Sep 30
November 5th
icon1 Pike | icon2 Uncategorized | icon4 09 30th, 2008| icon3No Comments »

Fellow members,

I have invited Raleigh city council member, Roger Koopman to our next meeting on Wednesday Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the Teamster Union Hall. I have canceled our October membership meeting so we can focus our time on the November meeting. Please adjust your schedule so you can attend this meeting. It is imperative to have a large turnout. I will continue to invite city council members to our meetings for the rest of the fiscal year. We need to convey to these council members how important these issues are to us. A large turnout at these meeting will show the council members that the number of vacancies we have is a priority to us. A low turnout will do the opposite. We have been critical of the Chief, the City Manager and the City Council for not doing enough to retain police officers. The ball is now in our court. What are we willing to do? I am asking all our members in the next 6 months to make a commitment to attend at least 2 membership meeting. This is only 4 hours of your time in the next 6 month. This will give us an average of 150 members at each meeting with a city council member. Imagine what a council member will do if 150 police officers insist we need a raise to retain police officers. It is our responsibility to make this happen. Nothing will change if we do not stand up for ourselves.

Thanks for you support.

Rick Armstrong

Sep 10
Our last meeting was a success. We had a very impressive turnout, had very good discussions and still accomplished a great deal. I think one important goal we decided was to fight for an across the board raise for all officers. As many of you understand we must start the process know to achieve this goal. Many of you committed to attending our next meeting and we plan to invite a city council member to the meeting so we can express our concerns directly to them. Before I extend this invitation to the city council I would like members to email me and confirm that they would be willing and able to attend. This will be an excellent opportunity for all of us to explain to each council member how important these issues are to our union and the police department as a whole. I will continue to invite council members to our monthly meetings for the rest of the year if we continue to have excellent turnouts at our meetings. For those of you who feel that Derek, Eric, or myself are fearful of speaking on behalf of our members please come to the meeting. The next Teamster local meeting will be Saturday Sept. 20, 10:00 at the Teamster union hall. This is a full membership meeting with all Teamster members and will be a good opportunity for us to get support form other Teamster members for our future meetings with city council. OUR NEXT MEETING FOR POLICE OFFICERS IN WHICH I PLAN TO INVITE A CITY COUNCIL MEMBER WILL BE OCT. 7, 1930 AT THE TEAMSTER UNION HALL. PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP IF YOU CAN ATTEND THIS MEETING.