affecting our retirement and healthcare and health and safety protections. He was a long-time partner to Local 1014 and sat next to President Gillotte in Sacramento for some of our most important work.

We are forever grateful to him for his commitment to all of our families and us. A jokester and smart and fun “rule bender” to get things done, his memories will be etched in our thoughts forever as we shall never forget Brother Tim Strack. Rest in Peace, Brother. We’ll take it from here.

Our LACOFD Peer Support in-person training was conducted for all members of our now nationally acclaimed Peer Support Team, numbering over 230 members at the LA County Fire Museum. Thank you to the Fire Museum Board and Docents for hosting the powerful and amazing training session where our Peers honed their craft with the help of Dr. Steve Froehlich and Lead PEER Team Captains Ross, Blackburn, and Chaplain Peer Roldan, and the Lead Peers as workshops and scenarios for individual issues and mass scale issues were covered.

Training and education to help our families, including children, were also a topic of training and discussion. Thanks to the First Responder Children’s Foundation for sponsoring the food and bringing a new resource for us to consider for our families.

Political Action and Legislative Advocacy in Sacramento

Why are Fire Unions so deeply active in political action and legislative advocacy? So we can work hard to secure votes and support to pass laws that affect our members' lives and professions.

This week Local 1014 was again up in Sacramento to testify on many important CPF-sponsored bills, including SB 623, which seeks to extend the sunset for Post Traumatic Stress Injury to seven more years and add Public Safety Dispatchers like our own 1014 represented Dispatchers.

Thank you to Fire Dispatcher Cerena Lewis for representing the state of California in her candid and moving testimony, alongside President Gillotte’s testimony affirming the work and impact of our collective work on our members concerning behavioral health injuries and the need to legislate and ensure our members have access to and are given the treatment and care they need in times of struggle. This all feeds back into local and state workers' compensation issues, which were a topic of discussion on the floor as we passed the bill 5-0 with Bi-Partisan support. Senator Laird carried the bill, and Senator Maria Elena Durazo (D) and Senator Wilk (R) from our district led the way on our testimony for the vote. Thank you to their leadership as we get this bill signed into law. Also highlighted was our testimony on the 37 Aact bill AB1020 that seeks to codify our work-related disability injuries into government code and local statute to provide full protection for our workers' compensation presumptions.

Moving to a transparent and fire department-oriented testing process along with drill tower policies that ensure graduates are qualified on all fronts is the key to hiring good personnel with diversity embedded, who will give us a good productive 30 years as part of our team. We meet again with the Department and the County, and CAL-JAC in mid-April. We also are working to halt all work on the ill-drafted FF PM test that errantly went out last month. We are challenged administratively also, and we understand that while the limit of applicants was to be 1,500, somewhere around 300 applied, and more drop off on our request not to patronize the test. We can secure Paramedics in time of need of the FCTC list at any time, and we have plenty of FFs ready to go to PM school and step into the traditional and amazing role of FFPM with LACoFD.

Click here to view hearing testimony from Dave Gillotte and Serena Lewis regarding SB623. Video begins at 2:19.

STAFFING SURVEY SENT! --CHECK YOUR EMAIL/SPAM FOLDERS

Please take the time to fill out the survey that was sent out to your personal e-mail addresses. Please call any of the directors or the staffing committee members if you have any questions about the survey. Thank you to all during this trial period for your patience and your input to improve our system so it works for everyone.

If you have checked your spam folder and still have not received the email please email ssaporito@local1014.org.

In Solidarity,

President Dave Gillotte and the Local 1014 Executive Board