CYPRESS : City Votes to Lay Off 5 Landscape Workers

Despite pleas from maintenance workers in the audience, the City Council this week voted to lay off five of the city’s landscape employees as a budget-cutting move.

Council members said hiring a private firm to do part of the city’s maintenance would be cheaper. The five maintenance workers will be laid off by Sept. 1, the council said.

In addition to those five jobs, three maintenance positions will be eliminated when those employees retire this fall.

Mike Douthit, president of the city’s 45-member Maintenance Employees Assn., told the council that the Maintenance Department is being unfairly hit by budget cuts. He said the department only gets 22.5% of the city’s annual budget, “but you are asking us to take the biggest cut in the whole city.”

Councilwoman Cecilia L. Age said all council members had “sympathy and empathy. My heart goes out to you, but I think this is one area (of budget cuts) that makes perfect sense.”

“Unfortunately,” Councilwoman Joyce C. Nicholson said, “we have to make tough decisions.”

The city asked bids for turf maintenance; the low bid by Golden Bear Arborists Inc. of Monrovia was $131,472. City researchers said in a memo to the council that the eight maintenance workers who now do that job cost Cypress $378,760 a year in pay and benefits.

The council unanimously voted to award the maintenance contract to Golden Bear Arborists, with a 30% addition for expected irrigation repairs.

“I think the council should have looked into alternatives instead of making layoffs,” Douthit said. “To give up all we’ve worked for all our lives is not easy.”