James Wants an end to Negotiations with IAFF.
October 16, 2020
On 10/13/2020 I sat in on a meeting at City Hall for a negotiation between the city and the IAFF new contract. The meeting was to start at 2:00 PM, and James entered at 2:10 PM, offered no apology for his tardiness, and the first words out of his mouth was “I told you last week you had my final offer, why are we here to negotiate again?”
At 2:11 PM I knew this meeting was going nowhere because the mayor had spoken. Unfortunately I was correct in my thinking.
The negotiations are largely formalities at this point. The city is required by PERC (Public Employees Relations Commission) to meet with Fire Fighter representatives and work out a new 3 year contract if they request it.
The representatives are making counter offers and it falls on deaf ears with the leaders of WPB. Firefighters are attempting to negotiate with the city James & Johnson) refuse.
The meeting split and city employees and IAFF leaders went to separate rooms and I was not allowed to hear negotiations for about 20 minutes when both sides met again, minus James who didn’t return to the meeting.
City Administrator, Faye Johnson did most of the talking and again told the firefighters the city didn’t have the money to make a new offer, and backed up her statement with threat’s of having to lay off and/or furlough employees in order to make that happen.
In a previous story I told readers the city had collected $20 million dollars in the “Fire Fee” where is that money and what was it used for? WPB has successfully perfected the shell game with tax payers money.
The last City Commission meeting, Commissioner Lambert gave a very nice shout out to the fire dept. with her story on her new home she had recently purchased.
Seems there was a very powerful storm, in the middle of the night when she and her husband were awakened with the thunder and lightning that brought down power lines which lit up the sky, while power lines danced in the streets. Imagine if one of the power lines landed on someone’s home, possibly starting a fire.
Lambert dialed 911 and the fire dept. responded, and according to her eliminated the danger.
Also at the last meeting James thanked Fire Chief Matty for writing a grant (on her own time) from the DHS (Department of Homeland Security), FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) The grant is for $8,007,597.36 and to be used “to hire 28 additional Fire Department firefighters”
Fiscal Note:
FEMA has waived the cost share requirement for this SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant since the submission of the application, saving the city $3,069,579.99.
City Commission approved Resolution No. 272-20.