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Vote no on civil service changes

EDITOR:

One local political activist has been very vocal in his opinions about the vote to remove the Civil Service section from Iron Mountain’s city charter. But he has some facts wrong.

There are TWO civil service commissions provided for in the charter: one for police and fire (full time only) under Act 78 of 1935, and the other for full-time employees in other departments. The ballot question ask citizens if they want to remove all of it. Doing so would allow the city manager to hire anyone for any position, without having a separate, no-cost board ensuring the applicant chosen is qualified and selected fairly.

Other cities in Michigan do manage to hire fairly without Act 78. City officials have put forth Marquette as an example of that. But if you look at the contract between Marquette and its firefighters, you will see the contract creates a board that is essentially the same thing as our Act 78 Civil Service Commission. There is no such language in the contract between Iron Mountain and its firefighters. In fact, eliminating the Police and Fire Civil Service Commission will violate that contract, because certain provisions, including the grievance procedure, refer certain matters to the Civil Service Commission or to Act 78.

I encourage everyone to read Michigan Public Act 78 of 1935. You will see all it does is create a board, independent of the council and the employees, that enforces rules in order to make sure that employees are hired, fired, disciplined and promoted fairly. It’s free. Members of the commission are not paid. Going the other way and having all the details in a collective bargaining agreement would require legal fees and arbitration, to be paid for by the taxpayers.

The city is saying that except for the firefighters, nobody has a problem with eliminating the civil service process. I can’t speak for the other departments’ employees, so they may be right. I do know that none of the council members approached the firefighters’ union to ask us. Only one council member discussed this issue with me, after I confronted him about it.

When the city replaced the police and fire chiefs with a director and two deputy directors, they skirted around the law awfully closely. They had to do things like create a new city department. They worded the requirements for the position so no firefighter would qualify to apply, but the police would. And when the two candidates from the police department both failed the exam for the position – twice – they convinced the civil service commission to change the rules so they could give extra test points for things like resumes, regardless of their accuracy. Your current director of Police and Fire Services had exactly 15 hours of firefighting responses in his life. But he’s the one the city wanted in that position, so he’s the one they put in, and now he’s what we have instead of a fire chief. But if you have a truly independent commission, that cannot happen.

If the system is removed we’ll go right back to the days when council members hired their friends and family to fill positions in the city, and employee turnover will be enormous as old council members are replaced by new. Don’t forget the many people who were hired in the city about 10 years ago that were selected by the city manager with the council’s approval. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were wasted. Don’t let it happen again. Vote no Nov. 8.

Doug Johnson

President

Iron Mountain Firefighters Association

IAFF Local 554

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