Recently, there are several organizations that have voted to boycott all sales tax measures on the ballot in November. Conspicuously absent in the groups that have voted to oppose all sales tax measures, is the ECA. I feel an explanation is due our members and other readers of this Newsletter.

The NCBE, Farm Bureau, and North Bay Leadership Council, are all voting on a 2020 moratorium of all sales tax measures, because, as the NCBE states “No, Not Now” is the message to the elected.

The ECA agrees with the sentiment, but the reason the ECA is supporting Measure M is because it is exactly that “No, Not Now”. If Measure M is reauthorized, there is no tax that comes out of a taxpayer’s wallet until 2025. So Measure M certainly abides by the sentiment that businesses and individuals cannot afford any more taxes right now. But five years from now is not now.

The ECA supports Measure M reauthorization. The ECA does not support any of the other tax measures that will appear on your November ballot. We like only one-the one that does not kick in until 2025 so taxpayers are not hurt when they are down due to Covid-19.

The ECA is not some sort of ostrich with our head buried in the sand. We have had extended discussions at the Exec Committee level, and the Government Affairs Committee level, and we took those discussions to our Board of Directors to make certain our Directors were informed, and were able to digest the issues that other organizations, and myself, have experienced in the last few months. Although we usually are in agreement on most issues that the North Bay Leadership Council and the North Coast Builders Exchange favor, we are not in agreement on boycotting all sales tax measures this November.

Our Board voted unanimously to back the Measure M Reauthorization in November. This latest vote occurred on July 21, 2020. Some of the discussions and reasons for supporting the ¼ cent sales tax extension that would take effect in 2025 and last for 20 years are as follows:

*As to the other groups (mainly voiced publicly by the North Bay Leadership Council as being a main reason for unifying to have a moratorium on all sales tax measures in 2020) being concerned that the Board of Supervisors “are not listening to business interests”: The Board of Supervisors make themselves available for discussion to me and the other groups every week. There are times when I am representing the ECA interests and ask the BOS to consider our viewpoint on an issue, and I have always found they listen. They weigh our perspective with the other information they have, and sometimes they vote the way we would like, and sometimes they do not. But they have always considered our perspective.  I am not in agreement that the BOS is not listening to business interests.

*To the point I have heard as to “the “time is not right” for asking taxpayers to be burdened with a sales tax”: The ECA agrees that other sales tax measures should not be moved forward. The other sales tax measures hit the tax payer immediately, while Measure M doesn’t kick in until 2025. So why is November not the right time? The existing Measure M is still in effect at ¼ cent for the year 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. No new sales tax is seen by any taxpayer until 2025. So, no taxpayer would be burdened while the Covid-19 Pandemic has throttled their business. We certainly understand we should not be asking taxpayers for more money right now-they have been seriously damaged by the economic crisis due to Covid-19. But we certainly expect the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent economic problems will be better by 2025.

*Measure M allows taxpayers to get matching funds from other taxes levied on fuel, registration, and other fees collected on the Federal and State levels. Those additional fees and taxes (mostly from fuel excise taxes) will still be paid by taxpayers in Sonoma County whether Measure M passes or not. The key difference in Measure M vs other sales tax measures being put to the voters in November, is that Measure M would allow us to get some of those other taxes paid to be routed back to Sonoma County if Measure M is reauthorized. The SCTA and Suzanne Smith have been extremely effective at getting our share (and in most cases, more than our share) of matching money by virtue of having Measure M in place. If Measure M goes away, taxpayers would still pay taxes, but we would get no benefit from those taxes being paid. The other sales tax measures being proposed do not have the stellar track record of getting matching funds that Measure M has.

*Measure M has been a great economic stimulus for local economies. While there is no guarantee that local contractors will continue to get the big share of the bid opportunities for building and repairing roads, paths, bridges and sidewalks in Sonoma County, there is a “track record” that local workers dominate those projects and local owners are the overwhelming majority of the successful bidders on those projects. Measure M has funded thousands of good paying jobs over the last 16 years, and the profits wages tend to stay right here in Sonoma County. Those dollars get utilized in hiring insurance firms, CPA’s, attorneys, and get turned over in the local economy by helping charities, buying groceries, going to restaurants, buying cars and trucks, and any number of other economic stimulus that $16 million a year provides.

