Axed Fire Company Might Be Reinstated : Budget cuts: Officials say they were misinformed when they voted to drop the crew and will reconsider their decision.

A 15-member firetruck company eliminated in budget cuts one day before Glendale’s worst fire may be reinstated by city officials who say they were misinformed when they voted to drop the crew.

In the wake of the fire, which destroyed 46 Glendale homes and damaged 20 others, Glendale City Council members decided to reconsider their 10% reduction of the citywide firefighting force. The issue will be discussed at a public study session at 8 a.m. Friday at City Hall and could be voted on as early as Tuesday at the next council meeting.

The firefighters were on a list of cutback options demanded last month by the council to reduce spending in the fiscal year that began July 1.

City Manager David Ramsay told council members that they could save almost $1 million by eliminating a Montrose ladder-truck crew that was rarely called out because it is geared to fighting high-rise fires in an area with few tall buildings. He said a regular engine crew would remain at the station and continue to handle most calls.

On June 28, the council approved a budget that included the cut, affecting 15 firefighters at Station 29. One day later, the devastating hillside blaze occurred.

Since then, city officials say the Montrose ladder-truck crew is used more extensively than they originally believed. They also say that cutting the ladder-truck crew will not immediately save as much money as they originally believed.

“What we were told wasn’t necessarily the whole story,” Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg said last week. “We were told that it was not a needed piece of equipment.”

She said the city staff did not properly brief the council regarding the impact of cutting the crew. Beyond that, Bremberg said, the hillside blaze “certainly pointed up the need for a complete Fire Department, fully staffed.”

At the July 3 council meeting, Mayor Larry Zarian said he was scheduling Friday’s meeting to re-evaluate the Montrose fire crew at the request of Ramsay and Fire Chief John Montenero. “Maybe we did not have enough information on that truck company and its tactics,” he said.

Before that meeting, Zarian had engaged in some verbal flip-flops on the issue.

When the budget was adopted June 28, Zarian said he was satisfied with the $1.8 million in cuts made by the council--including elimination of the Montrose fire crew. The council told Ramsay not to lay off the firefighters but to trim the positions through attrition, meaning that 15 jobs would be phased out as firefighters resigned or retired.

Zarian said he wouldn’t have approved the budget without the cuts. “The most important thing was we sat down today and we took out the things we wanted to take out,” he said.

But three days later, at a town hall meeting organized after the disastrous fire, Zarian denied that the council had cut firefighter staffing by 10%.

“That is totally absurd,” he said to a resident who asked about the cut. “Whoever has told you that, that is not correct. . . . We have never cut personnel in the Fire Department. We don’t intend to do that. . . . We intend to increase our manpower annually.”

In a follow-up interview, however, the mayor acknowledged that the Fire Department, through attrition, would have 15 fewer firefighters within two to three years. “Those people are only there because they are needed to man the rig” at Station 29, Zarian said.

He said the department would remain at its present staffing level “minus the manpower needed to man that one truck.”

Ramsay has also had to backpedal. In a June 13 report to the council, the city manager said that eliminating the ladder-truck company at Station 29 would save $974,000 in the 1990-91 budget.

But that would require an immediate layoff of 15 firefighters, and the council ordered that the jobs be phased out through attrition. Ramsay told the council last week that because only four Fire Department vacancies are expected in the coming months, eliminating the truck company would cut only $193,711 from the new budget.

In addition, Fire Chief Montenero maintained last week that the truck crew does far more than wait for high-rise fires. He said it staffs a reserve engine and responds to brush fires, traffic accidents, hazardous waste spills and other emergencies.

Immediately after the council voted to eliminate the crew, the Glendale Fire Fighters Assn., which represents department employees, issued a written statement warning that the staffing cut “could reduce the Fire Department’s ability to protect life and property.” But association spokesman Eric Indermill said firefighters would not comment further on the issue while the council prepares to reconsider its decision.

For Friday’s meeting, Ramsay said he is preparing a more detailed report about the fire crew’s varied responsibilities. He said he was not better prepared to argue against eliminating the Montrose fire crew because the council’s original decision caught him off guard.

“I was surprised by the cutting of that truck,” he said.

Councilwoman Bremberg said she believes that Ramsay, who had defended his budget as free of excess spending, only gave the council a choice of cuts that involved essential services, such as sidewalk repairs, a branch library and the fire crew.

“That list is really a list of things that the staff did not expect us to cut,” she said. “I think we’re all playing a game here.”

Bremberg said she believes that the Fire Department cut should be reconsidered, partly because it will not provide as large a spending reduction as the council originally expected.

“If that’s the case,” she said, “maybe we better look elsewhere to save big bucks.”

Times staff writer Doug Smith also contributed to this story.