Employee Union Plans to Fight City Layoffs

Leaders of the city’s employee union say they will fight a plan by officials to save money by contracting out maintenance services and laying off the 23 employees who do that work now.

The 100-member San Clemente City Employees Union has sent a letter asking for a meeting with city officials and has hired negotiators from the Orange County Employees Assn. to represent it, union officials said.

Union President Teri Delkamp said that the City Council’s decision last week to seek bids from private contractors to replace the entire street maintenance division violates state law.

General-law cities such as San Clemente can contract only for legal help, engineering assistance, police and fire protection, Delkamp said. Street maintenance is not on the list of contract services allowed, she said.

“Our perspective on this is that there might be other areas to look into other than contracting out” for street maintenance, Delkamp said.

But City Treasurer Paul Gudgeirsson said there is precedent for San Clemente to hire a contractor for street maintenance. Though the layoffs would not be official until a bid were accepted, he said, “obviously our intent is to contract out the division.”

The council approved the layoffs and other cutbacks to help offset the $2.8 million lost by the city with the passage in November of Proposition 218, a statewide measure that sharply restricts how cities may levy taxes for municipal services.

City officials say they will meet with employees soon to discuss severance issues.