Three firefighters union reps were face to face with Richmond city reps at about 2:30 this afternoon in "impact bargaining" when in walked assistant city attorney Leveron Bryant with the day's big news.
Fire Station 61 will stay open--most of the time. The department will hold rolling closures on "the Oakland model," Oakland's solution to its budget crisis.
By the time union business manager Dan Colvig, Local 188 president Jimmy Russey and union VP Erik Newman got back to Station 61, councilman Tom Butt had pulled discussion of the closure off Monday's agenda, and Point Richmond Online had posted the news.
Suddenly, the wind shifts. Effects of the fire department cutbacks are spread more widely, diffusing opposition. City administrators smile among themselves tonight and imagine an aroused Point going back about its business. Hurrah, the citizen army goes home. The firefighters are left with hoses in hand.
Colvig's not smiling. "If they want to use the Oakland model, they can start by closing City Hall once a week," he said. This year, all non-essential Oakland city services began closing one day per month.
Our firefighters fight on, as they should. Watch for more on "the Oakland model."
Yesterday, the Point's city councilman Tom Butt asked the city clerk to put closing of the fire station on the December 2 agenda. That leaves nine days for the Point Richmond Neighborhood Council to organize a mass showing. Are you nervous?
In Butt's memo he asks the logical questions--why is it closing?, when?, what alternatives were considered?, what's the cost of the rest of the fiscal year? how does this effect emergencies at Chevron, etc?--and ends with a glimpse of the fun inside Richmond politics.
Please do not let anyone dissuade you from placing this on the agenda. If anyone has a problem with it, refer them to me, but do not take anyone else’s word that I have agreed to withdraw, change or postpone it – or move it to the executive session agenda.
He provided Point Richmond Online with an explanation from the fire chief and the city manager of the decision to close the station. I suppose it will appear soon.
I hope the neighborhood council board was listening on Wednesday night when Tom Butt gave his advice about the fire station.
In Butt's 30 years of experience, he said, what works best to influence the Richmond city council is a massive showing of concerned citizens. He said that if 700 Pointers showed up at a council meeting and let their concern about Station 61 be heard, the council would pay attention.
There are two chances left: December 2 and December 16. That leaves not much time to spread the word and, more important, create enough excitement around here to draw even those who might otherwise stay home.
Butt gave the number 700. No matter which way we round it off, whether down to 500 or up to 1000, it's a huge portion of the Point. To put this in perspective, 700 people is just about one third of the Point's registered voters.
The neighborhood council is the logical body to answer this emergency call. If the council fails to step up, the next bunch to be sacked should be this board.
As if we didn't need another anecdote about the fire station's importance to the Point. Here comes Mike Nova, the Rosamaria's Cafe owner. He had just sat through today's business associaton meeting where he listened to the uproar over the station's expected closing.
Outside Hotel Mac, a Hidden City Cafe cook told him about a kitchen fire a few minutes before. The staff had emptied their extinguisher trying to put it out, then ran to the fire house for help. A couple of firemen ran over and put the fire out with their much bigger extinguisher.
Imagine if Hidden City had to wait 12 minutes--the expected response time after the station closes. How much of the city's tax base would have been lost in the resulting conflagration and then later as the Point dies of the wound?
What can you do? I don't know yet.