*The reason Measure M needs to be reauthorized before it expires in 2024, is because many funding projects take several years to go through right of way purchasing, design, development of plans and specs, and finally go to bid and get under construction. No matching funds can be made available unless the local entity shows it can “self-help” in the cost of the project. So, if we lose out on matching funding for two years when Measure M can come back to voters in 2022, we just paid two years of other taxes that went to other jurisdictions other than Sonoma County. The SCTA has not overspent what funding they have gotten from the taxpayers, they have smartly set those funds aside and earmarked them for projects that are being designed right now. It is a process. These projects do not happen overnight. They take several years to develop. That is why the reauthorization of Measure M is going to the voters now. Because now it is the best time to lock it in and get matching funding.

*Lastly-the “split” in the Measure M reauthorization has a favorable amount of the taxpayer dollar going to roads, bike paths, sidewalks, and bridges. The folks that lobbied hard for public transit dollars and for climate change reductions are not going away. They will be back negotiating for a bigger chunk of any future Measure M tax monies that are voted on. Rest assured, the deal that was negotiated over the last many months is the absolute best deal roads can expect. And in two years, should Measure M fail this November, less of the taxpayer dollar will go to roads in 2022 as support for roads is not going to be as strong then as it is now.

As the ECA contemplated the worthy aspirations of other groups to boycott ALL sales tax measures, there was ECA sentiment to oppose all sales tax measures except one. The one that drives our economy and will not burden taxpayers while they recover from Covid-19 business slowdown. The only sales tax measure that can multiply and get other tax monies to come back to our local economy.

All sales tax measures are not created equal. Measure M may not be accepted by the voters in November, but if it is defeated, I hope that voters understand why it is different from the others. It should not be defeated simply because other groups have arbitrarily lumped all sales tax measures together as being “Not the Right Time”.

Measure M fixes a problem of poor roads, does so in a way that benefits local workers and local companies, and does no damage to a taxpayer’s wallet until the year 2025. 

For those reasons and others, the ECA does not support a “blanket” boycott of all sales tax measures in Sonoma County. We do not believe all sales tax measures are created equally. Measure M has done a tremendous amount of good in Sonoma County, and if passed by the voters, will act like a stimulus package that will immediately help the local economy recover. None of the other tax measures can say that.

That is why the ECA supports one tax measure-the Reauthorization of Measure M.

That’s All Folks

John

I have been getting some grief over my “namby pamby”, non-edgy, bland Soapbox content lately. They have been that way, of course, purposefully. Since I do not have much of a “filter”, I have to be careful. Mary-are you reading this carefully so we can send this out to the good ECA folks please?

Anyway, this is my intent to provide some edge, but in a “politically correct” manner. Which brings into focus, what is politically correct these days? That is a subject for a different Soapbox, and perhaps written by someone else!

I want to talk to you about the lack of houses being built. Of course, doing fire rebuilds has something to do with that, but when you have a grand total of 1 housing unit built in Windsor in the past year, building houses does seem to be a topic worth discussion. Last year Deb Fudge and Dominic Foppoli from the Windsor Town Council took Mark Soiland and I to lunch to ask developers why is that? I will provide this disclaimer-I am writing this without any input from “real experts” like Larry Florin from Burbank Housing, but this is an “opinion” piece, and I have an opinion-so there!

At today’s Construction Coalition meeting, the venerable and wise, Keith Woods asked the question of our Windsor guests (Jessica Jones-Community Development Director, Kimberly Jordan-Planner, and Aaron Nousaine-Urban Economics consultant) as to the ideology that Municipalities seem to have around the topic of “affordable housing”, which is:

“why do municipalities always look to increase inclusionary housing in lieu fees in trying to promote construction of affordable housing?”

Please allow me to explain the context of Keith’s question. Simplistically, most cities say they want to see more housing built in their city. They do not just want “Mcmansions” to be built, but they want to see “affordable housing” built as well. One could swap out the word “affordable” and replace it with the more accurate word- “subsidized”. The real question Keith was asking was who should be subsidizing the City stated desire for more housing for lower income residents?

The lack of logic in the actions taken by most cities, is that they provide developers with a requirement to build (as part of their proposed development) a certain percentage of housing that could be deemed “affordable” by a complex set of criteria that is based upon, loosely, the cost of housing, the prevalent average income of people in the community, and the size and scope of the proposed housing project. But basically, the “requirement to build” those less expensive units, can be avoided by the developer by paying what is known as an “in lieu” fee and the developer can then simply pay a certain amount and build all market rate housing in his/her development. Ostensibly, the “in lieu fee” is then collected by the municipality, and goes into a fund to build, or subsidize, more affordable housing.

