Malden firefighters: Public safety threatened
The layoff of 10 members of the Malden Fire Department and the closure of a station are drawing protest from the local firefighters’ union, which warns the cuts are jeopardizing public safety.
Union members distributed leaflets throughout the city Saturday alerting residents to the personnel reductions and the closing of the Engine 4 station, located on part of the former Rowe Quarry site. The union said the cuts would increase the department’s response times, particularly in the Forestdale, Maplewood, and Linden sections, and come in a year in which Malden already has had eight multiple-alarm fires.
“It’s going to be devastating,’’ union president Brian Parow said of the closure. “It’s going to be a very dangerous situation for the people that live on the east side of the city,’’ where the station is located, “and for the members of the Fire Department.’’
The flier, which also points to other cuts the department has sustained over the years and problems with its facilities, urges residents to contact Mayor Richard C. Howard and city councilors to voice their concerns.
In addition to the layoffs, which took effect on Saturday, the department is not filling the positions of two retiring firefighters, for an overall reduction of 12 jobs, according to Fire Chief Michael J. Murphy. Two lieutenants also had their ranks reduced to firefighter.
The department deactivated Engine 4, the pump truck based at the station, when it closed Sunday. The building, located on part of the site of the Overlook Ridge redevelopment project, also houses a Revere fire station, which remains in operation. Murphy said his department plans to relocate its fire prevention office to the Malden portion of the building.
Parow noted that deactivating Engine 4 — one of the city’s four pump trucks — came after the department took a rescue truck off line last year because of budget issues.
The recent cuts came after the union and the city failed to reach agreement on health care concessions that Howard had said would be needed to avoid cuts in the department. Several other unions, including the teachers, agreed to the concessions. Howard could not be reached for comment.
The Fire Department was initially budgeted $750,000 below what it needed to maintain existing services in fiscal 2011, according to Murphy. He said the mayor informed him last week he would ask the City Council to add $150,000 to the department’s budget, leaving it $600,000 below level services.
Murphy said he shared the union’s concerns about the effect of the cutbacks.
“It’s going to be difficult to operate the Fire Department with these cuts,’’ he said. “It’s more dangerous for the firefighters and more dangerous for the citizens with fewer firefighters on duty.’’
With the recent personnel cuts, the department now has 107 firefighters, down from 121 at the start of the last fiscal year, and the minimum number of firefighters deployed on each shift has fallen from 22 to 18, according to Murphy.
Because of the lower staffing level, the department is now ineligible to access a $768,956 federal grant that it was awarded in the spring, Murphy said. The grant would have continued to pay for four positions that had been funded with a previous award of federal stimulus money by the state, and covered two other positions.
Parow said that the health concessions sought by the mayor — which were accompanied by an offer of a 3 percent raise over two years — would come on top of others the union has made over the last few years. He said the union made a proposal agreeing to the latest changes but asked for concessions on the city’s part, but that the city did not respond.
Parow noted that Malden’s two police unions also failed to reach terms with the city on the health concessions, but that the Police Department had largely been spared layoffs.
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