Brothers and Sisters,

    First and foremost, I would like to apologize for my lack of communication. I will work to get news and information out more often, and if I don't, feel free to remind me, please! This website will be my primary place to disseminate information.

    Mike Cooper and I have met with Chief Hurles several times over the last several months. We have discussed many topics, lack of staffing, overtime issues, and exhaust problems in the stations to name a few. We will be working together to try and tackle these things, but we have a lot of work ahead of us. I guess part of my lack of communication is partly because I don't have any solid progress to report.

      Within the local:

     As many of you have known, the local owns some office equipment, computers, printers, and we have recently added a few Ipads to replace antiquated laptops. This was done at the recommendation of some of the departments techies and they are working out very well.

    We will soon be moving the union office out of fire station 1, to the front office, 2860. This will offer us a more centralized place to work, and allow us to conduct work away from being at the fire station.

I appreciate your patience and welcome any input!

Sincerely,

James Vilaseca, President

IAFF Local F-53, Flight Test Center Fire Fighters

          As we all know we have issues with overtime, some want it and others don't. To help match those up, we are offering the calendar on our website. Please limit putting your name on here to specific days that you would like to work overtime, and no more than 2 weeks in advance. This does not obligate anyone to work, it only provides a list of people willing to work on a specific date. The caller can select anyone on the list to call. The instructions on how to put your name on the calendar is listed below.

      1. Click on the month to the top right .

2. Select Add Single Event.

3. Type your last name and E, H or D for parenthetical, in the Event Title area.

4. In the Start Date, drop down to the date you are willing to work.

5. Lastly, scroll to the bottom of the page and select Save Event.

I hope  this becomes a viable tool for us to fulfill our overtime needs. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this, please contact me.

Sincerely,

James Vilaseca