Most, if not all, developers, usually opt to pay the in-lieu fee rather than to build the lower cost units. Why? Because they can pass that cost on to the other buyers of the more expensive units in the proposed subdivision. Result? Housing costs go up, and no “affordable housing” is actually built.

The developer that chooses to build the “affordable units” can opt to do so, but I am told they are building and selling them at a loss to themselves. The in-lieu fee is a lesser cost to them then to build the unit and sell it, and that is why they generally choose to pay the in-lieu fee.

So, municipalities are trying to figure out how to get developers to build more affordable units. Their default method to accomplish this? They simply raise the cost of the in-lieu fee option until the developer, in their mind, is forced to build rather than buy their way out of building those units.

So how is that working?

NOT.

In essence, whether the developer builds the units at a loss, or pays the in lieu fee, the “game” to the developer is how much can the other buyers absorb and/or how thin does the developer and his/her investors wish to cut their margin to. When the buyers can’t afford subsidizing the affordable units in the project, and/or the developer and investors reach their choke point, the project does not move forward.

Cities are overflowing with projects that are entitled, but not moving forward with construction. Cities keep spending money on consultants to ask them why. Cities reach out to ECA, NCBE and others and ask them why developers are not moving forward. The answer is simple-the cost of building is higher than they can sell the units for, and so they go get the entitlement, then try to “spin” the proposed development to some other developer from out of the area that might be dumb enough to buy it and move forward with construction.

What a country!

Here is a concept for those municipalities that keep saying we need more affordable housing-find someone other than the developer and/or buyer to subsidize the “loser” less expensive units you are demanding the builder build.

But here is the question-who should subsidize those less expensive units?

I have been advocating for years that the municipalities should, if they really want more affordable housing, do the subsidizing themselves. Why do they not do that? Because building more housing actually does not pay off for the municipality. With more housing, comes the need for more road capacity, more sewer capacity, more water capacity, more parks, more schools, more police, and more fire. The City losses money on that deal.

What is the community benefit to having more housing, and more “affordable housing” specifically? One could argue that with more housing availability, a City could be more attractive to a business expanding or relocating there because their workers have a place to live. Wow. What a concept. If businesses expand, or are attracted to locate to a community, those businesses contribute tax revenue and the increased commerce turns over several times in the local economy to make the community healthier than having fewer and fewer people pay higher and higher costs for services they expect from their community.

So-in a nutshell, Cities need to promote growth. How? They need to come up with a way to subsidize the housing costs themselves, or find a way to combine those costs out of the City piggy bank in combination with a small cost to all of the citizens in the community-not just lay the cost on the developer or the house buyer of the particular proposed project.

There you go.  I hope this is no more “namby pamby’ enough for you.

That’s All Folks

John

As we continue to read about possible, probable, actual Covid-19 business shutdowns, it is clear that there is a short-term crisis in our local economy. Duh. The “fix” to the short-term crisis seems clear to me-maintain 6’ distancing and mask up when you can’t. Again-Duh.

When the short-term crisis is over, what then? The Sonoma Business and Ag Consortium has been working on an outline of issues that we (the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber, The Sonoma County Alliance, The Farm Bureau, The North Bay Association of Realtors, the Northern California Association of General Contractors, the North Coast Builders Association, the North Bay Leadership Council, and the Northern California Engineering Contractors Association) feel need to be considered to recognize mid term (end of this year to three years from now) and long term (beyond three years from now) economic recovery of this region.

The 10 Point Plan has been collaboratively generated and presented to our Sonoma County Board of Supervisors as well as to the Economic Development Board of Sonoma County in the last few weeks. The response has been, well UNDERWHELMING.

So, you can see what the 10-Point Plan is, I offer it here as a link for your reading pleasure:

The date we sent the 10-Point Plan in to the Supes was 6-24-2020. Two days ago, July 7, 2020, the first Zoom meeting of the Sonoma County Economic Development Board (EDB) “Economic Recovery Steering Committee ” was convened. I am on that Committee as well as several others from our Sonoma Business and Ag Consortium group. The stated “purpose” of the Steering Committee is to “discuss the process for developing the Sonoma County Economic Recovery Plan that identifies specific actions that will lead to a successful and safe countywide business and community recovery in response to the global pandemic”.

The EDB states they plan to present the Recovery Plan to the Board of Supes in October 2020.

