Long Beach looks to hire paramedics

A recommendation made by ICMA calls for hiring civilian paramedics at significantly lower salaries to replace a number of career firefighters.

Herald file photo

Two weeks after union members and a number of residents criticized the city for considering a consulting firm’s recommendation to cut more than half of its career firefighters and replace them with civilian paramedics, the city announced on Feb. 5 that it was looking for applicants to fill those new positions but had yet to make a final decision on just how many layoffs and hires were in the works.

The city announced in a job ad on its website that the effort to create new civil service positions and fill them with paramedics follows a recommendation made by the International City/County Management Association’s Center for Public Safety Management, a Washington, D.C.-based firm the city hired last year to conduct a review of its emergency services in the wake of the Long Beach Medical Center’s closure. The move, the city added, is aimed at bolstering Long Beach’s emergency services to “deliver the best possible public safety to residents.”

“The whole idea is to enhance the EMS system as well as public safety,” Fire Commissioner Scott Kemins said.

The announcement came as a shock, however, to many career firefighters, who accused the city of rushing the measure and said it had yet to reach an agreement over staffing with the Long Beach Professional Firefighters Local 287, the union representing career firefighters, who have been without a contract for four years. The union and city officials are still at odds over the planned layoffs of five firefighters slated for Feb. 15 after a $1 million federal grant that funded the positions expired in December.

“We were a little taken aback,” Local 287 President Billy Piazza said of the job announcement. “I’m trying to save these guys’ jobs and work all of this into the contract. My hope going forward is that we find a happy medium. We’re trying to figure out a way to save jobs and avoid layoffs, and continue to provide the services that we have been. We’re in the process of proposing ideas to the city on how we can do so.”