The meeting was a preliminary session to begin contract negotiations between the City of El Paso and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 51. The city’s negotiation team, led by Deputy City Manager Mario DiAgostino, and the union’s representatives discussed ground rules, timelines, and procedural expectations. No formal proposals were made, and the session focused on clarifying rules and setting a schedule for future negotiations.
Note: While the meeting took place on April 6, 2026, the transcript references a February 13, 2026 letter and a proposed March 15 deadline, indicating that the initial timeline was not met.
So before I let me get started, as we're talking through this, we're going to use uh the computer to pick up our conversations throughout this entire process. So make sure we're always using the microphones. And so I was just explaining to city manager. Jay's Jay had some family obligations today, so he won't be able to make it. They did just inform me they're going to have six members on their negotiation team. Okay. And so let Ms. Mac kick it off with her opening statement, and then we can go down any other items you would like to discuss today. Sure. Yeah, thank you so much. Um we're we know that this will be an amical process, and we know there's a lot of work to get done. Um had the pleasure working with the board a couple of years ago on one of the negotiations, and so we know there's a lot of work and a lot of learning that happens. I've always been impressed by uh the amount of preparation that happens, you know, in those committees and really sort of coming to the table with some well thought out plans. Uh we want to make sure we're starting with the big ticket items if possible, you know, really starting to dig into um both salaries and healthcare, which really are going to be the things that I think are going to be um the heavier items and then sort of move forward. I know there were some concerns about um the ground rules and things, and so we really want to make sure we're working through some of those items today so that you all can feel comfortable that you have the time, and we just want to explain to you some of what we're looking at on the budget side so you can kind of understand why we're trying to align with some timelines. And I'll turn it back over to the chief so we can do four more introductions for the record. Right. So for the cities negotiation team, it's gonna be we're sitting right here. But we'll have DCM Cody, DCM Geta, our CFO Robert Cortines, and Sasha Landrosco, Drosky with our budgeting and Randy from Fire, as you know, right. And so this will be the city's team, and then we look forward to meeting your all's team next meeting. Um do you want to just jump right into the ground rules and any comments, questions you have on that one? First of all, I want to say thank you for agreeing to meet to meet with us. I was part of the I was on the bargaining team the last time we negotiated, so I was really happy with the way the process went. There really weren't any big issues, big hiccups back then. It was smooth, both sides were respectful. So I appreciate the kind words, ma'am. Um that's good to know that we're walking in and we're already kind of in agreement on how we're gonna conduct ourselves. So I'm happy about that. I'm looking forward to that. So thank you for that. Um we did have a couple of questions concerning your letter with the ground rules, and that's really what we were hoping to clarify in this meeting if you're willing to discuss those. Okay. So in your letter dated February 13th, uh, you laid out 11 ground rules as well as the overall uh idea of how our our negotiations would go. So bargaining good faith, that's not an issue for us. We commit to being fully transparent, and that's one of the rules in there. But there were two rules that um that we did not agree to, both of them dealt with timelines. Um, and I'll if you have questions concerning uh the timelines, I can explain those. But also rule number seven. So we understand open meetings as part of the Texas law, and we're required to have open meetings. Uh, but we wanted a clarification on what designates or constitutes resource persons and designated consultants. So for us, you know, that really leans into anybody we're bringing to the table who might be doing some evaluation for us. When we were looking at this, you know, if we have a need to really understand more in-depth in terms of the benefit package, we might have somebody who's coming in to sort of explain to you some of the insurance pieces at a deep at a deeper level. So it allow for us to be able to say we want to bring in someone like that to do a special presentation that's not sitting at the table here because I don't have um although Randy is representing um HR fire HR, I don't have anybody sitting here who may be one of the deeper specialists in some of the benefit areas. In the past, those have been some of the things I think we've spent a quite a bit of time on, really understanding the implications of the of the benefits package, what that really means. Um we've talked about shape it up and some of those things in the past, and so it really just gives that um authority. From our perspective, if we're talking about these meetings, none of that would be a surprise to you. Um we know that we have to have all the meetings posted, and so you would know, you know, by our minutes what we're planning to talk about at the next meeting. And if we're bringing somebody in, we will let you know in advance, you know, who that person is and what they would be covering, because you would have the agenda. Thank you for that. I understand the the consultants, the need for the consultants, but I I would like to remind everybody, not in the last two contracts, but prior to that, some consultants were brought in by the city that really made the contract negotiations contentious.