Here is my problem with the EDB approach to the Sonoma County Economic Recovery Plan:

1. By including the “community” recovery in the stated mission, the scope of the business recovery effectiveness could be severely compromised. The “community” has its own sets of issues that include homelessness, and a myriad of other issues that are only somewhat related to businesses trying to stay in business and trying to get some County guidance and support in following a road map to economic recovery to many months of shutdown due to Covid-19.
2. The timeline to come up with a “Plan” is way too long. Now, I understand that our Consortium group coming up with an “Outline” of a 10 Point Plan is far different from the bureaucratic process of what the EDB has to do, but taking until October is going to be far too long to be effective in my humble opinion. The “bones” of the Plan already exist. I believe the County does not see the problem of businesses needing a “recovery roadmap” as critical as our group does. We believe that waiting until October to enact some of our outline is really missing the point of urgency that the County needs to feel. I know businesses feel the urgency, and I know I read in the newspaper that the Supes “say” they feel the urgency, but October 2020? Come on man!
3. I am also concerned with the County going down a wrong path because they simply do not want to, are not able to, or do not feel it will do any good to, consult with business groups like the ones we are a part of in the Sonoma Business and Ag Consortium before they embark on misguided, perhaps well intentioned, plans to deal with Covid -19 (the dumb App that was required, then postponed, then shelved comes to mind!!).
4. Bottom line-the Supes do not seem to be paying much attention to business groups these days. Chair Gorin seems to be putting things on their “Consent Calendar” that usually were handled with a staff report and public comment. And we “watchdog” groups had time to read the staff reports and prepare our responses to them. Lately, it seems “bombshell after bombshell” keeps coming out of the Supes meetings and staff reports are minimal or nonexistent. As an example, the North Bay Labor Council presented their version of the “sick leave” Covid-19 proposal to the Supes in lieu of a staff report. It was as if the North Bay Labor Council was part of their staff. That is not right. Whether their proposal was to be adopted or not, it should be presented to staff and staff should prepare their recommendation to the Board of Supes to present at their meeting.
5. Clearly, if we focus on buying local, we need to make it easier to do so. So let’s stop putting more and more burden on our local producers, and let’s remove (I would be happy with just not adding more!!) some impediments to local businesses. That should be a main focus of the Economic Recovery Plan.

In the meantime, the ECA continues to have a seat at the table to try to work from within on most of the issues pertinent to us. Our Exec Committee wants me to work towards making certain infrastructure work is considered a viable part of the economic recovery of Sonoma County and the contiguous Counties. As you all know, those dollars, when earned by local workers and local firms, go right back into the local economy.

Duh-Buy Local. Now more than ever. Go to our www.nceca.org website, review our list of ECA Member firms, and shop there!! That is economic recovery!!

Message of the day: Work together, don’t steal work from each other, and support our local ECA firms.

That’s All Folks!

John Bly

The City of Santa Rosa voted on Tuesday evening, June 30, 2020, to defer ALL Public Works Projects due to Covid-19 caused budget constraints. link

The City explained that the $17 million reserve fund was drawn down to just over $1 million due to the fires in the past three years and the continued economic problems posted by the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to ease the Council angst over the lack of reserves, the City Council and staff crafted a list of about $11 million in public works projects to postpone until some future date where their finances look better.

The City already earmarked some $5 million that can be saved by “keeping dozens of city positions vacant and increasing scrutiny on its hiring process”.

Although the City acknowledged some anticipated relief should come from a PG & E payment of some $90 million which is part of the settlement negotiated from the 2017 and 2018 wildfires, the date and final amount the City might get from that settlement is uncertain. The relief could change the City budget scenario very quickly, so the City is revisiting their budget in September 2020.

What does all this mean for ECA Members? In the short term, very little. Some of the deferred projects include the Luther Burbank Home & Gardens across the street from Julliard Park, partial funding of a fire station in Fountaingrove, work on the Rincon Valley and Northwest library branches and other projects. Luckily, much of the infrastructure work that our members depend upon is funded with very few general fund dollars and funding comes from other sources such as gas tax revenue. Even with that bit of good fortune, I am very concerned about the trend that the City of SR has demonstrated.

While I admit the homeless problem is probably too much of a social problem for the City of SR to “solve”, the City has spent a great deal of money funding the encampments and motel rooms they needed to comply with the letter of the law prior to cleaning out the temporary encampments under Highway 101 and the Joe Rodota trail. Semi-permanent “fixes” include the tent city at Finley Park (reported to be costing the City an estimated $137,000/month for 33 occupants, and the Los Guillicos tiny hut community that the County and grants helped pay for. The recent cleanup under the Highway 101 overpass and the Joe Rodota trail cost the City of Santa Rosa millions of dollars to clean up.

