Turlock moves to request Modesto fire contract proposal after ‘passionate argument’
A divided Turlock City Council on Tuesday directed staff to request a contract proposal for fire administration services from Modesto, despite concerns from unions and residents who gave public comments.
Voting 3-2, officials in the majority said the step allows the city to gather information and compare the cost of paying Modesto to manage the Turlock Fire Department against maintaining an in-house command team.
Mayor Amy Bublak, who voted for the request with Councilwomen Pam Franco and Rebecka Monez, responded to resident concerns that the council wants to sell the Fire Department to Modesto. Resident Milt Trieweiler and former Councilman Gil Esquer were among several who urged the council not to request a Modesto contract proposal.
“The last three years — only three years — I haven’t been supported by them, the Fire (Department),” Bublak said during the meeting. “But I have supported them nonstop. So this whole hatred concept and jumping to conclusions and people wanting to sell out is all wrong.”
In the 2018 mayoral election, the Turlock firefighters union endorsed one of Bublak’s opponents, then-Mayor Gary Soiseth. In a phone interview, union President Chad Hackett declined to comment on Bublak’s statement but said the union does not support contracting for fire services.
While the union understands the council wanting to explore options, Hackett said, it prefers considering joint power agreements, consolidation or regionalization instead of contracting.
“We do not feel that long-term it is a viable and healthy option,” he said Wednesday. “Whereas the other ones provide more stability factors to where local agencies can still have jurisdiction rights and control within their organization.”
The union is open to evaluating other options to cut out redundancies and smartly spend taxpayers’ dollars, Hackett added. Turlock could look into partnering with the Denair and Keyes fire protection districts, whose jurisdictions touch the city’s, he said.
Under a contract for fire administration services, Hackett also said Turlock firefighters would lose opportunities to be promoted to management. The proposal Turlock seeks would outsource the command positions of fire chief, division chief of operation and division chief of training to Modesto, Interim Chief Michael Botto said during the meeting. All other Turlock Fire Department staff would continue as city employees, per the city staff report.
Mark Gomez, president of the Turlock Management Association Public Safety, similarly told officials during the meeting that his union opposes removing the three positions from the city.
Motion on Turlock fire study fails
Council Members Nicole Larson and Andrew Nosrati voted against the action Tuesday. Larson proposed city staff obtain a contract proposal for fire administration services from Modesto but asked the information be included in the ongoing six-month-long Fire Department study. The council in late October voted to pay the consultant Citygate $80,000 for a comprehensive review of the agency and recommendations for its future.
Her motion failed with only Nosrati supporting it. If the motion had passed, the council would have planned to review the Modesto contract proposal and cost comparisons around May. Per the majority council vote, staff plan to bring the comparisons between a contract and traditional fire department in January.
Larson pushed for waiting until Citygate completes the master plan study and said the council does not need to plan on voting on a Modesto fire contract next month. With Botto and the interim chief division chief of operations scheduled to leave at the end of January, Larson said the council can instead look to hire another retiree to temporarily fill the positions.
Nosrati likewise said he opposed major changes without a permanent city manager. The position has been filled on an interim basis since January, when the council voted 3-2 to put then-City Manager Toby Wells on investigative leave.
On the other hand, Franco said requesting the contract proposal from Modesto allows Citygate to complete the study on the Turlock Fire Department’s future. City staff plan to share the proposal with Citygate for analysis.
“This is very understandably a heated and passionate argument whether we do this or not,” Franco said. “But tonight there’s no contract proposal here. There’s no numbers to compare anything to tonight.”
City staff plan to bring the Modesto fire contract proposal to the Turlock council in January. The next council meeting is scheduled for Jan. 11.
