Flame war: Sacramento city officials and firefighters’ union spar over media coverage

The end of summer hasn’t cooled debate about the future of the Sacramento Fire Department, or stopped public officials from blasting media outlets as they try to extinguish questions about response times.

In June, SN&R reported that the city firefighters’ union, Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522, was blocking efforts by city management to dig out of a financial hole by using more single-role paramedics on its ambulances rather than more costly, dual-trained firefighters. (See “Fighting for double duty,” by Patrick Groves, June 2, 2016.) The article drew sharp criticism on the union’s official Facebook page, which claimed in a June 2 post that SN&R didn’t understand what firefighters “need to be able to do their job.”

On September 6, it was City Manager John Shirey’s turn to complain about local media coverage of the fire department as he decried television reporters at CBS 13 and News10 for what he implied was an inability to understand a recent consultant’s report on firefighting response times.

Shirey’s chiding arrived on the heels of a new analysis by the public safety consulting firm CityGate Associates, which recently determined, among other things, that Sacramento firefighters respond to emergencies slightly behind the national gold standard for urban areas. But that doesn’t mean they’re slow, Shirey said during a city council meeting last week.

“These are standards that are not indicative of national averages,” he explained. “They’re standards that many fire departments struggle to meet. So the story was put out that we’re somehow failing. That’s not true.”

In criticizing the “miss-impressions” spread by TV coverage, Shirey went on to say that the real story of CityGate’s analysis is that SFD is overstaffed with dual-trained firefighter-paramedics, which the union disputes.

The consultant’s review of call logs indicates that 91 percent of SFD’s calls for service involve medical emergencies, and 7 percent are requests for hospital transports—meaning 98 percent of the department’s calls have nothing to do with battling blazes. He added that early- to mid-afternoon is when the largest emergency call volume happens, though SFD has equal levels of staffing 24 hours a day.

“This speaks volumes about where we’re at as a fire department,” Shirey told council members. “We’re really in a different business than when we started a long time ago, and we need to make sure we’re evolving with the times.”

In its June 2 post, Local 522 defended dual-role firefighters by saying that the department responded to more than 2,500 fire calls last year.

Still, the schism between frontline firefighters and department brass may grow.

To address response times—as well as how mentally ill patients are handled and the city’s projected $36 million budget deficit in 2019—fire Chief Walt White said he’s been working with CityGate on developing a proposed master plan for the department, which is due to be unveiled at the city’s Budget and Audit Committee in October.

When asked by Councilman Jeff Harris if union leaders had been included in developing the master plan, White said they absolutely had been, which prompted Councilwoman Angelique Ashby to challenge his testimony.

“I don’t believe that the men and women of the fire department believe they’ve had a seat at the table,” Ashby told the chief. “So, while I would love to believe that we don’t need to direct [the chief to include the union], I’m asking for you to make sure that what you’ve said to council member Harris is true—that [Local 522] actually do feel they’ve been a part of the process.”

Ashby made a motion to require White to include Local 522 in the planning stages. While other council members advised White to keep a dialogue going with the union, no one seconded Ashby’s motion to force him to do anything specific. As previously reported by SN&R, Ashby has received more than $284,000 in campaign donations from Local 522.

Meanwhile, CityGate’s fire and medical response expert Stewart Gary told council members that affordable, sustainable and effective fire service is the ultimate goal of the master plan.

“You have to ask your department if they are getting to fires in a timely enough manner to suppress them without an extraordinary loss of life and property, and if they’re getting to medical patients quickly enough to salvage those who still need pre-hospital care,” Gray said. “You’re doing that today. You have some thin spots in the system, and you have some increasing work load. But you’re not burning down your city and you’re not losing unnecessary lives.”