Candidate Bryan Zilonis -President

President


https://www.zilonis2018.com/

Bryan Zilonis for NATCA President
 
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I would vote for Zilonis in a second. Great guy. He is very responsive and relatable. I think he has the best interests of all controllers at heart.
 
Another Interesting point of order here courtesy of Brian Zilonis website...

"PAC Contributions: Currently, there are no briefings and/or information given to the Executive Board regarding our Union's PAC contributions from the PAC Advisory Board. It is too easy under current practices to mischaracterize contributions. For example, an explanation of how this money is spent could be that 58% of contributions support Democratic candidates and 42% support Republican candidates. This does not truly capture all expenses associated with the PAC and excludes administrative costs and other spending, like NATCA's Boots on the Ground program.

Because of this lack of transparency, PAC money is spent with no communication to the Executive Board or the membership. Currently, if a member has questions about how their PAC dollars are being spent, they are forced to go through Federal Election Commission files."
 
Another Interesting point of order here courtesy of Brian Zilonis website...

"PAC Contributions: Currently, there are no briefings and/or information given to the Executive Board regarding our Union's PAC contributions from the PAC Advisory Board. It is too easy under current practices to mischaracterize contributions. For example, an explanation of how this money is spent could be that 58% of contributions support Democratic candidates and 42% support Republican candidates. This does not truly capture all expenses associated with the PAC and excludes administrative costs and other spending, like NATCA's Boots on the Ground program.

Because of this lack of transparency, PAC money is spent with no communication to the Executive Board or the membership. Currently, if a member has questions about how their PAC dollars are being spent, they are forced to go through Federal Election Commission files."

I'm not the least bit surprised that money is being spent without members knowing what it's being spent on.
 
Bryan Zilonis on Privatization:


“It is important to remember that members of the Executive Board must always support the will of the majority of the Executive Board, regardless of their personal feelings. I support our national policy of supporting stable and predictable funding. Any opportunity to change direction should be through meaningful debate and not through undermining the will of the majority. That is why elections are so important.



The National Airspace System is in need of a more stable and predictable funding stream. A defining moment of my career was listening to the Agency’s initial ideas on how to deal with sequestration in 2013. They considered sending all controllers in ATC level 8 and below facilities home until enough money was saved. Our membership and the service we provide is too important to be sidelined when financially convenient. We must continue to fight to protect every profession represented by our organization.



My Vision: There is no way to guarantee that proposed legislation will pass as initially written and submitted. Your national leaders asked you, the membership, if you would allow NATCA to be in the room to protect our profession and our rights. The Convention body agreed that having a seat at the table is important to help shape the future of our profession. The body did not grant the right to champion a specific, failed piece of legislation that could change and evolve through the amendment process.



Championing this specific, failed legislation, with no guarantee of how it would impact our members was irresponsible and in direct opposition to the will of the Convention body. Additionally, it alienated long-standing allies on the Hill.



I will continue to support being in the room and at the negotiating table to protect our Union and our members' rights. Through transparency and serving the will of our entire membership, I know our Union will make great strides in all challenges we face today and tomorrow.”
 
Bryan Zilonis on Privatization:

Championing this specific, failed legislation, with no guarantee of how it would impact our members was irresponsible and in direct opposition to the will of the Convention body. Additionally, it alienated long-standing allies on the Hill.



I will continue to support being in the room and at the negotiating table to protect our Union and our members' rights. Through transparency and serving the will of our entire membership, I know our Union will make great strides in all challenges we face today and tomorrow.”

Finally someone understood the massive wave of dissent.
 
I’ve been a Facrep in Great Lakes since 2014. Zilonis has always been available and gotten back to me when I needed help. I asked him to come to my facility and he did, he just took the day and drove over and met everyone and hung out for a while. Granted we wanted to show him the less than great condition of our building but still. I’ve supported our national leadership, but over the summer when the newspaper editorials from Facreps not just supporting but outright advocating for the AIRR act it just started to feel wrong, and I got really disillusioned. Knowing Bryan’s positions on these issues now has sort of reignited that spark I guess. Knowing there is someone qualified to be President that shares a lot of the same feelings as the membership.
 
I am drafting a list of questions for the candidates and reaching out to them, does anyone have questions they wish me to include? Should they respond I will happily post the responses here on .65.

I've looked over Mr. Zilonis' website and while I am onboard with most if not all of his proposed changes, there is very little info on how he intends to do these things. Plenty of WHAT and very little HOW. How is he proposing to publish the information on PAC donations? A quarterly report or something of that nature? Will expenditures be itemized? In addition, will simply publishing that information be sufficient in his eyes? Or should every decision to spend money be made by vote during meetings of the Executive Board?

Re: privatization, what allies on Capitol Hill has NATCA "alienated"? I'm not a fan of vague assertions and promises, even if I agree with the sentiment completely. How does Mr. Zilonis propose to be "in the room" helping shape legislation if he isn't prepared to support the legislation that comes out of the room? What would a non-flawed bill look like? Would it include any form of privatization? Should any decision to support a particular piece of legislation be subject to approval by the bargaining unit? Or does he feel that NATCA shouldn't take a position at all?
 
I've looked over Mr. Zilonis' website and while I am onboard with most if not all of his proposed changes, there is very little info on how he intends to do these things. Plenty of WHAT and very little HOW. How is he proposing to publish the information on PAC donations? A quarterly report or something of that nature? Will expenditures be itemized? In addition, will simply publishing that information be sufficient in his eyes? Or should every decision to spend money be made by vote during meetings of the Executive Board?

Re: privatization, what allies on Capitol Hill has NATCA "alienated"? I'm not a fan of vague assertions and promises, even if I agree with the sentiment completely. How does Mr. Zilonis propose to be "in the room" helping shape legislation if he isn't prepared to support the legislation that comes out of the room? What would a non-flawed bill look like? Would it include any form of privatization? Should any decision to support a particular piece of legislation be subject to approval by the bargaining unit? Or does he feel that NATCA shouldn't take a position at all?


Excellent hard hitting questions!
 
Do you have a question for Bryan? Send them to [email protected]

lifted that from a facebook post.

I know that he just publicly announced a few days ago and while the platform is laid out, there hasn't been alot of question answering. If you find the facebook page there was a pretty good discussion about his views on privatization.
 
Do you have a question for Bryan? Send them to [email protected]

lifted that from a facebook post.

I know that he just publicly announced a few days ago and while the platform is laid out, there hasn't been alot of question answering. If you find the facebook page there was a pretty good discussion about his views on privatization.

Thanks, I'll check it out
 
I've looked over Mr. Zilonis' website and while I am onboard with most if not all of his proposed changes, there is very little info on how he intends to do these things. Plenty of WHAT and very little HOW. How is he proposing to publish the information on PAC donations? A quarterly report or something of that nature? Will expenditures be itemized? In addition, will simply publishing that information be sufficient in his eyes? Or should every decision to spend money be made by vote during meetings of the Executive Board?

Re: privatization, what allies on Capitol Hill has NATCA "alienated"? I'm not a fan of vague assertions and promises, even if I agree with the sentiment completely. How does Mr. Zilonis propose to be "in the room" helping shape legislation if he isn't prepared to support the legislation that comes out of the room? What would a non-flawed bill look like? Would it include any form of privatization? Should any decision to support a particular piece of legislation be subject to approval by the bargaining unit? Or does he feel that NATCA shouldn't take a position at all?


Bryan will be putting out more information. Plans, etc. If you would like to ask him questions directly, please email him at [email protected] or call him at 4408646085.
 
I like Bryan’s positions so far. I’d encourage everyone to give him a little bit of time to clarify and get some more information out. As far as I know he was set to retire soon, and this nomination wasn’t expected and sparked his drive to continue. It looks like he’s putting out information almost daily as he can. Paul and Trish have teams that can do that stuff for them.
 
I know Bryan would love to be able to visit every facility, but that is a financial impossibility. Not being the incumbent, he is at a disadvantage, in that he can not travel the country under the guise of NATCA business. He has a plan and some ideas on how to reach out to each member. He will also be at convention next week, so if anyone is going to be there, grab him, talk to him. :)
 
I know Bryan would love to be able to visit every facility, but that is a financial impossibility. Not being the incumbent, he is at a disadvantage, in that he can not travel the country under the guise of NATCA business. He has a plan and some ideas on how to reach out to each member. He will also be at convention next week, so if anyone is going to be there, grab him, talk to him. :)

I like how this was worded.
 
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