ORANGE : City Ratifies 2-Year Firefighter Contract

Despite months of protests by a local taxpayers group, the City Council has voted to ratify a two-year, $21.2-million contract with city firefighters.

The 3-2 action last week ends a three-month struggle by the Orange Taxpayers Assn. to pressure the council to explore the possibility of contracting with the county for city fire services. Group members said contracting for county fire services could save the city as much as $2 million a year.

But council members who passed the firefighters agreement said their action would save the city $1.8 million over two years, while maintaining local authority over a Fire Department.

“We were looking for total dollar savings” in the contract, said Councilman Mike Spurgeon, who along with Mayor Gene Beyer and Councilman Mark Murphy approved the agreement. “I feel, personally, we are going to get that.”

But Councilwoman Joanne Coontz and Councilman Fred L. Barrera, who opposed the contract, said the city should have pushed for more financial concessions from the firefighters. Under the terms of the contract, firefighters agreed to no increases in base salary and tighter restrictions on overtime pay.

“The real cuts are just not there” in the contract, Coontz said. “It’s poor math and bad policy.”

Coontz and Barrera also accused fellow council members of withholding information about the contract terms while it was being negotiated.

Beyer dismissed the charges as “false and misleading.”

After the meeting, Adele Clark, a spokeswoman for a taxpayers group, said she was disappointed with the council’s decision. But she said if the city saves $1.8 million from the contract as it claims, it would lessen the sting of the group’s defeat.

“We all want to keep the Fire Department,” Clark said. “But only so long as we can afford it.”