Civil Rights Suit Filed Against Westminster : Courts: Escalating a long battle, firefighters union claims its top officials were victims of political retribution.

The labor union representing Westminster firefighters filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and several municipal leaders Thursday, charging that officials punished top union representatives for campaigning against the mayor and three other council members.

The legal action is part of a pitched battle between the Westminster Firefighters Assn. and city leaders that has lasted for years and escalated in January when the city, following a payroll audit, accused firefighters of fraudulently collecting overtime pay.

The union’s president has been fired and a fire captain suspended in recent months, while the union has gathered enough signatures to force a recall election in June against Mayor Charles V. Smith and three other council members. The lawsuit seeks reinstatement of both firefighters.

“The people in control of this City Council are so reactionary that they will stop at nothing to oppose people who oppose their views,” said Alan C. Davis, a San Francisco attorney who filed the lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

The lawsuit alleges a scenario of political retribution that began in 1992, when Fire Capt. Michael Garrison and union President Paul Gilbrook actively campaigned for Councilwoman Joy L. Neugebauer to become mayor. Smith, her opponent, won the seat in November, 1992.

In the ensuing months, the lawsuit alleges, Smith and three other council members--Craig Schweisinger, Charmayne S. Bohman and Tony Lam--embarked on a politically motivated financial review that resulted in layoffs and staff reductions at the Fire Department.

Last year, the city conducted an audit which showed that the Fire Department had spent about $1 million on overtime pay when the budget for fiscal 1991-92 had been set at $710,000.

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Auditors also found that overtime costs had nearly tripled from 1986 to 1990, from $342,000 to about $928,000.

At the time, the city ordered that only emergency overtime be approved and set the overtime budget for fiscal 1993-94 at $75,000. The union sued and obtained a temporary restraining order. During the 10 weeks the injunction was in effect, Smith said, the Fire Department racked up $283,000 in overtime costs.

“If that ain’t abuse, I don’t know what is,” Smith said Thursday.

Last October, union leaders began circulating a recall petition against Smith and the other three council members. Two months later, Gilbrook was suspended after investigators found that he improperly claimed sick leave and drove a fire engine with a suspended driver’s license. Gilbrook was fired in February. He maintains that he was singled out because of his political activities.

After a mentally disabled man died in a fire at a Westminster residential care facility in January, Fire Capt. Garrison called a news conference and said that budget cuts directly contributed to the man’s death. The city’s fire chief disputed the charge and suspended Garrison with pay for making “unsubstantiated statements” while the cause of the blaze was still under investigation.

In the past two days, eight firefighters, including Garrison, have been called before a panel of investigators who are trying to determine whether they abused their sick leave or vacation time between 1986 and 1993.

Garrison said that no firefighter has been asked about alleged overtime abuses, and attorney Davis said that no investigation involving overtime is underway.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew S. Anderson said an investigation of possible overtime abuses is still pending. He declined to comment further.

Smith said the city’s auditor, KPMG Peat Marwick, is preparing a report to be released at the next council meeting, on April 12, that will show numerous discrepancies in overtime payments since 1986.

“The (union’s) claim is that everything we’ve done to stop overtime has been political, (but) it has nothing to do with political retribution,” Smith said. “This is a power struggle, and the Fire Department has had control of the City Council for years. That changed in November, and we are getting control of a department that was out of control. At the rate they were spending money, this city would have been bankrupt in three years.”