A jury has awarded more than $11 million in damages to a Country Club Hills firefighter who sued the city over alleged gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation, according to a court order. Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki, who filed suit against the city in 2012, had alleged she was passed over for a promotion and retaliated against for reporting misbehavior.
- PUB DATE: 10/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Tribune

More than 50 fire districts across Colorado are requesting the same thing from their voters this fall: Give us a legal workaround to a property tax law that’s set to slash our budgets again. Lives are at stake, they say. “We’re way past the crisis point,” West Metro Fire Chief Don Lombardi said. “The fire districts have called 911, and no one is answering.
- PUB DATE: 10/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Denver Post

Several firefighters responded to a large house fire in north St. Louis. It was the second vacant house that was fully engulfed in flames in the area Sunday. Just before 2 p.m., firefighters responded to the 4500 block of Cottage Avenue, which is on the line of the Greater Ville and The Ville neighborhoods.
- PUB DATE: 10/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KSDK-TV NBC 5 St. Louis

The wife of the French Settlement fire chief was arrested Monday and accused of embezzling $225,000 after her husband reported her confession to him, according to the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office. Melissa Guitreau, 46, who acted as the secretary and treasurer of Livingston Parish Fire Protection District No.
- PUB DATE: 10/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Baton Rouge Advocate

From Arcata on the North Coast to Hemet in the Inland Empire, California cops and firefighters are chipping in more money to pay for their pensions while the cities that employ them struggle to manage fast-rising retirement costs. The new pension charges – a 12 percent paycheck deduction in Sacramento, an extra 8 percent deduction in Clovis, a pay cut and 12 percent pension contribution in Oroville, for example – reflect a calculus at local governments that workers are better off in the long run putting money into the California Public Employees’ Retirement System today rather than banking on the $350 billion pension fund earning its way out of its recession losses.
- PUB DATE: 10/30/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Sacramento Bee