By Elizabeth Johns
The Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada)
BURLINGTON, Canada — Burlington’s firefighters union and city managers are publicly squabbling over an already installed pilot project to obey the speed limit .
The city bought a half-page ad in Friday’s Spectator to inform citizens about the temporary initiative.
Admitting the ad was an “unusual move,” city manager Roman Martiuk said it was printed to tell management’s side of the story. It’s also to deal with the union’s assertion that firefighters weren’t consulted on the trial project, he said. The ad states there was “extensive” consultation and a majority of the fire department’s 64 unionized captains reviewed the plan in May.
During the June 1-Sept. 30 trial, firefighters must not exceed the speed limit even in an emergency, to test whether they would arrive at scenes at the same time and have fewer accidents.
“The union went straight to the media with their concerns, implying we had not consulted with them (on this trial),” Martiuk said.
In early July, fire officials said the response times increased by about 90 seconds for emergencies that were 1.5 kilometres away.
Since that review, the fire trucks have been allowed to travel with the flow of traffic up to 10 kilometres over the posted speed limit, when responding to an emergency more than 1.5 kilometres away.
Dan VanderLelie, president of the Burlington Professional Firefighters Association, opposes the pilot, citing union concerns about firefighter and public safety.
“Seconds count when you’re responding to a fire,” he said.
He maintained the union was not consulted and said citizens have come to them with pilot concerns.
“I was very disappointed when I saw this ad,” he said. “This is not the way we wanted it to go.
“We wanted to sit down with them and have a discussion. This move by council is very disheartening to our association.”
Burlington council approved the ad in a meeting last Monday.
VanderLelie said the union has a meeting scheduled with management on Aug. 5.
Copyright 2008, The Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada)