By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Members of the Del Rio Professional FireFighters Association Local #3662 and city administrators kicked off what will likely be a series of meet-and-confer negotiations with a face-to-face session in City Hall on Friday, Sept. 4.
Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez explained since the initial conference was not considered an official meeting, advance posting notifying all parties and the public was not legally required.
Chavez represented the city, along with team members Interim Human Resources Director Celina Mendoza, Interim Finance Director Roxy Soto and Camela Sandmann, of the city’s contracted law firm Denton Navarro Rodriguez Bernal Santee & Zech, who will serve as chief negotiator.
Representing the firefighters’ association was Edgar Escobedo, president of the Del Rio Professional FireFighters Association Local #3662;
representatives of the Del Rio Professional FireFighters Association Local #3662 for meet-and-
confer negotiations. The meeting was held Friday, Sept. 4. (Photo by Karen Gleason)
Chris Molano, association vice president; Raul Castillo, association secretary; Jacob Trevino, association member; and Rafael Torres, service director of the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters.
Sandmann opened the session, thanked everyone for attending, and said, “This is a ground rules meeting. This is us going through the framework which governs how we talk to each other through the process and how it should play out.”
The “ground rules” for future meetings were laid out in a document that was to have been given to all participants, but Escobedo told her nothing had been sent to him. Sandmann apologized and asked the city representatives if they could make copies for the firefighters, which was done immediately.
Once everyone had a copy of the document, Sandmann asked the firefighters to scan it. She noted either she, two other Denton Navarro attorneys or City Attorney Ana Markowski Smith would serve as the chief negotiators for the city, while Torres or Escobedo would be the chief negotiators for the firefighters.
Sandmann then went over some of the stipulations of the ground rules document, such as allowing members of the negotiating teams to speak one at a time and the minimum number of persons that must be present in addition to the chief negotiator for a session to qualify as “official.”
Sandmann continued, “Once you put your proposals forward, we can caucus about it, and we can come back with any responses that we may have, so about the third meeting, that’s probably the last time we should be bringing up new things to the table, so we should be, by that time, just counter-proposing, until we can reach an agreement for this contract.”
After Sandmann finished reviewing the ground rules document, Escobedo said his team would look over the document, and he and the members of his team spent some minutes reading over the document.
After the review, Escobedo asked that Molano be added to the list of chief negotiators and clarified that the next meeting would be considered the first official meeting of the two groups.
Sandmann replied that the next meeting – to be considered the initial meeting – would be used to bring forward any contract amendments the firefighters might have, and she invited the firefighters to email her “any sections of your current contract that you’re not going to change at all.”
Escobedo asked Sandmann if she had a copy of the previous contract and told her the firefighters would be focusing solely on Article 4 of that contract. He added the association and the city did not sign a contract last year, so the last contract between the two groups was from Fiscal Year 2024-2025.
Escobedo also said the association has a dedicated email account for correspondence between the association and the city and noted all members of the firefighters negotiating team have access to that account.
Escobedo told Sandmann he would email her some of the association’s proposals, “that way for the next meeting we have something we can start working on.”
“Absolutely, that would be great,” Sandmann replied.
The two groups agreed to meet again at 2 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 25.
After the meeting, Escobedo told The 830 Times that Article 4 of the firefighters’ contract deals with salaries and said that is what the association negotiators will focus on during the upcoming meetings.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
