Valley
Patriot Exclisive!
TARGETED!
Lawrence Fire Chief Murphy Says
He is Being Targted
TOM DUGGAN
Lawrence Mayor Willie
Lantigua is targeting Fire Chief Brian
Murphy after the chief publicly opposed
the mayors efforts to layoff more
than two dozen firefighters and close two
more fire stations, the chief told the
Valley Patriot.
Since Chief Murphy appeared before the
city council opposing Mayor Lantiguas
fervent efforts to layoff firefighters,
the mayor has announced that he wants to
remove the chiefs job from Civil
Service protection.
Civil Service is an agency that protects
public employees from political
retribution. If Lantigua succeeds in
removing the chieffrom civil service
protection, he can remove the chief
at-will and hire anyone he wants (even a
s position non-firefighter) to lead
the Lawrence Fire Department.
When Chief Murphy was asked by the Valley
Patriot if he thought the mayors
efforts to take his job out of Civil
Service protection was a personal attack,
Murphy said he does.
I believe thats what it was.
Initially the Mayor indicated
or
his Chief of Staff indicated that we
wants to take the chiefcivil service
process. Thats the process where we
take exams and go on a list for hiring
and s job out of the promotions,
the process is supposed to be fair and
take the politics out of it.
So, I signed that list for Chief and
shortly after I started speaking out
about these layoffs, I learned that the
mayor proposed to take it out of Civil
Service. Nobody had actually let me know
that was going on. I had to hear about it
from someone else, so yeah, I think
itpersonal. I think it is because Ive
been outspoken on what these cuts have
s meant for the city as far as
devastating the fire protection in the
city. I think thats part of it, and
I think that its unfortunate. This
department is already understaffed with
the cuts from last year and now we are
talking about a serious risk of life and
property with any additional layoffs,
the chief concluded.
Members of the Lantigua team
have also said that, not only do they
want to take the fire chiefs job
out of civil service, they are looking to
eliminate all of the officials in the
fire department. If Mayor Lantigua and
his city council decide to eliminate
superior officers, all the sergeants,
lieutenants, captains, etc, could be
demoted to the rank of firefighter.
There was a proposal from the
Budget and Finance Committee, Chief
Murphy said. They are going to
recommend that [demoting all officials]
to the city council, that is my
understanding. I have not been involved
in any communications on that, in fact I
really havenbeen in on any of the
communications on anything. I certainly
would hope that the chief t would
be involved in any attempt to
re-structure the fire department. I would
hope that those decisions wouldnt
be made without talking to the fire
chief. But I donour structure of how we
have run this department t know.
Right now, has worked very well for more
than 100 years. Our department is very
efficient. The problem we have now is we
simply do not have the manpower and we
have no say at all in the decision
making.
The Lawrence Fire Department suffered
devastating layoffs last year when Mayor
Sullivan cut the fire departments
budget due to a $10 MIL cut in state aid
by Governor Deval Patrick. Sullivan left
it up to whom he called the experts
as to what cuts to make in their
respective departments when Governor
Patrick cut local aid from Lawrences
budget.
I have always believed that
as mayor, you are a politician. Youre
not an expert at anything except getting
more votes than someone else,
former Mayor Mike Sullivan said.
The guys who work in the fire
department or the DPW or the police
department
they are the experts.
They know far better than any elected
official does, what kind of impact that
layoffs like this will have on the city.
How the process is supposed to work
is, the mayor cuts the bottom line of the
fire departments budget, say, by a
million dollars. Then you leave it to the
chief and the officials over there to
figure out if they can make cuts without
having to lay anyone off. Chief
Murphyright, Lantigua is not a fire
expert, he isnt a police expert. He
doesnt do their s job every
day and he shouldnfrom city hall. I never
laid off one city worker without getting
t be making those decisions input
from the department heads and giving them
the chance to avoid that by cutting
somewhere else in their budget. What
Lantigua is doing now is just reckless
and irresponsible. He is slashing and
burning public safety in the city with no
regard for peoplepublic safety s
lives or the impact his political
decisions will have on the moral of our
dedicated officials.
City Councilors like Frank Moran have
confronted Murphy at public meetings,
challenging his years of expertise and
his assertion that the city cannot
operate safely with another round of
layoffs. At times, Murphy and Moran as
well as Councilor Dan Rivera exchanged
words over Murphys formula for
staffing requirements on the department.
At times, councilors who are open allies
of Mayor Lantigua hinted that they had
statistics and formulas that disputed the
chiefminimum staffing requirements.
s
I am not sure they have those
formulas, Murphy told the Valley
Patriot. The formula that I was
using was based on the same formula that
the Police Chief Romero was asked to
present as to how many police officers he
needed based on his experience.
He gave the city council the number he
said was needed to maintain public safety
and that was just fine with them. They
accepted his word no problem. Then they
asked me how many fire fighters I needed.
I said, based on my years of experience
these are the numbers
and they did
not like that. That wasnt good
enough.
Based on 30 years of experience, myself
and four deputy chiefs have determined
that we need a minimum of 24 firefighters
per shift. Thats not a luxury that
is the minimum we need to get by. Thats
five engine companies, two ladder
companies and a rescue.
That means Engine 6, and both stations
opened and thats what weve
dermined is the minimal level. That doesnt
give us any extra, thatthe minimum to get
by. There is no way, no matter how you
work the math, that anyones numbers
s are going to come out any less
than that.
Right now, that is actually going to be
the lowest level in the state. Right now
[before the last round of layoffs] we are
below the lowest level in the state for
the community size. If we go to the
projected overseers budget of 13 to
17 firefighters [per shift], that is
going to be the equivalent of a city with
less than 40,000 people
and
Lawrence has at least 80,000 people. So
we would be expected to run an entire
department with the number of
firefighters that a community with 40,000
people would have. It just isnt
acceptable.
Mayor Lantigua laid off 23 firefighters
on July 6th.
To send a news tip or comment on this
story you can email: valleypatriot@aol.com
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