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Happy New Year!
To all Local 1014 Members and Their Families…
Tonight at midnight we will close out 2009 and begin 2010. As each of you takes a moment to reflect on the past year and the year ahead, hopefully you can be with family or friends. If you have to be at work, be safe while you protect the citizens we serve in our communities and find the “family” in the sisterhood and brotherhood of our great profession and our membership to include Firefighters, Paramedics, FSA’s, Dispatchers, Heavy Equipment, FPEA’s and Health Haz-Mat. There are none greater than the Los Angeles County Fire Fighters and the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Most often we take time to look back at the year and soak in the good and the bad, the tough and the easy, the laughs and the tears…and we also look forward and resolve to prepare for the next year; to ready ourselves to take action and protect and improve our individual quality of lives. We will also take time as a Union Board to resolve and prepare for our efforts to protect and improve our profession and our wages, benefits, and working conditions in the coming year.
Although the coming year will be just as difficult as the last with regard to budgets, economy, and uncertainty, preparation will be key…planning essential and teamwork mandatory. We promise to do our part to continue in the long standing tradition as a Union to provide and improve the machine and the mechanism to be a voice and a tool to represent the membership on all of these fronts. It has definitely not been an easy task, and next year will prove to be more of the same.
We wish each and every one of you and your families a safe and a happy New Year as we end 2009 and ring in the New Year. We ask you to start your new year out with a first resolution… Don’t Drink and Drive!…just don’t do it.
Get a Ride – Get a Cab – Get a Driver – Get a Room
Don’t Get Behind the Wheel!
We have seen far too much tragedy and suffering in our membership from this misstep, and it is correctable. We have all done it, or known someone who has. It is just wrong, and has no upside. Please start now by preparing to celebrate responsibly, and if you are going to drink…Get a Ride, Get a Cab, Get a Driver, Get a Room…just don’t get behind the wheel and take a chance on ruining your job, your quality of life, or worse yet…killing yourself or someone else. This might sound a bit harsh, but so be it…it is nothing but the hard cold truth and we need to move in this direction more aggressively than ever. Help each other out in this area and be bold in your solutions…be trendsetters…be LA County Firefighters and do the right thing…
So, take a moment tonight to smile and realize how good we have it, how hard we have worked to get here, and what we each can do to make it better next year…and then just do it. We have work to do and we will need your help to get it done.
In Solidarity from your Local 1014 Executive Board
Dave Gillotte - President
John Smolin – Treasurer
Dave Lopez – 1st VP John Bishop – 2nd VP
Directors
Will Pryor Dave Morse
Paul Rusin Lew Currier
Pat Dolan Andy Doyle
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