Long Beach to lay off 5 firefighters

Union, residents call on administration to reconsider after federal grant expires

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The city says it will lay off five firefighters on Jan. 1, when a $910,530 federal grant — which allowed the Fire Department to bring back personnel two years ago — comes to an end.

Officials with the Long Beach Professional Firefighters Local 287, the union representing the city’s career firefighters, say they were informed about the layoffs at a meeting with City Manager Jack Schnirman and other officials on Monday. “We were told that the grant has ended, and after the holiday we’re going to have to lay five guys off,” said Will Ryan, vice president of Local 287. “We’re extremely disappointed.”

The Fire Department consists of both a career and volunteer force, and the cuts will bring the career unit down to 25 firefighters. Schnirman, however, said that union members were aware that the layoffs were on the horizon, since the two-year grant — issued in December 2012 — was set to expire.

“Unfortunately, we’re looking at a situation where we have a grant that has expired,” Schnirman said, “and it’s something that we were all aware of two years ago.”

Residents and firefighters packed Tuesday’s City Council meeting after word quickly spread about the layoffs on social media, and there were calls for the city to reconsider and find room in the budget or other sources of funding — on a night when the city discussed plans for a new skate park.

Many cited a need to retain the firefighters, especially since the Long Beach Medical Center remains closed and turnaround times on ambulances have increased dramatically.

“I really think we need to go back and maybe trim something,” said resident Mary Volosovich. “I’m for the skate park … but the quality and protection of life — we don’t have that 24/7 [hospital] and it’s not going to be up next year or so, we all know that. Go back to your drawing board and look at this again. You can’t play with people’s lives like this.”

The discussion came on a night when Schnirman announced that the city was experiencing a widespread power outage, which led one resident to shout, “The Fire Department is on it!” to a round of applause.

“The last thing we should be cutting is our firefighters,” another resident told the council.

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