The Omaha Firefighters Union is taking on one of its key critics — City Councilwoman Jean Stothert.
Steve LeClair, president of the union, raised a slew of accusations against Stothert at a press conference Thursday.
The press conference was called after Stothert suggested in a WOWT interview Wednesday that taxpayers might be footing the bill for scuba diving training in Belize.
“There is simply no truth to this suggestion,” LeClair said.
He demanded an apology from Stothert, saying she was practicing “political grandstanding and ‘gotcha' City Hall bickering.”
Stothert countered in an interview Thursday evening that she would not apologize to the union. “They owe the citizens an apology,” she said. “It's bad behavior.”
LeClair said he has heard about one firefighter who is in Belize on vacation with his family but that firefighter took the trip on his own time and with his own money.
Stothert first raised the issue of the Belize trip during Tuesday's City Council meeting, when she asked Assistant Chief Joe Gibilisco if a scuba diving training mission was planned in Belize. Gibilisco replied that he was unaware of any such mission, and Stothert said Thursday she was satisfied with his answer.
Her question came as the council debated whether to authorize the acquisition of a 21-foot speedboat for water rescue operations. The council voted unanimously against acquiring the $34,000 boat, which was to be donated.
“I had been made aware internally . . . that there was supposedly a training mission to Belize,” Stothert said. “The reason I asked that question was if, they are on city time, then we have a problem.
“I didn't make an accusation. I asked a question and I got an answer.”
Stothert said the union overreacted.
“I was never questioning the union. I was asking fire management,” she said. “I don't know why they feel like if a council member doesn't vote the way they want, they have to attack them and they have to discredit them.”
LeClair also said that Stothert, who was endorsed by the union in her City Council bid, has been after the union and Fire Department since she took office last June.
In July, she voted to repeal a city ordinance that mandates fire staffing levels. The effort was not successful then, but the council took up the issue again a month later and this time repealed the ordinance.
LeClair said Stothert threatened “political retribution” against the union shortly after the first vote when she received e-mails from fire union members who were upset with her vote.
LeClair provided copies of text messages from July 29 between him and Stothert. In one of the messages, Stothert wrote, “it will be a long 4 years if your goal is to turn OFD against me.”
Stothert said the text messages were taken out of context and were in reaction to the response she received from fire union members.
“I have a stack of some of the most disrespectful, threatening e-mails,” she said. “I would never give them to the press.”
LeClair said Stothert also spread false rumors that he had threatened her life, which led to a Fire Department internal affairs investigation. LeClair and the union's attorney said the investigation found that the claims were unfounded.
A Fire Department spokesman confirmed Thursday that there had been an internal investigation of LeClair and that it was “not sustained.”
“Council member Stothert alleged she had heard a secondhand report. . . . that I made statements to the effect that I was going to ‘pull the trigger' on her ‘like I did in Iraq,' ” said LeClair, who served as a U.S. Army reservist during the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq war.
He said she later “alleged that I stated I would ‘do to her what (I) did in Afghanistan. I have never been to Afghanistan and I certainly did not make the statements relayed to my employer by council member Stothert.”
Stothert said she had heard from a third party that LeClair might have made a threat against her. She did not dispute the description of the threats provided by LeClair.
However, she said she did not spread rumors about the threats and spoke only to the police chief, a fire manager and the council chief of staff.
She said she filed an information report with the police chief. However, Stothert said, she refused to speak to an internal affairs investigator from the Fire Department because she didn't want to make it a bigger issue.
Stothert said she is not out to get the union.
“The bottom line is, we have to work together for the next four years.”
She said she told LeClair and another union representative several months ago: “Sometimes I'll be with you and sometimes I won't, but that doesn't mean I don't support your efforts and what you do.”
Contact the writer:
444-3100, maggie.obrien@owh.com
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