Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini is pleading with volunteer firefighters not to resign after the city axed at least one member of the service.
Vagnini was responding to news that broke earlier this morning that the city was holding disciplinary meetings with an unknown number of volunteer firefighters who spoke out against the fire optimization plans earlier this year.
The volunteer who was axed is a third-generation volunteer firefighter with a solid reputation for his 12 years of work, said Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini, a member of the Emergency Services Committee.
“Let us work through this, and see what we can do to satisfy the needs of everybody,” he said. “When you hear the words, 'a volunteer got fired,' I just can't comprehend it. I don't know all the reasons why this is happening, and I haven't been able to sit down with anyone from the city.”
The Ontario Volunteer Firefighters Association, CLAC Local 920, said it will fight to undo any terminations that take place as a result of the city's decision to target volunteers who allegedly spoke against the proposed (and since abandoned) fire optimization plan.
Seeing volunteers fired for making their concerns known is a first for him, said Vagnini.
“I don't know what we can or can't do right now,” he said. “It has pitted the community against council, and I'm getting phone calls left and right. It definitely has to be addressed.”
He said the city's fire optimization plan, as a whole, has created chaos in the city, with a rising tide of residents in rural wards calling for the city to de-amalgamate.
With volunteer firefighters being fired, residents of Ward 2 and the other outlying wards realize the value of volunteer firefighters, Vagnini said. For some of those communities, volunteer firefighters is all they have, he added.
Vagnini wanted to make it clear he was never a proponent of the optimization plan.
“When optimization started, it created an entire concept of deamalgamation,” he said. “At the time, I told management this was going to create anarchy and mayhem across the city, and it pitted the rural communities against the rest of the city.”
In its statement, the city confirmed members of the Community Safety Department are being disciplined.
"This is a result of certain individuals’ actions which violated City of Greater Sudbury employee handbook policies related to political and work communications. The City of Greater Sudbury respects the process it and the union have agreed upon in respect to disputes through the collective bargaining process."
