Brothers and Sisters:

The Local 1014 Elections are over and the membership has spoken.  Your 2005-2006 Executive Board will be seated and sworn in at the first general membership meeting of January 2005.  

On behalf of the entire Executive Board, thank you to the membership for taking the time to vote, and thank you to all who participated in the process.  We had a near 60% voter turnout, and that is considered good by today’s political standards. 

For each elected and returning member, it is a bittersweet victory because we will have about 30 seconds to say thanks, and then we have to get back to work, because our plate is very full.

We will be rolling out our goals and objectives for 2005-2006 near the end of the year.  We have many good projects we have already sketched out to improve service to the members, but the fact remains that we have but one goal and objective that will continue to be our first and most important priority…to get our contract settled!

We are bargaining at a time like no other in the past 15 years.  We are a nation at war in a very divided political climate with clearly an attack afoot on public safety employees’ pensions and salaries at the federal, state, and local levels.

We are in a literal war ourselves to get this contract settled and get access to the money that we all know is there in our budget.  The fact remains that we need three out of five votes to get this accomplished.  This will not come easy, and it will not happen without your help.

On the heels of this election, I am asking all of our members to support the Executive Board, and ultimately support yourselves to help us get this done.  There are no magic wands, crystal balls, or secret passwords to bring in the votes.  This is going to be a fight! 

We will continue to meet with county officials to try to get the bargaining process going again at the table, and we will also continue to bring pressure on the County Board of Supervisors, the CAO, and the Fire Chief until they get back to the table with a fair offer.

Remember, there is strength in numbers, and together we can accomplish this task.  Come to our meetings and rallies and participate in the legal actions we may ask of you to help get this done.  They need to know how upset we are and that we will not just roll over and take what they want to give us, which is garbage.

Once again, thank you to all members who we serve, and please continue to support the Executive Board so we can work as a TEAM of  TEN, THREE THOUSAND STRONG!

In Solidarity,

David Gillotte

President