The Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The mayor and City Council both want an extra 15 firefighters responding to calls on Albuquerque’s West Side.
But debate over just how soon it can happen — and who is to blame if it doesn’t happen soon — erupted into a vigorous public spat this week.
The dispute centers on a resolution that earmarks an extra $600,000 this year to train and hire 15 more firefighters for the West Side. The measure was adopted at Monday’s council meeting at the request of Councilors Dan Lewis and Ken Sanchez, whose districts are west of the river.
But they expressed shock Monday when Fire Chief James Breen told them it was already too late to get those 15 firefighters into the latest cadet class, which, coincidentally, started earlier that day.
Breen said the proposal should have been considered at the council’s Aug. 1 meeting if councilors wanted those firefighters in the cadet class.
Sanchez demanded to know why the administration didn’t notify councilors that the bill had to be approved by a certain date.
“This is not a game of political chess,” he said. “This is an issue of public safety for the residents of Albuquerque. ... You were sitting here in those meetings. You should’ve brought that recommendation that we should have voted on it” during the Aug. 1 meeting.
The mayor’s representatives, in turn, told councilors they thought the bill was going to be considered Aug. 1. It was on the agenda that night, but councilors didn’t take it up because the meeting stretched past midnight and no one proposed extending it even longer.
“I share your concerns,” Breen told councilors. The bill “should have been heard.”
Rob Perry, the city’s top administrator under Mayor Richard Berry, agreed. “We were under the impression this bill would be heard at one point or another in that hearing,” he said.
Berry, for his part, said Wednesday that it’s wrong to blame Breen for the bill’s failure to be heard in time.
“I don’t think that’s fair to Chief Breen, and I’m going to stand behind my fire chief on this one,” Berry said in an interview.
What happens next isn’t clear. Lewis and Sanchez say the administration should add 15 cadets to the class that just started this week. They’ve missed only a few days, the councilors said, and plenty of applicants qualified for training but didn’t make it in.
“The council did its job,” Lewis said. “The council worked hard to find the proper appropriations to give the administration what they needed. Now it’s up to the administration to put those dollars where they’re supposed to go.”
The next cadet class starts in February, officials said.
Breen and Berry said it’s not practical to hire anyone else before then without compromising the training firefighters need.
Berry said a “time-consuming process” of screening applicants is needed before adding anyone to a cadet class.
Berry stressed Wednesday that the plans to add a ladder truck and 15 more firefighters west of the river have been in the works for some time. The West Side is as safe now as it ever has been, with no reduction in firefighters, he said.
“To try to spin it into a negative is a disservice to the community,” Berry said.
Voters this fall will be asked to approve funding for a ladder truck on the West Side, and the city also intends to build two new fire stations — one on the West Side — by the end of 2012.
Copyright 2011 Albuquerque Journal