Northwest Mountain Region
February Quarterly
6th February 2001
Auburn, WA Regional Office
Attendees for the Union;
- Don McLennan,
- John Dibble,
- Alice Haines,
- Greg Deveraux
- Darrell Mounts.
Attendees for Management;
- Jim Hayes,
- Allan Hollinger,
- Jeff Walen,
- Barbara Hayes
- Bruce Johnson.
Agenda Items
1. Staffing: What is the outlook for staffing at Denver and McMinnville AFSS'?
The staffing issue at McMinnville concerns who is on the watch schedule and persons detailed out of the facility. New information was presented to the RO that one individual on detail may be working so few hours on position that it might be more appropriate to not consider the individual as being a part of the watch schedule. However, the individual is not detailed and apparently comes and goes at random. Management has hired a person to backfill behind the detailed person but an issue remains that it would be better to have the person off the operational floor altogether as opposed to working less hours than monthly currency requirements.
The staffing issue at Denver is about the potential shortages due to year-end retirements. Darrell Mounts shared the picture at Denver claiming he knows Denver AFSS is going to loose five persons through retirements. Alice Haines noted that in the next twelve months Seattle AFSS would lose three people to retirements. Jim Hayes admitted this is a real problem the management must deal with and he acknowledged that there are staffing shortages in some facilities. He also noted that he is not getting any complaints from the facility management about staffing issues. They know there is a "potential" attrition issue but currently are not developing a pipeline or maybe even developing a plan to address the issue. We also discussed the issue that the region has asked the Mangers to review their AWS watch schedules to see if they are spending their funds as efficient as possible within limited resources. He also addressed the issue that if we can find persons interested in IPP moves into this region management will work with us to try and make it happen. We are not at a "capped" personnel amount based on our current regional staffing numbers. I also addressed the issue there was moves within the region that had not been coordinated with me but was assured the management people had not been notified either. We agreed to look into it and discuss what moves may happen.
2. 2002 OLYMPICS: What is the status on preparations for the Salt Lake City Olympic event? NAATS submitted a proposal to handle international traffic.
Jeff Walen gave us an overview briefing on what he has been assigned to do since joining the team in July. He advised that AOPA's Internet site has an excellent demonstration on VFR Waypoints and how they should be used. This is potentially a big issue, especially for helicopters using the special airways for the Olympics. Jeff addressed our issue of training other AFSS facilities where traffic may have to be off-loaded. There is not a definitive answer to the question but Jeff said they had a lot of good ideas and something would be settled on shortly. They may use cadre instructors from facility to facility, hold a large training session for everyone or let someone from Cedar City AFSS visit other facilities to train them one facility at a time. Jeff advised us that the Special Traffic Management Plan being developed for the Olympics would be something that anyone getting a briefing into the Salt Lake City area would have to be familiar with. This means all of our members will have to know about, and understand it, well enough to not have to waste time looking it up with a customer on the line.
3. Oasis: Request an update briefing on OASIS at Seattle.
We received a briefing from Barb Hayes on OASIS. She had been in Washington, D.C. last week but the briefing she received was a relative high-level one and as such there was little specific information. In fact, Alice Haines had the most current information, which is always good to know.
4. Intranet Access: Some of our facilities still do not have access to T&A information on the FAA Intranet for the controllers. When can we expect this to be arranged?
IOU
5. CPP MOU: Request an update on CPP moves to this region. Specifically on Donna Minnie and Lisa Rosenthal.
- 3/26 Donna Minnie
- 5/6 Lisa Rosenthal
6. UCRs: What is the status of the UCR filed concerning center's flight following of VFR aircraft and SAR responsibilities. (Agenda item from the August 2000 meeting.)
IOU
7. Firefighting TFR NOTAMs: Request an update on the progress of the suggested format change for firefighting TFR NOTAMs submitted at the August 2000 meeting.
Cheryl Krieger will give information to ANM-540 later this week.
8. Tower Light NOTAMs: There seems to be problem with the current procedure dealing with tower obstruction light outages. The procedure has us faxing information to the FCC on tower light outages if an outage is not fixed or extended by the tower operator. However, we don't fax the info if the operator extends the NOTAM before the 15 days are up. Tower operators have extended their NOTAMs several times. If this tower light NOTAM activity is a safety issue, then this procedure is counterproductive to that. Allowing tower operators to leave their lights out indefinitely.
Don McLennan
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