Greg and I met with Gavin Cooley and Tim Dunivant today. Mr. Cooley had requested this meeting. He read entries in this blog and wanted to set the record straight. At the meeting, I told him that one of our members had recently seen him on TV and that he had heard Mr. Cooley say that firefighters had not given any concessions, in regard to the lidlift. I said this was an important issue for us, as we had, in fact, voted for every member to donate 24 hours of labor to the city. And many voted for this so citizens would see that we aren't greedy b*st*rds. We were willing to give something back - free labor - 24 hours worth.
Mr. Cooley responded by saying that the last time he talked on TV was December 12th - the budget meeting. He said that he didn't say anything of the sort. In fact, he believes that Local 29 is the only labor union to have actually made a very real, very substantial giveback/concession.
I then asked him about some of the rumors we heard earlier. We heard that he was speaking out against the lidlift levy before the election in November. He pointed out that he had not only drafted the proposition's language, he persuaded many of the lidlift's opponents to not actively oppose this measure.
Overall, the meeting was positive. Mr. Cooley would like to work with Local 29 for a change in state law so municipalities (us) will have the same ability as counties to institute an M&O levy for more than one year. This was something that the WSCFF tried to do last year, but had no luck.
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