90 Santa Ana Firefighters Vote to Sue Bobb and City

About 90 Santa Ana firefighters voted unanimously Tuesday to file a class-action suit against City Manager Robert C. Bobb and the city for allegedly violating their civil rights by asking them to sign “declarations of employment.”

Another vote will be taken today for those who were on duty Tuesday or could not attend the meeting at the Carpenters’ Hall, said Seth Kelsey, attorney for the Firemen’s Benevolent Assn.

After the vote at a morning meeting of the association, many of the firefighters signed the declarations with the provision that they were doing so “under duress” and delivered them to Bobb’s office personally. Bobb had said that all the declarations had to be in by Friday or he would assume that those people would resign by the end of December.

Bobb mailed the declarations to all 204 Fire Department employees last week after the association placed a newspaper advertisement stating that all the firefighters were available for employment because of the “morale-wrecking tactics” of Bobb and Fire Chief William Reimer. The city manager said the declarations are necessary so he can find out how many people he will need to hire.

The problems can be ironed out if the city will conduct a management study of the Fire Department, said Battalion Chief Jim Dalton. But if such a study concludes that there are no problems, he said, “we will continue until someone listens to us and something is done.”

But Bobb said no study will be done. “We’ve gone through all that with the fire association,” he said. “We’re ready to sit down and resolve the problems without a study whenever they’re ready.”

Reimer said he believes that the turmoil has been caused by a few people and that he has received 20 letters from employees of various ranks dissociating themselves from the association’s actions.

But he said: “Neither the city manager nor myself is on a witch hunt to get anyone.”

Dalton, president of the Fire Management Assn., which represents the six battalion chiefs, admitted that some employees are opposed to the association’s tactics. “I would say it’s about 10%, at most,” he said.

“Nobody’s going to resign,” said Ray Comeau, an association board member and spokesman for the firefighters. He said the advertisement was intended to publicize problems.