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Midlands Voices: Fire ordinance recklessly prevents proper review of department
Published 07/28/2009The writer, of Omaha, is a businessman.
At the July 21 Omaha City Council meeting, I witnessed politics at its worst.
Councilman Ben Gray rightfully took issue against an ordinance defining fire department overhead. Of the 11 city departments, only the Fire Department has an ordinance like this.
The ordinance locks up our ability to improve efficiency by reviewing, analyzing, remodeling, refining, modernizing or streamlining the way the department operates. The city cannot do a thing, which gives every advantage to the fire union during negotiations.
The city attorney offered no reason for the ordinance except that the council in 2000 decided it was needed (under pressure from the fire union) even though it unnecessarily duplicates collective bargaining between the city and the department.
The ordinance takes away power to change these agreements, so it's useless to the city but gives significant leverage to the union.
At the meeting, fire union representatives and the fire chief tried to say that any concern about the ordinance is an attack on the safety of firefighters and the public. No one I know wants to do one thing to put our noble firefighters or the public at a greater risk. But to argue that the ordinance should not be removed is in effect saying that we are supposed to believe that no fire department division ever experiences one ounce of waste, duplication, inefficiency or excess and that no system or procedure should be modernized. Not only that, but this argument also says that we should take the fire department's word for it that it is efficient.
No corporate leader in the private sector would put up with this nonsense.
No government department should be off-limits from analysis and modernization. No group of government employees should be allowed to cement staffing and overhead into a city charter and prevent change, especially when technology has shown us we can do more with fewer people in the 21st century.
Every other department is open for examination, scrutiny and refinement, including the police department, but not the fire department.
To block this department from a full review is ludicrous, especially since the mayor wants to increase property taxes by 2.4 percent and introduce a 2 percent entertainment tax.
The most appalling part of the meeting was that some City Council members ignored all of this and pandered to union representatives — politics at its worst. On this matter, some council members simply are not representing taxpayers rightly. They should demonstrate better stewardship of our hard-earned tax dollars. I believe they simply are trying to pacify a huge campaign “gorilla” they don't want to upset.
It is time for our elected officials to recognize that they need to put all government on an even playing field. They need to regain their political souls and restore their credibility by eliminating this ordinance and finding ways to operate the fire department more efficiently.
Unless we begin to change directions on how the city manages this relationship, the citizens will have no choice but to call for privatization of the department to stave off excessive taxation and the decimation of services in the future.
If that happened, I can assure you that a private sector “gorilla” would rise up to press change upon the council.
Midlands Voices essays reflect the views of the writer and not necessarily the editorial position of The World-Herald.