Does anyone believe the City is done spending money on the social ills caused by the homeless? Not by a long shot. The preferred method of funding those unanticipated extra costs seems to be Public Works project deferral. That is not a healthy solution. We need Public Works projects to move forward to maintain existing facilities, that if those projects are postponed, will lead to even greater bills down the road.

So, what is the solution?

The cost of funding Public Safety is a huge part of the City budget. Without pension reform, that cost will continue to increase over time. There are not a lot of other sources to save dollars for the City. I am a strong supporter of law enforcement and fire services, so I am not a fan of the current concept we keep hearing about “defunding” the police. However, I could be in favor of a collaborative effort to “defund” the lucrative publicly guaranteed and paid for pensions for public safety. I do not know how to get this done without messing up the police and fire guys and gals that hired on based upon those pension formulas. But I am certain of one thing-the City is going to have to do more than just “not fill vacant positions” to deal with the structural budget problems they currently have. And the City cannot rely on another one time “bailout’ from the Feds or PG & E in the future.

This is not a problem unique to the City of Santa Rosa. In a recent article in the Washington Post, over 700 Municipalities are postponing or deferring their Public Works Projects to meet their budget demands Covid-19 (or poor planning?) have left them with.  link

If this is the way of the future of balancing budgets on the backs of our firms, we need to work with Cities, Counties and others to find a different way to maintain our infrastructure projects being funded.

Any thoughts?

That’s All Folks

John

Today, I submitted my first draft of an outline of a Five Year ECA Strategic Plan to President Dave Weller of RCX. Dave will, as time allows him, review my draft and provide suggestions to how we will proceed, and very soon we will be acting on what is needed to design a “road map” for a vision and goals for the ECA in the next five years.

This is a great time for leadership and the ECA to “reset”. It takes deep thought and introspection to plot a course for such a venerable organization like the ECA. Given the impact on our much loved ECA Events due to Covid-19, we need to retool our thinking as to what is critical and how we move forward next year. If anybody does not believe we are effective, they should call me and I can describe how projects are getting pushed out as fast as possible, as well as how it is that our industry did not have to shut down. I do not take full or even partial credit for this, but I do think we have influenced folks as to the importance of doing infrastructure work and how critical that work is to a healthy local economy.

As we contemplate our strategic plan, we have to consider how to be relevant to members and make certain they understand, and realize, the benefits this organization provides them for their continued support.

The process is complex, and I feel it is important to advise you all as to how we are going to undertake this process so I hope you are interested.

Developing a Five Year Strategic Plan for the ECA

Mission Statement-

1. “What we are”-a Mission Statement for an organization is a short description of why the organization exists-i.e. “who we are”.

Just for reference, our current Mission Statement is

“An organization supporting the local engineering construction industry through stewardship of the community and environment”. 

Vision Statement-

2. The “Vision Statement” of an organization explains what we want see resulting from our existence. The ECA has no current Vision Statement. As an example, if an organization adopts a Mission Statement that says, “We are an Association of Deer Hunters who legally hunt deer in California”. The Vision Statement might be “We advocate to ensure that only legal deer hunting is allowed and practiced in order to ensure a controlled and sustainable harvesting of Deer in California”. In other words, the Mission says who we are, and the Vision says what we wish the vision to be because of our existence.

Core Values-

3. Once an organization decides on the Mission and the Vision, they should decide on what their “Core Values” are. In my “Deer Hunting” example above, some Core Values might be:
4. Collaborate
5. Influence
6. Leadership
7. Community

If “Collaboration” is one of the Deer Hunter’s Core Values, it might have a definition that says:

“We want the Deer Hunter Association to work with decision makers in support of a healthy, sustainable, and legal harvest of deer in California”.

Now to support that Core Value and its description, an organization should come up with some Goals that support that Core Value. A Goal needs to be actionable, measurable, and assigned to someone.  As an example of one Goal for our Core Value of Collaboration in the Deer Hunter example, we might have this:

Goal #1-Be knowledgeable of issues, topics, policies that are going to impact deer hunting in California.

Once we have Goal #1, we need to define our tactics, our metrics, our timeline, and our person responsible for prosecuting that Goal. In our Deer Hunter example, we might have as our “Tactics for Goal #1-

Tactic 1.1 Identify, define, and gather current rules and regulations regarding licensed deer hunting in California.

