Firefighter’s layoff still an issue in Millwood

When Millwood town council members laid off firefighter Tony Perry last year, they said it was because of a budget crunch.

Perry contends it is because the three full-time firefighters decided to form a union. Perry was the union president when he was given notice in December that his position had been cut.

The two sides presented their cases Tuesday and Wednesday before Dianne Ramerman of the state Public Employment Relations Commission. Ramerman will decide whether Perry will get his job back. The decision won’t be made until later this summer, as time ran out before all witnesses were called this week. Another hearing date has been added for mid-June.

The layoff of Perry has been an explosive issue in the small town, which takes up less than a square mile and is surrounded on three sides by the city of Spokane Valley. Citizens packed the Monday night town council meetings in the months after Perry’s departure and firefighters from around the region picketed outside town hall. Firefighters submitted a petition to the town council with 270 signatures asking the council to “restore public safety to Millwood.”

That was a shift from a few years ago, when voters overwhelmingly supported a bond and levy measure to pay for three full-time firefighters and build a new station after the Spokane Valley Fire Department ended a longtime automatic aid agreement with the town. Before that, the town had a paid chief, but the rest of the firefighting duties were handled by volunteers.

While a few yards still sport signs supporting the fire department, things have quieted down in the town in recent months. Tension still exists between the town hall and the fire department, according to testimony.

“We were doing just fine until you outsiders came along,” Mayor Jeanne Batson reportedly told Perry.

Fire Chief Bill Clifford, who is not part of the union, testified he feels the relationship has been “very negative” between the town and department for quite awhile. The animus started before the firefighters unionized, when the cost of building the fire station went over-budget, Clifford testified.

“It just seems to be getting worse all the time,” Clifford testified.

According to Local 4263 attorney Alex Skalbania, Perry’s layoff was due to his union activities. The town could’ve found money and avoided cutting a firefighting position, Skalbania said.

Firefighters allege that after they informed the town they were joining the International Association of Firefighters in February of 2003, the mayor and council stopped allowing compensatory time for evening trainings, changed their schedules and refused to let them interact with volunteers.

Werst said the evidence he presented would show that what the Local claims is “anti-union animus” was actually a rocky relationship between the fire department and town hall that predates the union.

“The reduction in force had absolutely nothing to do with union activities,” Werst said.

Batson testified she ordered Perry out of the station once she caught him visiting there after he’d been laid off. She also acknowledged ordering the chief to limit contact between career firefighters and volunteers.

“I didn’t like the way the career firefighters were treating the volunteers,” Batson said.

Still, Batson insisted the layoff had everything to do with money and nothing to do with union organizing.