Look back for more, including the full letter from Quilter, later.
Hollister City Manager Clint Quilter issued a seven-page letter today in response to the Hollister Fire Fighter Union’s vote of no confidence in the city manager and Hollister Fire Chief Fred Cheshire released last week.
In the letter, Quilter addressed many of the issues cited in a press release issued by union president Vince Grewohl, Hollister Fire Fighters Association Local 3395 last week about the May 22 vote of no confidence.
“After reviewing the history of Hollister’s service levels to the Fire Department, the general message is, that when contrasted with reductions to services seen by other areas of the organization, the City Manager’s recommendations and City Council actions have demonstrated a high priority to public safety, and in particular, fire services,” Quilter wrote in the memo that was distributed to Mayor Ray Friend and other council members. “No one can deny that fire services have been reduced, and that the reductions have been unpopular with HFFU. But the reductions have been the result of thoughtful, informed decisions made at open and public meetings.”
Quilter invited the council members to let him know if they would like to take additional action or further discuss the issues to add to a future agenda.
In the memorandum, Quilter shows that the fire department had the smallest decreasing in staffing levels since 2004.
According to Quilter based on the number of people employed by city departments in 2004 compared with 2011-12 staff members, the fire department declined from 27 positions to 23.5 positions, a decrease of 13 percent.
During the same time period, the police department decreased its staff by 32 percent, parks/buildings/grounds by 75 percent and planning by 60 percent, with all other departments seeing similar cuts.
“For HFFU to contend that, given the City’s financial situation, the Fire Department has seen ‘excessive cuts’ in comparison to other areas of the City shows a total lack of perspective,” Quilter wrote.
Quilter addressed the allegations about grievances from the fire union. He said in the letter in the past year that two grievances had been filed alleging that fire department vacancies had not been filled as required by the current memorandum of understanding between the city and the fire union. Quilter said in one, the issue was remedied immediately and had been the fault of an internal misunderstanding about the timing of a promotion. He said in the second grievance, the city denied it and HFFU never appealed.
“The City based its denial on the fact that timing when to fill a non-promotional position is a management right,” he wrote. “In this case, the City Council had yet to make its budget/staffing decisions.”
Quilter also addressed issues lobbied against the fire chief such as not conducting annual mask fit testing. Quilter wrote that Cheshire, who was promoted to chief in March 2007, recognized that none of the self-contained breathing apparatus complied with safety standards, but Cheshire didn’t think testing the fit of the air masks would be productive until the breathing equipment other than the masks were tested and brought up to standards. The other equipment has since been brought up to industry standards, according to Quilter. In 2011, Cheshire submitted a grant application to pay for staff training to conduct the tests. The city did not receive the grant, so Quilter said Cheshire will proceed with hiring a consultant to conduct the fit test.
Other issues addressed included: allegations of insincere and deceitful dealing during negotiations; irresponsible management raises at the cost of public safety; gross negligence and dereliction of duty committed by city manager; failure to coordinate fire department activities with other outside agencies; dishonest in public dealing; advocating misplaced budget priorities/increasing public safety risk; gross negligence in failing to ensure proper processes are followed during promotional testing; immediate danger to life and health; lack of assignment of acting chief in fire chief’s absence; chief’s failure to be on call during emergencies; complaints regarding work relationships; failure to meet with staff and protect department from cuts; advocating misplaced budget priorities; failure to meet job requirements for fire chief; and failure to ensure proper process of promotional testing.