Tactic 1.2 Reach out to other organizations that mutually support objectives that are important to the Deer Hunter Association

Tactic 1.3 Network with elected and government representatives to be aware of upcoming legislation affecting deer hunting in California.

Each of those “tactics” above would be followed by a description of how to measure progress and apply a timeline for action along with identifying a responsible person identified that will prosecute the action.

With the ECA facing the turnover of our three key employees in the next few years-the Executive Vice President (Me), our Events Coordinator and Member Services Manager (Mary), and our Bookkeeper (Cheryl), it is critical that we develop and implement a blueprint for our existence with those replacements in mind. No longer can we just assume John and Mary will get it done.

It is time for a five-year strategic plan. Hats off to Dave Weller and this year’s Officers and Board of Directors for their Leadership in stepping up to accomplish this much needed process.

That’s All Folks

John

This morning, there was a “crisis” meeting with high level law enforcement and private citizens to discuss the out of control situation of lawlessness regarding homelessness encampments in and around the City of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County.

On the call presenting were the Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch, Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick, Santa Rosa Police Chief Ray Navarro, Property owner and developer Hugh Futrell, and Corporate Business Park Association President Keith Woods.

Executive Directors of the Association of General Contractors, the Sonoma County Alliance, the North Coast Builders Exchange, North Bay Association of Realtors, the North Bay Leadership Council, the Farm Bureau, the Northern California Engineering Contractors Association, and the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber.

Santa Rosa Mayor Tom Schwedhelm, Santa Rosa City Attorney Sue Gallagher, and Santa Rosa Assistant City Manager David Guhin were also active in the Zoom meeting.

The message from the private side was clear-WHY CANNOT LAWS BE ENFORCED?

The message from the various participants was also clear-DO NOT RELY ON THE SYSTEM TO BE THE SOLUTION”.

Holy Crap.

What we learned is that Dr. Mase has interjected herself into the City of Santa Rosa’s plan to disburse the encampment under Highway 101 (at least temporarily).  Apparently, Dr. Mase has requested the City of SR delay the disbursement of the illegal encampment under Highway 101 due to health concerns.

What we also learned, is that approximately half the normal population of inmates at the Sonoma County Jail have been released because of Covid-19 concerns.

We also learned the combined (with the vast majority of the calls from the City of Santa Rosa), annual “Homeless Related Incidents” average calls to the Police and Sheriff are around 21,000 per year.

We also learned that the District Attorney office will prosecute crimes “but that it takes a tremendous amount of time, cost, effort, and the probability of the judge simply sentencing the criminal to probation is great.

We learned that Police and Sheriff forces are overwhelmed and do and will respond to crimes that are committed, however, crimes of misdemeanor vandalism are difficult to prove and result in warnings, escalated to citations and sometimes arrest and bookings for more serious offenses, and are rarely sent to court.

We learned that if there is rape, robbery, drug sales, or private property trespassing, the law enforcement officers have some “tools” to take action.

What we learned is that Dr. Mase has interjected herself into the City of Santa Rosa’s plan to disburse the encampment under Highway 101 (at least temporarily).  Apparently, Dr. Mase has requested the City of SR delay the disbursement of the illegal encampment under Highway 101 due to health concerns.

What we also learned, is that approximately half the normal population of inmates at the Sonoma County Jail have been released because of Covid-19 concerns.

We also learned the combined (with the vast majority of the calls from the City of Santa Rosa), annual “Homeless Related Incidents” average calls to the Police and Sheriff are around 21,000 per year.

We also learned that the District Attorney office will prosecute crimes “but that it takes a tremendous amount of time, cost, effort, and the probability of the judge simply sentencing the criminal to probation is great.

We learned that Police and Sheriff forces are overwhelmed and do and will respond to crimes that are committed, however, crimes of misdemeanor vandalism are difficult to prove and result in warnings, escalated to citations and sometimes arrest and bookings for more serious offenses, and are rarely sent to court.

We learned that if there is rape, robbery, drug sales, or private property trespassing, the law enforcement officers have some “tools” to take action.

Due to space limitations, I will “cut to the chase”.

The Business Community is fed up. We are done seeing County and City Officials “pointing the finger” at each other and the system failures. Voters have to wake up, and vote for tougher judges and tougher laws. The advice we got was to advise property owners to install good security cameras and post their property with No Trespassing signs so officers can react legally to trespassing events.

