It seems odd to me — maybe it does to you, too — that the union representing the city’s career firefighters issued a statement last week in defence of the fire chief.
I’ve rarely, if ever, in all my years reporting on strikes, union/management relations and labour issues, seen the rank and file come to the defence of management in such a public way. Perhaps, in the fire service, the relationship between the folks in the trenches and the brass is somewhat different than in all other sectors. I don’t know.
Still, offering such a vociferous defence of Fire and Paramedic Chief Trevor Bain, while accusing two sitting city councillors of, in effect, bullying, seems wildly out of step and utterly out of the ordinary to me.
The ongoing saga of the abandoned Fire Optimization Plan (FOP) is playing out like an episode of The Twilight Zone: down is up, black is white, and the plot remains mysterious right to the very end when all questions get an answer. Maybe.
That’s where we find ourselves in Greater Sudbury at the moment. We have a lot of questions, but few answers.
Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier issued a statement to media this week in which he seemed as perplexed by the Sudbury Professional Firefighters Association’s defence of Trevor Bain as I am.
Of course, Montpellier and his counterpart, Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini, fanned the flames of conspiracy in their criticisms of Bain’s optimization plan, accusing the chief of empire building, of sacrificing volunteers so he could hire more careers, of stealing fire protection infrastructure from rural parts of the city to boost urban areas.
Conspiracy theories are never helpful, but they often contain a nugget of truth, somewhere under all the nonsense. Bain delivered the report city council asked him to produce, a document to show how a “one city, one service” model of fire protection could work. Why he took the plan on a council-blessed, half-baked roadshow before the politicians had a chance to react to the report is a valid question — another one to add to the list.
The fallout from the FOP also shone a light on the friction that apparently exists between career firefighters, volunteers and, evidently, paramedics, who were understandably irked the plan largely ignored them, despite the important role they play in our emergency services web.
The friction brought to light by the FOP isn’t the first indication we’ve had that something’s going on with our fire service, though. That goes all the way back to the fall of 2015 when former Sudbury Airport CEO Bob Johnston was serving as the city’s interim CAO.
Johnston’s tenure as the top bureaucrat came to an abrupt end when he clashed with Mayor Brian Bigger over the fire service. He detailed what he called “mind-blowing” problems caused by the 24-hour shift model adopted in 2013.
Johnston said since that model was put in place, overtime costs have increased 132 per cent, costing taxpayers an estimated $880,000 in 2015 alone. Sick leave has increased by 40 per cent, workplace incidents (which includes exposure to hazards) have increased 73 per cent and grievances by 300 per cent.
Johnston claims he wanted to tackle what he saw as a major problem, but he said the mayor would have none of it, going so far as to order him not to use the word “fire” in his presence. Johnston said Bigger accused him of insubordination in an email sent to councillors.
If the numbers Johnston floated are accurate, what possible reason could the mayor, an accountant, have for not wanting to address such massive cost overruns? Why would the mayor’s reaction be to accuse a respected bureaucrat like Johnston of insubordination and fire him? We don’t know, because the mayor refused to answer any questions about it.
But those questions linger. Like the fate of the three volunteer firefighters who were mysteriously let go last month without the involvement or knowledge of city councillors, we don’t know why.
And while these questions remained unanswered and hints of friction in the background leak out, we still face an issue the FOP was supposed to address: the fire service needs attention.
There are equipment upgrades needed; there is too much coverage overlap in some areas and not enough in others; there are fire stations that need retrofits and some that need replacement.
All of this requires the attention of city council. But instead of having an adult conversation about how to tackle these issues, council and staff are butting heads over who said what to whom, who was bullied and who wasn’t.
The public deserves answers, and still, no answers are forthcoming.
Mark Gentili is the managing editor of Northern Life and Sudbury.com. Follow him on Twitter @markgentili. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
