By LISA P. WHITE
Belleville News-Democrat
For the first time in a decade, veteran firefighters and police officers can live outside the city.
Under the three-year contract the City Council approved Monday, firefighters with 20 years of service can move out of Belleville.
Police officers secured the same perk during negotiations on their three-year contract, which the council approved in October. However, anyone who moves still must live within St. Clair County.
Members of Belleville Firefighters Local No. 53 have ratified the agreement.
“It wasn’t a huge issue for us and it’s nothing that was going to hold up the contract per se,” said union President Dave Zahn. “The police got it and the city didn’t take it off the table so we thought, ‘Why not?’”
Ward 2 Alderman Joe Shively and Ward 3 Alderman Ed Hock voted against the contract.
Hock, who also opposed the police contract, said he worried about response times if firefighters lived in other cities.
Fire Capt. David Martinson said he believes few of the 12 eligible firefighters will choose to move. Even if a few do, he said it shouldn’t impact the department’s ability to fight fires.
He said he would worry “if we had a lot of major fires, but we have other means of getting manpower. We have mutual aid agreements where I could cover any shortages. I don’t see it as a problem.”
Zahn said retaining a health insurance benefit was much more important to the union. Currently, retired firefighters continue to pay the health insurance rate they paid at the time of their retirement and the city covers any annual increase for seven years. The police union agreed that officers hired after Jan. 1, 1990, will no longer receive the benefit, but Zahn said his members were unwilling to accept a cutback.
He called in a federal mediator and was prepared to take the issue to arbitration, but the city and the union reached a compromise so that the 51 firefighters on the roster will get the benefit, but new employees won’t.
“It was something we felt very passionate about to keep in our contract,” Zahn said. “That was a big issue for us, that was our biggest concern and that’s what we went after.”
Firefighters will get a 3 percent raise in each year of the contract, which expires in April 2008. The starting salary is $38,502.