The heat is on at San Antonio's City Hall as crucial contract talks press against a looming deadline for the city's brave firefighters. The San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association, concerned about the loss of firefighters to neighboring departments since the start of this year's negotiations, is laser-focused on securing a fair contract, according to Fox San Antonio.
On the table from the city is a five-year contract proposal, which includes annual raises of 4%, culminating in a 21.7% total pay increase across the contract's life. This offer, however, has not yet managed to douse the flames of contention. San Antonio City Council members, having asked to hold a discussion in private, retreated into a closed-door session for it to hash out their differences, an approach that caught the public off guard, given the mayor's and city attorney's previous stances on transparency.
Digging deeper into the layers of this bureaucratic inferno, KSAT reports that the discussions turned secretive following a string of controversies, including concerns over leaks and a tussle over the fitness of the city attorney. This development arrived after an initial public briefing lasted just eight minutes before council members moved into a two-and-a-half-hour executive session, a move orchestrated by City Manager Erik Walsh, not by the embattled City Attorney Andy Segovia, as previously believed.
Contradicting earlier promises for an open debate, Mayor Ron Nirenberg's post-meeting statement relayed through a spokesman struck a different chord. "Based on my conversation with the council, my confidence was that we needed to have an executive session. And really, it goes back to yesterday’s conversation with the council," City Manager Erik Walsh told reporters, pointing back to a previous private meeting where council members aired grievances regarding Segovia. Despite Nirenberg having stated on May 8 that any debate over the contract's merits should happen in the public eye, it seems the closed doors, behind which the city's decisions are forged, remain firmly shut for now.
