From The Providence Journal, January 25

NORTH PROVIDENCE, RI – The tedious and expensive negotiations for a new union contract were about 10 hours old when the firefighters encountered a problem that hadn't come up in other contract proceedings with other mayors.

It was a shot across the bow, a political challenge of sorts, courtesy of Mayor Charles A. Lombardi.

Two weeks ago, Lombardi was telling councilmen and anyone who would listen that the slow-going union talks were likely to rack up a huge legal bill and require too much valuable time and attention from officials; he might need to “curtail” hours at the municipal pool and at the library, he said.

“We're going to need the money to pay for the firefighters,” he said with a faint sigh.

The episode reflected Lombardi's willingness to let firefighters — who have been working without a new contract since July — take the blame for cuts in valued municipal services if they should drag out arbitration proceedings.

It also evoked the scrappy style and grocer's eye that Lombardi has brought to his management of the Fire Department. It's an openly confrontational hands-on approach that union leaders say has inflamed many of the town's firefighters, a group of about 100.

Not long ago, Lombardi says, he discovered the town's rescue squad was about 2½ minutes late to a medical emergency because the team wasn't in its station on Fruit Hill Avenue when the call came in.

All of the town's firefighters, including the rescue team, had been gathered at the department's Douglas Street station to chart out their vacations for 2009, Lombardi says, his tone full of disgust.

Due to Lombardi's concern about response times, he ordered firefighters not to take their engines and rescue vehicles to the sandwich shop or to the supermarket to grab some food in the middle of a shift.

To keep watch, the mayor is listening to radio communications and taking tips from a growing corps of informants.

Earlier this month, his dragnet nabbed some firefighters after they stopped by their favorite sandwich shop, Riccotti's, for a two-minute pickup of an order. They were stunned.

“He's got morale at the Fire Department down to an all-time low,” said the president of the firefighters union, John Silva. “People are not motivated. They aren't going to perform to the extent that they can.”

Silva and his crew had spent the morning shoveling snow from around fire hydrants.

“We couldn't even stop at Dunkin' Donuts to get a cup of coffee,” he said, adding that the mayor's lockdown will cost local businesses thousands of dollars in revenues.

In November, Silva himself was caught when he took Engine No. 3 on a short detour to help a relative.

His cousin was locked out of a building at the north end of Mineral Spring Avenue and Silva stopped by to give him an extra set of keys.

Another time, Silva says, he took some newly recruited firefighters out on the town to give them a chance to drive the engine truck.

Lombardi saw them and telephoned a battalion chief to ask what Silva was doing.

“It's ridiculous,” Silva says, noting his 22 years of experience.

“I think I know what I can do with a fire truck,” he says.

Says Lombardi: “He shouldn't have used that as an excuse to go get a cup of coffee because that's what he did.”

Lombardi, a former volunteer firefighter, telephones the firehouse to order firefighters to clean the floor or he peppers them with questions.

Where is Rescue No. 2 headed? Why are so many firefighters helping out with a fire in Smithfield?

He seems perplexed by the discussion about sagging morale.

“They should look in the mirror because it's because of them — not us,” Lombardi says.

“The problem they have with me is I know too much about the job because I was there,” he says.

Things were different when A. Ralph Mollis, now the secretary of state, was the mayor, says Silva.

“Nobody is perfect,” says Silva. Mollis “did try to tighten belts. He never really got into the inner workings of the department.”

Silva says Lombardi's antics will make firefighters second-guess everything they do and that might foul them up when they have to make the “quick, instant decisions” necessary to save lives.

Silva blames the mayor's special projects and hiring practices for the town's financial woes.

The town's residents shouldn't have to hear such complaints, but the mayor has made it unavoidable, he says.

Lombardi says his projects — including the refurbishment of certain town buildings — and hires have saved money, and he just hopes the town can get through the year without a supplemental tax increase.

However, if that should become necessary, he says, he's quite ready to use Fire Department stationery to explain it all to taxpayers.