Fire Department Seeking Language Skills : Hiring: Applicants who speak Chinese or Spanish will be given preference under a plan approved by the city’s Personnel Board.

The Fire Department for the first time will give preference in hiring to job applicants who speak Chinese or Spanish, under a new policy that officials hope will attract Asian and Latino firefighters.

A long-range goal of the policy, approved by the city’s Personnel Board June 12, is to have one Chinese-speaking and at least one Spanish-speaking firefighter on each shift, Fire Chief Allen McComb said. Currently, four of Monterey Park’s 50 firefighters are Latino. None is Asian.

Under the policy, applicants for firefighter jobs will be divided into three separate categories--English-only, Spanish-speaking and Chinese-speaking. The categories are not racially exclusive; a white applicant fluent in Mandarin would be placed on the Chinese list, while a monolingual Mexican-American would go on the English-only list.

Whenever there is a vacancy in the department, the fire chief will decide whether he needs to fill the spot with a special language skill, and interview only applicants from the appropriate list.

City officials emphasized that all firefighters must pass a battery of tests. “No one that is not qualified will be hired,” McComb said.

To combat difficulties in attracting Asian applicants, the chief will soon appear on a Chinese television show to discuss the policy.

City officials say the Fire Department’s approach--grouping applicants by language skills rather than ethnicity--is unusual.

Los Angeles is under a 1974 court order to hire certain percentages of minorities and women as firefighters. Alhambra, sued last year by the U.S. Justice Department, has agreed as part of a tentative settlement to hire six Asian and black firefighters over a two-year period. Neither city gives preference to bilingual applicants for firefighter jobs.

Richard M. Martinez, a lawyer for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, warned that there may be a drawback to Monterey Park’s program: Minorities who don’t speak another language will not benefit.

“If the only way to get hired as an Asian or Latino is to be bilingual, you’ve created a discriminatory hiring practice,” he said Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Monterey Park Firefighters Assn. is asking the Personnel Board to rescind the policy. It is similar to another city program, also being challenged by union officials, to recruit bilingual 911 dispatchers.

Mario Beas, Monterey Park’s personnel director, said the criticism is “premature,” and he is meeting with union officials to try to dispel their concerns.

McComb said the new system is sorely needed in a city that is 56% Asian and 31% Latino.

“Many older members of the Chinese population do not speak English,” he said. “Occasionally, they’ll ask a neighbor or family member (to translate), but that slows things down.”