Union leaders press Utica council to restore assistant chief to operational role amid contract dispute and 'no confidence' vote

Union leaders and retired officers told a Utica Common Council committee on March 25 that the city’s assistant fire chief position has been repurposed as an additional management post and is harming department operations and morale.

Tom Carcone, president of Local 32, told the committee that union members held a vote of no confidence; "We did have a vote of no confidence. 75 people voted," Carcone said, and reported that 64 of 75 voters expressed no confidence in the assistant chief’s leadership. Carcone and Local 32 lawyer Ron Dunn urged the council to amend proposed legislation that would remove the assistant chief from the department’s table of organization and instead to restore an administrative chief role focused on day-to-day oversight.

The committee heard a memorandum the mayor’s office submitted arguing against eliminating the assistant chief. The mayor’s memo, read into the record by the committee chair, said in part that "removing the assistant chief position from the management of the Utica Fire Department is not one of [the] ways" to reduce cost or liability.

Discussion centered on three linked issues: how the assistant chief position is paid and managed under a 2021 agreement, firefighters’ complaints about how on-duty injuries and 207-a claims have been handled, and the structure and staffing of the fire prevention / fire marshal office.

On the contract and legal questions, Corporation Counsel Charles Brown and…