I want to start this message by mentioning something about a close friend of mine who passed away today after being in the hospital for just a week. My good friend, William "Bill" P. Kearns was working at Point Beach Nuclear plant as late as last Friday, when he collapsed due to complications with his blood sugar complicated by other medical problems that all came to a head at one time. I talked to him on Saturday and he indicated to me that he was looking forward to seeing me on the next outage at S.O.N.G.S. this year if not sooner. Bill had plans and death did not fit into his plans. God apparently decided that he wanted Bill in heaven with him because he called him home and would not take no for an answer. I got a call from Marty Delaney telling me that Bill had passed today but he did not know what time. I called Donna Kearns, Bill's wife and she told me that Bill passed away at 5:20pm after his blood pressure had dropped this morning and his doctors could not get it back up. I lost my composure while talking to Donna as I was driving on my way to our Friday night union meeting. I miss my friend as he has left a big hole in my heart that will take a long time to heal. I feel a greater loss with my close friend Bill than I did when some of my close relatives who died recently. I know Bill is in Heaven looking down on us thinking that he does not want us to be sad. While I know that Bill is in a better place right now, that does not alter the fact that we will never see him again on this earth and that is why I am sad today and for a long time to come. I worked for Bill at the Perry Nuclear Plant near Cleveland, Ohio a few years ago and he worked for me at Diablo Canyon on three outages. He was a kind man with a dry sense of humor and was a one of a kind. On the first generator change out at Diablo Canyon, we were near the end of the job and Bill had a brother who was ill but Bill had told me he was planning on finishing the job. He was working in our mirror mod shop and I had a feeling I needed to go to the shop for some reason. I got there and saw Bill as he finished a phone call where he had just learned his brother had just died. I had never seen Bill cry before and seeing that big man with tears in his eyes choked me up. When I talked to Donna today, I told her about that day and she told me that in all the years she and Bill were married, she only saw Bill cry three times and one of them was when his brother had died. Bill has touched a lot of lives of people in our trade as well as other areas of his life. I will never forget him as I am sure a lot of people feel the same way I do but Donna has the biggest hole in her heart. She was not ready to loose the love of her life and now she is on her own. I will make an announcement when I learn of Bill's funeral arrangements on this web page.

At our meeting, we discussed the fact that our health and welfare fund is in trouble due to the huge slow down in the economy. We discussed the fact that we were going to have to make cuts in benefits or give up two months of our hour bank. We decided to prop up the fund by putting 50 cents off our hourly wages and 50 cents from the mechanic member's contributions in the Market Recovery fund adding up to a dollar per hour going into the health and welfare to keep the bank hours at the current time of three months. These modifications will go into effect on May 1st.
We swore in one new mechanic and several new apprentices.
We discussed the fact that the stop gap measures we did tonight are only a temporary fix at best and we are going to have to revisit the issue of our ailing health and welfare fund within the next three months. 
We had a good turnout tonight of many concerned members who attended the special order of business.
Our newly elected officers received repeated attacks all during the meeting from two individuals who each have a personal agenda. This has been going on from one of the individuals for a long time prior to the elections in December and the other individual started his public attacks after the elections. Both these individuals bring note books to the meetings to take notes to use to disrupt and prolong the meetings and push their own agenda. The main body of the local is sick and tired of the attacks on our newly elected officials and the attacks have to stop and will not be tolerated.
I purchased the green Mercury Grand Marquis and when I went to fill it up on the way home from picking it up at the union hall, I got about $45 worth of gas into the tank when gas came pouring out of the tank on the ground. I shut the pump off and looked to see where the gas was coming from and found that someone had cut a hole in the tank near the top right next to the filler tube. I would hope that this was an act of vandalism by some street punk and not an act of sabotage by some disgruntled member of our local. I will pay to have the tank repaired myself.  
I have said all this about the vehicle to point out the fact that we need to install video surveillance equipment at our union hall because it is very obvious we have a problem. The fence and gate we have around our property does not stop people who want to do us harm during office hours or after hours.

All the statements are the opinion of David Nix and it is being published without the approval of our business manager just in case it steps on a couple of toes. All I can say is, if the shoe fits, wear it. .