Rodeo-Hercules Fire board member's future in hands of colleagues

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jun 24, 2009 | by Tom Lochner

By Tom Lochner

Staff Writer

The Rodeo-Hercules Fire board will decide Thursday whether a board member's comment that 5-foot-2 women are unqualified to be firefighters is heinous enough to warrant censure and perhaps even removal from office.

Bill Prather has been a virtual exile from the board since February, when he made the remark, for which he has publicly apologized several times. District counsel William Ross has opined that Prather's attendance at board meetings, which take place at the Rodeo or Hercules fire stations, would create a hostile work environment.

Prather's statement came at the Feb. 18 fire board meeting during a discussion with officials of Firefighters Union Local 1230 about the Pack Test, a fitness test that Prather and the fire chief advocate and that the union opposes. According to the meeting minutes, Prather complained about unqualified personnel and, upon questioning, said he was referring to the fire service in general and to "5-foot, 2-inch females that can't do the job."

On Feb. 19, Local 1230 President Vince Wells wrote the board on behalf of the union, claiming "the support of all the fire fighters of Rodeo-Hercules, Contra Costa County and throughout the State of California" and asking for Prather's resignation or for the board to remove him.

On Feb. 20, Prather sent a letter of apology to board members. He has publicly repudiated his Feb. 18 comment on several occasions since, including outside a May 20 board meeting when he told television and newspaper reporters, "The word I should have used was '5-foot-2 person.'"

Wells said that remark only made matters worse.

"That's even more inappropriate," Wells said last week. "He excluded even more people by his bias; he's adding short people to his list of unqualified people."

A statement on the union's home page at www.iafflocal1230.org calls for a big union turnout for Thursday's meeting at the Rodeo fire station, "where the board member who made discrimanatory (sic) comments about short people will be censored (sic)."

Prather, meanwhile, is questioning the legality of his exclusion from the board since February and of any action to remove him for good, contending that the voters put him there and that it is up to them, not other board members, to yank him if they want him out.

The circumstances of Prather's exile from the board are somewhat confused. Minutes of a special Feb. 22 closed session say Prather will immediately take AB1234 training related to a hostile work environment and that until completion, he will be recused from "certain" board matters including "the pack test and other matters that may be of controversy." A closed session report of the same meeting by Ross, however, says Prather had "recused himself from any future consideration of the Pack Test issue."

Prather completed the training March 2 and received a certificate. But he said that when he tried to attend the March 18 board meeting, board member Walter Trujillo told him he was suspended, and Ross told him it would be better if he would leave.

A draft resolution that will go before the board calls for a censure period of 180 days during which Prather would be barred from taking part in any board meetings. On Monday, Trujillo said the board could go further and launch a so-called "Quo Warranto" action to remove Prather from office altogether.

According to Section 803 of the California Code of Civil Procedure, a quo warranto action may be brought "against any person who usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises any public office."

Reach Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760 or tlochner@bayareanewsgroup.com. If you go-- What: Rodeo-Hercules Fire District board meeting-- Where: Rodeo Fire Station, 326 Third Street, Rodeo.-- When: 7 p.m. today