Firefighters Broke Their Promises – Letter to the El Segundo Herald by Illeen Joscha

The following letter to the editor was published in the El Segundo Herald newspaper (HeraldPublications.com) on Thursday, February 24, 2011 in the Letters section on page 3. The El Segundo Herald has a strict 250-word limit.

Firefighters Broke Their Promises

The firefighters convinced voters to sign their initiative petition by promising that signing it would not make it law, but would only get it on the ballot so the people could vote on it. The firefighters also promised their initiative would save tax money and preserve our fire department.

But once voters trusted the firefighters and signed their petition, the firefighters broke their promises. They tried to have their initiative become law without letting people vote on it. At the Feb. 15 City Council meeting, Bryan Partlow, a firefighters’ union member and representative, and Scott Houston, a former and likely future City Council candidate, read similar prepared statements. They demanded the City Council enact Measure P, the firefighters’ union initiative, as an ordinance without letting the people vote on it, citing the signatures as justification.

They also demanded that if the City Council decides to let the people vote on Measure P, they should do so in a proposed June 2011 special congressional election, for higher voter turnout. Hypocritically, the firefighters’ union wanted either nobody voting, or high voter turnout so there would be more uninformed voters.

Measure P actually destroys our fire department. It gives all our fire vehicles and equipment to Los Angeles County, eliminates our paramedic ambulance service forever, has L.A. County provide reduced emergency services for ten years minimum, and makes the firefighters unaccountable to our city.

The promised “cost savings” come from emergency service cutbacks, not reductions in their excessive and unsustainable salaries and pensions.

Illeen Joscha