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Effective September 1st 2009, El Monte Fire Station #167 will close.
Your 1014 Executive Board, along with our Fire Department Management, sat with the management of the City of El Monte for many hours of negotiations and discussions. Local 1014 and the FD went to the table with viable solutions to solve the financial problems of the city in relation to their fire department portion of their budget shortfall. Our goal was to protect the current staffing levels for the citizens of El Monte.
Local 1014 used our resources to evaluate the city’s finances and found multiple issues where the city could “trim the fat." Every solution we presented to them over the last few months fell on deaf ears.
One plan presented to the city management not only protected the fire department staffing levels, but also put a small amount of money back in the pockets of every resident in the city. The plan involved 1014 doing the work to secure a permanent funding source, but the city refused to guarantee the money would be allocated to fire department staffing levels. Unfortunately, the city management felt any monies brought into the budget should be used at their whim.
As late as the last week of August, the department continued to try to rectify the budgetary problem for the City of El Monte fire services. However, the city's management continued to turn a blind eye to the solutions, thus allowing no option except closure of the fire station.
What does this means for our membership? The Captains and Firefighter Specialists from FS #167 will be departmentaled and then get preferentials. The Firefighter/Paramedics will get departmentaled to FS #166 and then they too will get preferentials. The firefighter at Fire Station 166 will get the same, departmentaled and then a preferential.
Your executive board is very disappointed with the management of the City of El Monte. We have a plan to change that. This November we will be involved heavily in the election of a Mayor and Council members. We cannot allow cities to balance their budgets on the backs of the citizens we are sworn to protect.
If you have any questions, please contact us at info@local1014.org or call (310) 639-1014.
Watch for future announcements where will be asking for your help.
Update 8/15/09
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