Greetings Brothers and Sisters,
I am the appointed Legislative Chair for our outstanding Organization. I have been with the Billings Fire Department for 6 years where I serve as the Locals PAC chairman and E-board member. I spent 4.5 years in West Yellowstone prior to joining the mighty men and women of Local 521.
The Legislative session is just around the corner. Many of the Locals around the state will start looking at candidates to get involved with for their run for office. If anyone would like help in this area please feel free to contact me through the Council and I am more than willing to help get your political ball rolling.
State Convention is also coming up and that, as always means initiatives and legislative proposals. I encourage all to visit the IAFF’s web site here: http://www.iaff.org/et/economics/index.htm, to obtain information on the tuff economic times we are in. It will help you in many aspects of political activity and negotiations. I will be working jointly with our MSFA Legislative Chair on the issues we need to address next session and develop a game plan as directed by the membership and council e-board. It is not too early to start thinking about what to bring to convention while keeping in mind the times we are in.
My Goal is to help our president and members engage in political activity more then we have been in the past. Political action is critical to helping ensure that fire fighter-friendly candidates are elected to public office. Every year, new campaigns and elections are held at the local and state levels give us the opportunity to get politically active and make a difference. To be effective, it is critical that we all work together to help maintain influence of fire fighter issues at all levels within the State.
I look forward to serving the Council membership in this position, but I especially look forward to helping locals throughout this State engage in the process of being political. My philosophy is this “If you are not engaging elected officials throughout the political process, you and your issues are left behind. And you can be guaranteed that others on the other side are not siding idly by.”
As always, stay safe out there.
Fraternally,
Joseph C Sands