I will print more frustrating things we have learned and steps we are taking but there is a big meeting today (June 18, 2020) with County Health Director that should get resolved to allow encampment disbursement plans to proceed ASAP.

Bottom line-our City and County economic health is at stake, and therefore the ECA members economic health is at stake. There is no greater problem right now facing us locally then getting a handle on this situation. Businesses, already feeling the Pandemic shutdown effects, are seeing the general public stay away from their retail and food businesses because of the homeless situation. Soon, there will be more and more businesses shuttered and closed down, and an empty downtown Santa Rosa. This is a crisis and the ECA is fully engaged in finding a solution.

No more finger pointing. We demand the encampments be moved out of the City and into a controlled environment that is suitable. We also demand that crimes be prosecuted.

We want to take our Community Back!!

That’s All Folks

John

Sometimes, I just have to admit I cannot write a message any better than one of my peers. I would like to share this note from Peter Rumble, the Executive Director of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber of Commerce. I tried to write something that expresses my emotions and thoughts on this crisis we find ourselves in, and I couldn’t do it better than how Peter expressed it. So here it is—link-

That’s All Folks

John

*********************************************************************************************************************

NEWSFLASH!!

The latest Covid 19 Health Orders Including the Use of the App by Employees and Employers:

Although the ECA and others have strongly advocated for the mobile APP to be a “recommended” use rather than “mandatory”, to date the County has not changed its designation. The implementation of when an employee and employer have to start using the App (or alternate means of data tracking) has not yet been determined. Soon, is what I hear.

So hear is a plagiarized summation of the App or the alternate means of compliance. Remember, the health orders are listed right here by clicking on this link, and they INCLUDE TAKING EVERY EMPLOYEE’S TEMPERATURE EVERY TIME THEY ENTER THE WORKPLACE!!

About the COVID-19 Check Mobile App

SoCo COVID-19 Employee Check is a mobile app that helps employees and employers in Sonoma county prevent and mitigate the spread of the novel Coronavirus.

• Each day, before starting work, employees complete a 30-second self-assessment for COVID-19 related symptoms and potential exposure to the virus.

The employer portion of the app asks employers to verify that employees do not have temperatures over 100.0 Fahrenheit and are wearing appropriate face coverings in accordance with the Health Orders of the County’s Public Health Officer.

We also suggest that if you disagree with the app being mandatory that you reach out to your Sonoma County Supervisor to voice your opinion. Click here to find the contact information for your District Supervisor

Reporting Health Data

Employers will collect employee health statistics, choosing one of the reporting methods outlined below. At the employer’s discretion

The employer may ask the employees to use the SoCo COVID-19 Employee Check – Mobile App which will report statistics automatically to the County of Sonoma Public Health Division.

If the employee is unable to use the mobile app

The employee may report their health status using the COVID-19 Check – Employee Survey

The employer may report employee health status on their behalf using the SoCo COVID-19 Employee Check – Online form for Employers

If the employer prefers to collect employee health statistics using another tool, the County will be providing a method to report the summary statistics to Public Health.

Download the Mobile App

The mobile app will be available for iOS and android devices, in English and Spanish. LINK

*********************************************************************************************************************

A big thank you to Diane Aqui and Rachel Dollar from Smith Dollar PC for their presentation on Recommendations to Protect Employers Against Claims and Lawsuits From Employees and Third Parties and will also answer your questions about the PPP loan and the new regulations. Also thank you to BKF Engineering for Sponsoring.

Here is the link to the Zoom video meeting. It starts a few minutes into the meeting.

It has been a while since I wrote any real “opinion” Soapbox. I miss the usual comments from Bill Olmo, Mark Soiland, and Marc Winters. So here goes my opinion, and I hope it makes you think, provides some modest entertainment value, and provides some information to digest.

Recently, Governor Newsom revised his 2020-2021 Budget (first proposed in January 2020), and scrolled down income $41.2 billion for the budget period from his initial budget in January 2020. This pegs/assumes the overall California deficit at $54.3 billion. There is a June 15 budget deadline coming fast, and Newsom is contemplating several things to close the gap in his budget between cash in vs cash out.

Some of the major items being considered include major cuts to K-12, higher education, and other popular services. That is on the “expense side”. Lobbyists are working the Sacramento Capitol halls and offices furiously to mitigate some of the cuts being proposed.

What about on the income side? There is lots of talk about “alternate revenue sources”. Hmmm. I wonder what those might be?

One of those alternative revenue sources being considered, is to suspend tax credits on businesses to raise/save $4.4 billion.

