By Tom Lochner West County Times
Contra Costa Times
HERCULES, Calif. — Former Rodeo-Hercules Fire Chief Gary Boyles broke a long silence this week, saying he can no longer ignore negative comments about him by members of the firefighters union that engineered his ouster.
“I have done my best to not publicize or criticize the events and actions that have taken place in destroying my career,” said Boyles, who retired as chief effective June 30 as part of a settlement with the fire district. “However, now firefighters are even trying to demonize me to outside organizations.”
Boyles cited a call received by the Hercules Rotary Club late June warning that firefighters might boycott the club’s annual 911 Police Officer/Firefighter of the Year award dinner. Boyles is a member of Hercules Rotary; another club member confirmed Boyles’ account. The firefighter who is believed to have made the call was off-duty most of the week and did not respond to an e-mail inquiry from the Times.
On June 25, after a months-long campaign by Firefighters Local 1230 that began with a no-confidence vote in January, the fire district board Wally Trujillo, Beth Bartke, John Mills and chairman J.R. Stafford forced Boyles into retirement, even though a consultant had found “no factual support” for the no confidence vote; a fifth board member, Bill Prather, was not in attendance.
Local 1230 President Vince Wells, in a Jan. 14 letter to the board, said the no-confidence vote came “after many months of serious thought” and reflected firefighters’ “lack of confidence in his (Boyles’) ability to manage the district.” The letter also said Boyles was unable to work with top officials in other agencies and targets employees who question his management decisions, among other contentions. Boyles had been Rodeo-Hercules chief since 2001.
Boyles said the union really wanted him out because of his views on several hot-button issues, including 3-percent salary at age 50 retirement benefits; reserve firefighters on strike teams; 48-hours-on, 96-hours-off work scheduling; and, most immediately, his advocacy of the “Pack Test” as a prerequisite for out-of-area strike team assignments, which are lucrative sources of overtime pay for firefighters. The Pack Test requires carrying a 45-pound pack three miles in 45 minutes or less.
Local 1230 vice president Rich Voisey, at a Feb. 18 board meeting, said the Pack Test risks firefighter safety because it is done in an “uncontrolled environment.” Wells, at the same meeting, said Local 1230 feels the Pack Test is unnecessary because it is geared to federal, seasonal firefighters whom he characterized as “nonprofessional,” the minutes show.
Wells and several rank-and-file union members have bristled at suggestions that the no confidence vote was related to Boyles’ advocacy of the “Pack Test.” The test “wasn’t even on the radar” when the animus against Boyles came to a head, Wells said.
Boyles, in a statement he sent to board members in May, says otherwise. He said he had never even met Wells, who is a Contra Costa County fire captain, until the day before the no confidence vote, when Wells showed up in Hercules ostensibly to discuss other issues, and soon steered the conversation to the Pack Test.
“He (Wells) said there was no way that he would allow his firefighters to participate in the test, not because he opposed it but because they would be the first large union in the state to adopt it and they would be ostracized up and down the state by other unions if they went along with it,” Boyles wrote.
Wells this week said, “I don’t recall saying that and it doesn’t sound like something I would say.
“For me to go in there and make that statement that has to be exaggerated.”
Wells added that as part of a larger organization the statewide union “once you (the local) open doors to do things like that, the next group faced with it would say: in Contra Costa County, they’re doing it.”
And then, Wells said, “The next thing, they want to do a test to make sure you can do this and do that you jeopardize employees in their job. Different chiefs could set the bar in different ways.”
On Jan. 21 the fire board agreed to hire former state Fire Marshal Ron Coleman to look into union allegations related to the no confidence vote.
In April, according to a report out of closed session, the board determined: “With respect to the vote of no confidence advanced by the (union), it (the Coleman investigation) found that (the allegations) were not supported by any evidentiary basis, and therefore, the board concluded that there was no basis to take action upon the no-confidence vote.
“Notwithstanding the finding of no factual support for the vote of no confidence with respect to the chief,” the report continues, “the board did find that there was a need to substantially improve communication.”
Stafford, the board chairman, said he could not comment because the matter was personnel related.
Said Wells, “They corroborated that there was a serious communication problem,” and added that the fire board had conducted a “very detailed” inquiry.
“There definitely was a fair process for Chief Boyles in this thing.”
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