AT FIRE DEPT., A RASH OF PERSONNEL SUSPENSIONS

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others..." from Animal Farm by George Orwell.

By Juan Montoya
Add one more suspension of a veteran Brownsville Fire Department staff member to the growing list of personnel grievances under Chief Carlos Elizondo and his Asst. Chief Ernie Estrada.
In the past few months, at least three grievances have been filed against the department's administration against the suspensions by the Brownsville Firefighters Association Local #970 leaders and this latest suspension will make it just one more.

According to department sources, fire crews were sent to a grass fire outside Olmito Saturday and were battling the wind-assisted blaze when Asst. Chief Ernie Estrada showed up and rand directly to Capt. Margarito Gracia, a veteran firefighter who's seen his share of grass and structure fires in his long career. Estrada, on the other hand, has less than a year's experience as a firefighter.

According to a handful of witnesses, Estrada confronted Gracia and demanded to know why he had allowed the fire to spread. But not only did he ask what he was doing to combat the flames, but he also confronted Gracia to the point where he was said to be interfering with the captain's abilities to direct his men to fight the fire. Gracia was said to have told Estrada – who was appointed Asst. Chief merely because of his friendship with city manager Charlie Cabler – to get away from him and let him do his job.

(In the photo at right, Estrada is the guy wearing the hat with his arms around Elizondo and Cabler at a paella competition.)

When Estrada refused, Gracia called the Brownsville Police Dept. and asked them to remove him from the fire scene because he was harassing him. The cops showed up to calm the scene and no charges were ever filed against anyone there. When the crews returned to the station after the fire was put out, Gracia was surprised – as were the other firefighters – to find out Estrada had suspended him from the force.

Now, remember this. Estrada was elevated to his rank from being a mere firefighter at the bottom of the hierarchy over drivers, lieutenants, and captains, and other personnel with vastly more experience than he had. Lacking this experience, he was placed in a position where he could wield immense power over the members of the fire department based on his political connections with Cabler.

The first suspension that resulted in a grievance filed against the chief was heard by a labor mediator and we hear that the decision in that process will not favor the Elizondo administration. Yet another lurks in the wings concerning a firefighter who knocked down a neighbor's mail box with his private car and had made arrangements to fix it until a police report was made that came to Elizondo's attention and he suspended the firefighter.

If that suspension is not upheld – and union officers say it will be overturned – this will set a sorry record of labor-management relations under Elizondo characteristic of the decision made by his predecessor Lenny Perez which Elizondo as union president was quick to criticize. And with a growing clamor for Elizondo to either quit his job or resign from his position as trustee at the Brownsville Independent School District, he will remain in the glare of public scrutiny of his own doing.