Eight months after the District avoided a multimillion-dollar lawsuit following the death of a prominent journalist by promising a dramatic reform of the city’s crumbling rescue services, city officials still haven’t opened crucial negotiations with the fire and rescue union.

The current contract expires in October, leaving the city little time to negotiate key reform proposals to avoid a major lawsuit from the family of slain journalist David Rosenbaum.

The family has urged the city to cut red tape preventing firefighters and paramedics who endanger people from being disciplined or thrown off the force.

Rosenbaum died after a mugging near his upper Northwest home last year. He was left to lie on the sidewalk untreated because rescue officials thought he was drunk. When an ambulance finally arrived, he was taken to a hospital across town so that one paramedic could stop by her home. Rosenbaum died the next day.

This story continues below
Advertisement

His family filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit but settled on the condition that the city fix its rescue services. If the services aren’t fixed within a year, the Rosenbaum family can revive the suit.

After months of delay, negotiations on a new fire and paramedic contract were scheduled to open Tuesday. But officials in the Office of Labor Relations told the union that they still haven’t finished their proposals, union leader Dan Dugan told The Examiner.

“They said they were a little behind,” Dugan said.

City spokeswoman Carrie Brooks said that her side asked for an extension until Friday, but such extension requests are “usual and customary.”

“These are serious issues for the city, and they want to make sure they take their time,” Brooks said.

One of the key recommendations of the so-called Rosenbaum task force that was created to reform the department is that discipline be streamlined and that the fire department create its own internal affairs division. Fire officials waited more than seven months after Rosenbaum’s death to discipline rescue officials, and the cases took 16 months to wind their way through labor hearings.

Dugan, the union leader, said he has no objection to those proposals, and a top fire official said Fire Chief Dennis Rubin has already identified a D.C. police captain to run the internal affairs division.

But the specifics will have to be negotiated, both sides said. That can’t happen until the Office of Labor Relations gets caught up.

“We haven't sat down yet,” Dugan said. “When we sit down, we'll decide if [we] have to push back on something.”

Got a tip on this topic? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or e-mail bmyers@dcexaminer.com.