Dear GPA members,
I hope you enjoyed the excellent presentation on the behind-the-scenes look at Top Gun II Maverick - by Captain Greg “Chaser” Keithley at our first “live” meeting. It may have been our best turn-out in years! Our next meeting will be October 2nd (no meeting in September). There will be an important GFDC meeting Wednesday September 15 @ 6pm at the El Cajon City Council Chambers.
DEFEAT THIS ORDINANCE!
The main reason for this letter is to share progress on the so-called “Working Families” ordinance proposed by the Board of Supervisors in July. The ordinance places very onerous stipulations on businesses located on county leased properties – including all county airports. The ordinance requires all lessees and contractors to pay “prevailing rates” on labor contracts on county property. That includes subleases as well – many of them owned by mom-and-pop outfits with only a few employees. Prevailing rates referred to in the ordinance are generally negotiated by unions in the collective bargaining process and can be literally double or triple current “market rates.”
The upshot of thinly veiled “unionization” is lost jobs in our economically depressed East County and the loss of 500 new “green” jobs planned for the airport property at Weld & Prospect. If you remember, we fought for approval to lease those 300 acres only 2 months ago. Now the supervisors are killing those same jobs by pricing lessees out of the ability to pay for county-required required capital improvements.
How does that hurt Gillespie pilots?
First, businesses will do one of two things:
Relocate off county property, or
Shrink or go out of business - because they cannot afford to stay in business paying prevailing rates.
Second - people will lose their jobs – both aviation jobs and jobs in general - we care about the jobs and the people depending on them...
Third, revenues lost will drastically reduce the Airport Enterprise Fund needed to maintain and improve our airports.
This ordinance will affect the cost of everything we do on the airport. Labor paid at higher than market rates for all contractors on airport properties means they must pass the costs to their customers – you and I! And if they can’t because you can’t afford them – they move or go out of business. If the cost of flying increases two-fold, how many of us will be able to afford flying out of KSEE, or Ramona, or Fallbrook?
The 500 jobs lost at the proposed ‘Amazon’ contract on airport property are in addition to the $400,000 annually lost to the Airport Enterprise Fund (AEF) from that contract alone - which is the lifeblood of airport maintenance and improvements. The stakes are huge.
WHAT YOU CAN DO… - SIGN AND DISTRIBUTE THE PETITION
A “Jobs On County Land Coalition” website has been established with information about the ordinance, the PETITION, and an “impact survey” for business owners to indicate how many employees etc. The website has all the information and talking points you will need:
https://jobsoncountyland.com
Sign and submit the petition online. They will be distributed to the Supervisors by the coalition. We are asking you to sign and submit the petition. You will receive an email to confirm your submission – click on that to confirm your signature.
We are also asking you to help in two very significant ways:
We need volunteers who signed up at the GPA meeting to walk petitions to businesses located at Gillespie Field and the industrial parks on Cuyamaca. We have divided the addresses into groups with all the contact information. An email will be sent to all who agreed to help next week.
We had 38 volunteers sign up – but if you didn’t sign up but can help us out, please let me know – we’ll need all the help we can get.
We will meet and start visiting those companies next Tuesday - time and location TBA
When the Board of Supervisors meets to consider this ordinance – we need you to attend in person and speak against it or sign up to call into the meeting. We are hoping to find 1000 people to call in or speak at the meeting.
You can also support the petition by sharing the website on your social media – and encouraging your family, and friends to sign the petition.
The point is to keep people working in the aviation industry and keep the cost of flying, hangars, maintenance, and fuel affordable. There is a lot going on behind the scenes. I am asking for your help on this one. Let’s save our airport from ordinances like this one from being crammed down our throat!
DENNY
Captain Denny Breslin
President Gillespie Pilots Association
Cell/Text: 619 980 8941
Email: dbreslin@cox.net