This is my second year as president of the retirees of the AFT- 6157. It is indeed an honor to be the president, following our great leader and founder Bill Jacobs. It is in his legacy that I serve as the president of the retirees. I try to run this group the way I thought Bill would have liked me to run the retirees of the AFT-6157.
Having said that, I do have some shortcomings, like my short term memory. Like forgetting to turn off the water faucet, close the refrigerator door, etc. These shortcomings, shared by many as we age, are starting to affect my job as president for I am forgetful of things that I should be taking care of. Fortunately, I have a good team of Walter and Ron to keep me in check. That is how this organization keeps running. Teamwork.
I will keep in my position as long as we have teamwork to keep this organization running. We are now embarking on making our RBOA (Retirement Board of Authority) more accountable by looking into the governance of the RBOA to see if we can spend any of the trust’s 11 million dollars in reserves to make up for the erosion of medical benefits and become accountable to the wishes of our representatives on that board. The long-range plan will be to look at the funds of the RBOA and use them for retirees’ health plans. Patrick Butler and David Yancey are providing great leadership with this endeavor.
I am proud of our efforts for our retirees of the AFT 6157 R. A big event will be the naming of the SJCC gym after retired faculty member Percy Carr the winningest coach of a community college basketball team. We have purchased eight tickets for this event, first come, first served, for any faculty members that have paid their current 6157 R membership dues. Contact Ron Levesque for tickets to this event if you are interested. It will be held on June 4 at SJCC.