Public employee unions want to go to the ballot box in November to pass a new property tax measure increasing the property tax on warehouses, hotels and office buildings. Public employee unions back this bill because it would raise revenue to bolster education funding.

And here is the real question: do concerns about cuts to education and other government funded services outweigh the personal pain the private sector is going through with the Pandemic shutdown and “stuttering” reopening of businesses?

As John Wayne said

“If you’ve got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.”

I am not so sure our hearts and minds will follow, but the State certainly has us by the balls. Since the Governor and his majority in Sacto have a super majority, they do not even need to go to the voters to pass a tax increase. What? Is that possible? Feel that squeeze on your balls? Painful huh? All they need to do is get 2/3 majority in Sac City from both houses of the Legislature. And they have the votes. Believe me. The ruling party is firmly in control of your jewels-in more ways than one.

The ”juggling act” is that a slew of new State taxes could jeopardize the “darling” of the SEIU and Public Employee Unions-that Commercial Property Tax increase. That does need to go to the voters. Newsom and the other Legislators know that if they pass a bunch of new tax measures, the voters might actually get fed up and vote “No” on the Commercial Property Tax Measure that would raise an estimated $10 billion plus a year to be used for teachers, admin, schools, and local governments.

Opponents of the Commercial Property tax measure are already stating their opposition to increasing costs to those property owners, who would likely simply pass the added cost on to their tenants-the already severely wounded businesses that have suffered the most from the Pandemic shutdown.

I am continually amazed at the gall of Sacramento politicians and Newsom in particular. While spending continues on the high speed train to nowhere, handouts to undocumented workers (another way to say “illegal immigrants”), and the massive expenditures that the State has “punted” to local governments to deal with “zero bail” prisoner releases as well as providing housing and other services to the exploding “homeless” legions.

Without a doubt, the State of California has a huge hole of deficit to try and backfill. As usual, and as always, the number one solution is to burden businesses that have already been hammered in the last few months. At some point, voters will demand that the State take a “haircut” as most of our businesses have had to do during this crisis. How about laying off and closing down some of the hundreds of bloated State commissions and committees and employees? Would you be willing to pay more in State taxes is you actually saw the State vote to cut their costs by an overall 10-15%? Sure, there would be some pain to the cuts, but the taxpayer would catch a much-needed break.

In November, we all get to go to the ballot box (or mail in your vote, lol), and decide if we want to vote for the accepted solution of State budget crisis that our Legislators and Governor has adopted-to tax you.

If we choose to be taxed, vote for incumbents in California-they will oblige you. If not, there are choices. I am not sure the Republicans are much better (they seem to be adopting the spend freely and tax even more freely solutions), but I for one will be looking for candidates that are trying to give business owners and private sector employees a break. Let’s hope there will be some of those running. Otherwise, I fear the mantra will be “tax the rich, tax the working man, tax everyone” in November.

Vote wisely!!

That’s All Folks,

John Bly

The Newsflash below was written Thursday morning. Thursday at 12:30-1:30, the ECA/NCBE/SR Metro/Farm Bureau/SCA/and NBLC were in a zoom meeting with Supervisors Rabbitt and Hopkins. They are our friends, they advocate on our behalf, and they are just as frustrated as we all are at the way these Health Orders are being communicated to the businesses. With that said, our group provided input to the Supes about how the new APP requirement below, got rolled out with the wrong messaging and should have been “recommended, rather than required”. The latest bit of news from this meeting came at the end, and we were told the Health Department is going to delay the implementation of this requirement. There is a big closed door meeting on Monday, 6/1/2020 and more will certainly come out of that meeting. For now, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO USE THE APP STARTING ON MONDAY!!!

And now, for my previous, now outdated, missive below–

Just a few days ago, the Sonoma County Health Director, Dr. Mase, instituted a new rule for ALL BUSINESSES and ALL EMPLOYEES in Sonoma County. In addition to the existing protocols that businesses and employees are required to follow, there is now a new App for a Smartphone/tablet/computer that needs to have the employee enter info on each time the employee enters the workplace. The employer, as part of the same APP, needs to document certain information as well. This is not “recommended” but REQUIRED. The App, reportedly, can be downloaded in the Google Store or the Apple Store (although I have been told the App is not yet available from certain folks I have spoken to). This additional requirement is in effect June 1, 2020 and does not supersede or eliminate any requirements that were already in existence. To read the Press Democrat article regarding this APP, click here—