California Professional Firefighters

More than 70 members of Marin Co. Firefighters Local 1775 -- clad in red local T-shirts -- "walked the talk" Tuesday night, joining labor partners in sinking a plan by the Marin Co. Board of Supervisors to back Chuck Reed's anti-pension ballot initiative. 

Decimated by budget cuts that have left the department down as many as two-dozen firefighters per shift, San Jose has once again failed to meet the countywide 9-1-1 response standard. It's the 14th straight month that San Jose has failed to meet the standard. 

 A Santa Clara Superior Court judge has invalidated the central provision of a pension-slashing initiative in San Jose that threatened basic retirement rights for millions of California workers. The closely-watched decision ruled that the city's Measure B illegally cut the pensions of current workers. 

The Sacramento Bee -- and its affiliated newspapers in Modesto, Fresno and Merced -- has renewed an attack on legislation aimed at easing a 100-year-old restriction on firefighter survivor benefits. 

UPDATED: Dry winds and hot temperatures are fanning fires throughout the Southland. A wind-whipped fire in Glendale is forcing school and neighborhood evacuations. Meanwhile, the 18,000 acre Springs Fire in Ventura Co. has reached the ocean and is threatening high-priced homes in Hidden Valley and Malibu.

The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) provided San Diego firefighters and other public workers with a major victory this week. In an exhaustive and well-documented decision, the PERB's chief administrative law judge ruled that San Diego's pension-slashing Measure B violated state collective bargaining law. 

 On a divided vote, the San Bernardino City Council imposed contracts on unions representing firefighters and police officers. The city is pursuing bankruptcy protection, in part by forcing its employees to pay the freight for a history of mismanagement.

San Jose fire officials have conceded that their response time statistics are off the mark, and that they are missing their targets more than they've let on. The "data error" was used to justify staffing cuts that have compromised public safety in San Jose.

CPF President Lou Paulson joined 54 other select Californians on Monday, December 17th to participate in the Electoral College. 

San Diego City Fire Fighters Local 145 won a huge victory in Tuesday's election, as a harshly anti-firefighter Councilman Carl DeMaio lost his bid to become mayor of San Diego. DeMaio spearheaded a June ballot measure that imposed a privatized pension system on firefighters and other city workers.