the challenged actions of defendants, the court now turns to consider whether defendants’ actions may be justified under the Pickering balancing test. The court now must consider whether, after accepting all of plaintiffs well-pleaded allegations in his complaint as true and drawing all reasonable factual inferences from those facts in his favor, plaintiffs interest in speaking upon fire department issues such as safety, equipment, staffing, and response time outweighs the City’s interest in providing effective and efficient services to the public. See Stroman, 981 F.2d at 156. In performing this balancing test, the Fourth Circuit has recognized that the court should first assess the value, from the First Amendment perspective, of the employee’s speech. See Berger, 779 F.2d at 999 (<HOLDING>). The court should then assess the time, place,
holding that if the speech in question does not address a matter of public concern there is no first amendment violation holding that financial disincentives on speech burden first amendment rights for purposes of the pickering balance holding that first amendment requires factintensive and deferential balancing of governments interests against government contractors speech interests in line with the standard applied to government employees under pickering v board of education 391 us 563 88 sct 1731 20 led2d 811 1968 holding that in performing the pickering balancing test the district court was proper in first assessing the value from the first amendment perspective of the employees speech holding that the proper test for balancing national security interests with a persons due process rights is the mathews balancing test