Lawton Mayor Stan Booker Puts Heat On Firefighters

It's been a few days since this first hit the internet, but as we've all had a chance to reflect on Mayor Stan Booker's targeted outburst at a recent Lawton City Council meeting, you almost have to feel sorry for such an unpopular man trying his best to do what's right.

If you don't know what all the hubbub is, and as the local news channel covered it first - why would you have seen it already... but here it is in all it's no-context glory.

Lawton City Council meeting gets heated as discussion over firefighter wages ensues #news #oklahoma #lawton #citycouncil #firefighter #pay #wages 

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The context.

The City of Lawton is currently trying to find a way to offer more competitive pay to our most important first responders, the firefighters at the Lawton Fire Department. But after shelling out $40k for a study two years ago, it seems all fingers point to lay-offs and consolidation. Add in the closing of old fire stations in lieu of building one additional new station, it doesn't seem to add up from the outside looking in.

Local Facebook pages are full of conspiracies on the new fire station. The best conspiracy so far has been how much cheaper the mayor's own home insurance would be with a brand new fully-staffed fire station being half a mile from his Eastlake villa.

Is there any truth to that? I would give Mayor Booker the benefit of the doubt, but I also don't think that's a simple yes/no question given the history of government spending and kickback capitalism in this town.

Why layoffs and consolidation?

It all harkens back to the study that promotes the oldest corporate practice of fewer workers equals more pay per individual equals not having to increase the budget for wages. If you take the same pie and cut it into fewer slices, everyone still sitting at the table gets a bigger portion.

It's a crappy notion and a signature tell-tale trait of failed leadership and mismanaged funds, but it does happen. The fact Mayor Booker continues to mention how Lawton has more firefighters per citizen than similar-sized cities doesn't help his denial of it.

So we have an overabundance of firefighters for the current number of citizens, but using that as a ploy to push ahead with any rumored layoffs only contradicts his plan to expand and attract people back to Lawton in his New Year's Address, which would equal out the offset, right?

It's all about reducing the cost of money.

Stan also went on record that he's trying to find a solution for firefighter compensation without tossing a tax burden on us, the citizens of Lawton, which also caught a lot of flak considering how the water bill keeps climbing up as a way to sidestep failed bond votes in the past.

It's worth noting that's a Lawton City Council issue rather than a mayoral issue, but just as stuff rolls downhill, fire burns up the ladder and it's lonely being on the top rung.

Happy citizens are quiet.

In the same sense that you can't trust online reviews, happy people generally remain silent about things. It's not until we, as humans, feel slighted that we take to the internet to type out our impotent rage with one-star ratings.

When the council meeting swung around to raising firefighter pay, cutting staff, closing stations, etc., a swelling of emotions took over in the mostly firefighter crowd and the response from behind the big desk was "fight fire with fire" instead of using polite "water" to put out the inferno.

The moving finger writes, and having writ, it moves on.

Shockingly, this was a rare outburst from Mayor Booker. He's usually your typical sweet and polite kind of old man who never has harsh words to say about you when you're standing in front of him. We might just chalk this up to the stresses of trying to lead a community.

All the same, there's a pile of things to complain about. The promised new roads that turned into an aquatic center in the park is the freshest memory of my own at the moment. Or the promised new roads that turned into the purchase of the local investor-group-owned mall at twice the price it was bought for a year-ish prior.

Before you point to Rogers Lane, that's the state doing that work, and the Cache Road project isn't a road project, it's a waterline project. Even the partially federally funded Lee Boulevard project seemed to run out of pavement.

As of yet, the Lawton City Council has been quiet on how to proceed on this issue. If I were a betting man, our water bills would jump to $95, and the city would consider it a win.