Oak Lawn firefighters say layoffs are an attack

Oak Lawn firefighters are fuming after learning that village officials plan to deal with a budget deficit by laying
off three of their colleagues but still aim to add three positions to the police department.

The firefighters were placed on paid leave Friday afternoon, and trustees are expected to vote to cut their jobs
at the village board's April 22 meeting. Three vacant fire department positions also will be eliminated. Villagewide,
officials want to ax 11 vacant positions in total and lay off a finance clerk in addition to the firefighters.

Honeymoon is over

Firefighters already were upset that their department is bearing the brunt of the reductions, which will help close a
$1.7 million budget deficit that is the result of the economic downturn and problems with the village's red light cameras,
which aren't generating nearly as much money as expected. The news that the police department could get three more
officers added to their bitterness, although firefighters are quick to note that it does nothing to change the good relations
between the departments.Unhappy with cuts by the previous administration that shrank the department to 87 members from
101, the firefighters' union campaigned hard for Mayor Dave Heilmann and fellow Unity Party members in the 2005 election that
brought them to power. Photos on the union's Web site still show members in pro-Heilmann T-shirts on election night. But the
honeymoon is long over, and for months, the two sides have been locked in a heated dispute about a contract and trustees'
contention that firefighters take too many sick days, which results in excessive overtime.

Retaliation for union contract?

The new cuts would drop the department back to 88 firefighters, leaving many union members feeling as if their support has
brought them no sympathy and raising the question of whether the union will back the Unity Party in next year's election.

"That has yet to be determined," said Lt. Rob Wesselhoff, the union's secretary-treasurer. "We're right in the same boat that
 the old party and (former village manager Joe) Faber had put us into."

Firefighter Bill McCoy said that in his opinion, there's virtually no chance the union would support Trustee Jerry Hurckes if he
runs for mayor, so it's possible the union simply could sit out the contest. The 2005 race "was really our first foray into politics,
and it didn't work out as we'd hoped, to say the least," he said.

That the village recently voted to spend $55,000 to hire a federal lobbyist also isn't sitting well with some firefighters.

Village manager Larry Deetjen said the idea that the fire department was targeted for cuts in retaliation for the union's failure to
agree on a contract is wrong.  He said that even after the reductions, the village still will have more firefighters per capita than most
comparable communities. Deetjen said that with revenues suffering, there's no guarantee the three extra cops will be hired.

The village has about 1.75 firefighters per 1,000 village residents. The median for communities of similar size in the United States is
1.3, but experts caution against making too much of per-capita figures.

Trying to figure things out

The three firefighters who expect to lose their jobs said they are trying to figure out what to do next.

Sebastian Katzel, 28, whose wife just had a baby, said he waited to have kids until he got his job two years ago. When he first heard
rumors about the layoffs, "I thought it was a joke," he said. "My knowledge of the fire service is you're set for life; that's your career."

Walter O'Neil, who grew up in Oak Lawn, was informed that he had passed his yearlong probationary period Friday morning, only to
 be told a few hours later that he was being placed on leave and should not expect to return.

"I might be the first firefighter to pass probation and get laid off in the same day," said O'Neil, 24, whose father was an Oak Lawn firefighter
for three decades.  "I think this is retaliatory against the fire department.  "I'm probably going to be a guy working at Menards" until something
else turns up, he said.

Dana Bartunek, a two-year veteran and one of three women in the department, came to Oak Lawn from Broadview to escape layoffs there.
This time around, she has nowhere to go. She's on disability because of a knee injury and recently bought a house.

"I feel betrayed," said Bartunek, 30, a self-proclaimed "adrenaline junky" whose family includes a number of firefighters. "I'll be brutally honest
 with you - I do feel it is a personal attack on us."

The elimination of the vacancies means the village will have to do without an information technology director, a cashier, two public works
 employees and two mechanics, among others. The three new police officers would include two full-time gang officers.