City Council approved raising firefighter salaries to the labor market value, basing the motion on a study compiled by the city, which found the current pay rate to be 11 percent below average.
City manager Janine Jordan said offering competitive pay is vital to retaining the trained professionals of the Laramie Fire Department.
“It is important that we pay our people what they’re worth to keep them here,” Jordan said. “The city makes a significant cash outlay in training firefighters. They spend six months in training before we can even put them out on the street as fledgling firefighters.”
Councilor Joe Vitale said he had concerns about the cost of these raises to taxpayers already earning less than firefighters.
“I find an injustice to that and I don’t know what the justice is in some of these things,” Vitale said. “I don’t think that because you work for government the citizens owe you a living.”
Answering the councilor’s questions and concerns, Jordan said that this attitude was not prevalent.
“I don’t believe that any members of the city staff, in the fire service or elsewhere, believe that they are owed a living by the taxpayers,” she said. “They earn that living every day working very hard for the wages that they receive.”
The motion carried with only Vitale voting no and councilor Vicki Henry absent.
Vitale also said he had concerns about the quality of the wells in question during discussion of Imperial Heights Park Development.
“These wells now are susceptible to water runoff and those wells are used as a conduit to transport contaminants into the aquifer,” Vitale said. “I’m not sure if they’ve identified the zones of vulnerability out there.”
Bern Hinckley, a hydrogeologist who helped construct the wells, caught the discussion while checking out a streaming of the council meeting from home. He said he decided to come down to the council chambers to set the record straight and spoke to Vitale’s earlier comments.
“I was alarmed at councilor Vitale’s concern about the wells with which I was involved,” Hinckley said. “I’d like to belay any concerns about the sealing of those wells.”
Hinckley said the wells had been built in accordance with all standard regulations and precautions, specifically explaining the boreholes for the four wells are now encased in a layer of steel and surrounded by a layer of neat cement that was allowed to cure before any drilling began. The boreholes, he said, are “far deeper than any source of contamination” and the idea the wells are not properly sealed is just an “ugly rumor.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, the council also approved a roughly $800,000 bid award for the Duna Drive sewer project, a new master fee schedule for Laramie’s recreation center, the rezoning of some area in West Laramie from a business to a general commercial distinction and a bar and grill liquor license for Altitude Chophouse and Brewery.
