This is Viewpoints for Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Team win-win

Last week, I had the pleasure to speak at the inaugural Robins Air Force Base Congressional breakfast held in Washington D.C. Though not widely reported, AFGE Local 987 was well represented by trustees LaBrenda Jones and David Tucker and Secretary Eric Langston and myself.

The event was attended by Sens. Johnny Isakson and David Perdue, along with retired Sen. Saxby Chambliss, U.S. Reps. Austin Scott and Sanford Bishop and several local dignitaries. We communicate regularly with our delegation in Washington and keep abreast of issues that concern Robins and its workforce.

I’m proud to have been a vital part of the recovery of Robins. It was a commitment that I took very seriously when I was elected and I intend to continue going forward. To me it will never be acceptable for Robins to return to the state in which our team found it. As president of this union, I will commit every resource available to protect the rights of this bargaining unit and to protect their jobs.

When we first took office a couple of years ago, we all knew Robins was at a crossroad and we knew we had a lot of work to do. I am truly honored to represent AFGE and its membership at Robins and proud to see commitment of senior leadership at the base.

This is why our team ran for office in the first place. We were committed to bringing change and to recover the reputation of Robins Air Force Base. It absolutely had to be done. The union and the agency began to create an environment where success was not only possible but encouraged. We set about to engage as a 21st century union. The status at Robins began to change as we applied Pre-Decisional Involvement and other tools for early problem resolution. This took trust and courage that was abundantly rewarded. We benchmarked what can happen when everyone works to foster the right relationships. A relationship that demands dignity and respect from everyone and for everyone. A relationship that treats everyone like the professionals that they are.

This has been a culture change we are proud of. These successes — in production, in workers comp, labor costs, the number of labor issues trending in the right direction, and others — are just the tip of the iceberg. I know we can do even better.

We stand on the very edge of reaching the next level in how we approach labor, safety, and ways we can better execute our mission. We are poised to set new standards Air Force wide in aircraft delivery through lessons learned from the art of the possible, lessons learned in our corrosion facilities and from the new AFSOC workload, just to name a few. We are absolutely finding new ways to win.

Stadium site

I would like to suggest two possible sites for a baseball stadium. The first is the area at Macon Mall where Dillard’s used to be. There is ample space, plenty of parking, excellent highway access, and it would definitely help the redevelopment of the area.

The other possible site would be on Cavalier Drive which I believe the city or the county once offered as the potential site for the Georgia National Fairground. It also has excellent highway access and good potential for development in the area.

Anyone care?

Once again our mayor and staff are gallivanting around the Carolinas seeking input as to the viability of a minor league baseball team in Bibb County. Rather than rationalize our socioeconomic differences and the brutal facts of former failed teams, he wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars of our tax money as he has building the road to Mercer.

The roads to town via Wesleyan Drive shows a 20-foot rut just off Rivoli Drive that is a disaster waiting to happen. On the corner of Bass Road and Rivoli Drive there is a rut two feet deep and 15 feet long. Sixty percent of the taxes are paid by those area residents. These are just two of hundreds of crumbling roads and ruts.

Upon the election of Jack Ellis to tax commissioner (heaven forbid) Robert will become the laughingstock of the county as Jack tours Iran and his Muslim brothers worldwide. Surely if Robert can tour the Carolinas, Jack can investigate opportunities for trade and goodwill with our tax money too!

If you find this amusing, it is not meant to be. What is funny — no one seems to care.

No field of dreams

The mayor and other people visited the cities of Columbia and Greenville in South Carolina to look at their minor league baseball organizations. Both of these are in counties with over 400,000 people and both added new people in the latest census. Columbia (Richland County) has a poverty rate of 16 percent. Greenville (Greenville County) has a poverty rate of 20 percent. Macon-Bibb County has a declining population which now stands at 153,000 people with over 28 percent living in poverty.

And the surrounding counties of Columbia and Greenville are much better off than Macon-Bibb’s surrounding counties. The Greenville mayor said this, “I think all cities have to be very wary of what the return on the investments going to be and what their obligations are.”

If the average attendance at Braves games was very low with only 300 to 500 season tickets sold, do you really think the county can recoup the $40 million investment? We already wasted $50,000 on the study and more money to visit South Carolina. An earlier study showed the Music Hall of Fame, now closed, would draw 135,000 a year. So studies are not reliable. At least Mercer bought that building but who will buy a baseball field?

Macon-Bibb County has too many problems to waste $40 million dollars on a Field of Dreams that too soon would become a nightmare. It is sad that the upcoming election gives us no choices.

New look

I really like your BOLD printing, which heads each article. Keep up the good work.

This story was originally published May 10, 2016 at 10:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Wednesday, May 11, 2016."