Standard Disclaimer-The “Soapbox” is not intended to portray any official ECA position or opinion. Nor is it to be inferred that any ECA member shares the opinion stated in the Soapbox. The Soapbox is purely intended to be an Op-Ed piece done by John Bly each week to stimulate interest and thought on a wide range of topics.

We all feel the higher gas prices and diesel prices at the pump, and we can certainly see that higher transportation costs are making our goods, groceries, and travel cost us more. Our businesses, which are largely based on carbon engines, are some of the first to experience the higher cost for fuel. And by God, we want to blame someone for those higher prices.

Those of you who know me, can understand why I want to loudly and assertively scream “Hell Yes” to my own question as to should we blame Biden. Alas, I have to (sometimes) use logic and facts to form my opinions.

“But Biden cancelled the Keystone Pipeline-surely that has caused oil prices to rise!”. Sumbitch-that Keystone Pipeline argument is a tough one to toss away.

Ok-let’s go back to “Oil and gas” civics class. Although I would like to blame Biden for higher gas prices, the fact remains there are few actions a president can take to impact gasoline prices in the short term. Those few actions historically have been 1). Release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; 2). Increase gasoline taxes; or 3). Engage in a war in the Middle East.

Sleepy Joe has done none of these. While I will argue that what he has done will certainly lead to higher prices in the long term, his actions have neither helped nor hurt the oil and gas industry yet.

After cancelling the Keystone pipeline, Biden suspended new oil and gas leasing and drilling permits for federal land and water.

That action along with the Keystone Pipeline cancellations, were clearly the main reasons behind the rise in gasoline prices.

Not so fast.

Note when oil and gasoline prices began to rise. That rise started in May 2020. Between the first week of May 2020 and the last week of December 2020, oil prices had tripled.

Hmmm—darn it. Biden did not cancel the Keystone Pipeline until 2021. Shoot, Biden did not cancel oil and gas leases until the Spring of 2021.

So, at this point, you are thinking-“ok genius John-if it wasn’t Biden, then who do I blame?”

The reason oil and gasoline prices rose is that the economy started to open back up from the Covid-19 shutdowns. Those shutdowns had negatively impacted a couple of million barrels of U.S. oil supplies, and those supplies were slow to bounce back once the economy opened back up. That’s why we have soaring oil and gasoline prices.

I can enjoy filling up at the pump and chanting “Let’s Go Brandon” with several other rowdies. It is kind of fun. And Lord knows Biden is easy to blame and easier to laugh at.

But as the Brothers Osborne explain as if Biden was singing it-“It Ain’t My Fault”. Click here for their music video-https://youtu.be/E5RDEXpc8OY

It is the fault of China-who did more to create the pandemic and spread the COVID virus than any other person on the planet.

So, you want somebody to blame for higher gas prices now-blame China. If you want to blame someone for higher gas prices in the long term, blame Biden.

Just my opinion folks.

That’s All Folks!

John Bly

Standard Disclaimer-The “Soapbox” is not intended to portray any official ECA position or opinion. Nor is it to be inferred that any ECA member shares the opinion stated in the Soapbox. The Soapbox is purely intended to be an Op-Ed piece done by John Bly each week to stimulate interest and thought on a wide range of topics.

“Bringin’ It”

I thought about writing regarding any number of topics, but I feel compelled to make one final attempt to finish what we started regarding the “raffle” concept of backfilling income during this pandemic year. The short version of why this is important is not the few dollars it brings in that will help supplement ECA income that we did not get in 2021 from events that had to be “free” or postponed until 2022. The importance of the raffle is that it would demonstrate that our Board and membership is in step with us.

We certainly hope we are uniformly working towards some of the items that we are working on like getting up to $85 million in backlog for City of Santa Rosa Utilities/Public Works projects out to bid sooner rather than later. Nobody is working on economic development that would so directly benefit ECA member firms as that. But we are.

I am not going to list all of the other things we are working on by representing ECA member firm’s interests on, but when you look at what we do and what monumental efforts it takes to get either Measure DD passed (woot woot), or SB! (woot woot) or working with the City of SR to get more dollars on the street than anybody has been able to do in the past 20 years, we certainly feel we are “bringing it”. By bringing it, I mean “return on investment”.

If you agree, won’t you help us by showing your support by committing to buying a few of the remaining 30 or so raffle tickets for $100 each that would give you a “1 in 100” chance at a $5,000 coupon from Novato Mayor Eric Lucan’s bike shop? If you are so inclined, please contact Mary at Mary@nceca.org and let’s get the last of these tickets sold so we can announce the winner at the next Board meeting on November 16.

Thank you for your continued support of the ECA in the past 45 years and we hope we stay sustainable and relevant for another 45 years!!

That’s All Folks!

John Bly

The ECA held its last fundraiser of 2021 on Friday night. Look, we all know trying to get people excited about a virtual auction is not the easiest thing to do these days, and we had no illusions as to what success we would experience (or lack of success). But it did not just happen by itself. I feel it is time to acknowledge some true “heroes” in our effort to make lemonade out of lemons Friday night:

1. How about Tom Boylan folks?!! Boylan has been there for us professionally and in friendship and counsel for years. When the Auction started out slowly (that’s an understatement) on Friday night, we were getting bids from our volunteer auctioneer Mr. Tom Boylan himself. I appreciate his counsel, friendship, positive “can do” attitude, and all of us at the ECA owe Boylan a huge thank you! I urge you to utilize their services at the Boylan Point Agency and say, “thanks Tom for helping to support the ECA!”
2. Sound Ideas Media-despite some unforeseen internet issues we unfortunately encountered Friday night, Don, Alejandro, and Angela were there Thursday night setting up and doing a check on our high-tech setup, and they were there Friday night with a big “thumbs up” until the thumbs up turned into thumbs down. We still do not have a grasp on what happened to our live feed bandwidth at 6:30pm, but it was not the fault of Sound Ideas. They have talent and professionalism, and I urge you to consider hiring them for promotional events in the future. Thank you Don/Alejandro and Angela!!
3. How about Tony Cabrera and Mary Kennedy Cabrera? As I mentioned, bidding was slow to none starting out on Friday night, yet here was Mary and Tony investing in the ECA and bidding on items, as well as making a cash donation without being asked, or expected to. Lots of work went into the auction, and Mary ran many committee meetings, put out many requests for donations from ECA members, and if folks do not care for what we had to bid on Friday night, it was not the fault of Mary. She worked her ass off and is just as disappointed as I am that our auction did not resonate with our members better than it did. We wish we had all of you in our boat helping us to pull towards the goal of being the absolute best advocate for your businesses and your workers that we possibly can be. We hope you will reach out to us and let us know what did not resonate with you, and we really hope you reach out to Mary and Tony and give them a big “Thank You” for going above and beyond!
4. Corinna Fernandez. Jenah Smith. Great advocates for all you ECA members and they were present and participatory all year in preparation of this auction. Jenah in particular went out and got donations on her own, and she is not even still a member of the ECA. Corinna was there with us through the stress of Friday night, positive and constructive throughout. All I can say is buy some pipe and fittings from Pace and mention you are doing so because of Corinna!!
5. Bidding picked up because of Josh Cleaver and BoDean, Dale Mahoney of Ghilotti Construction Company, Mike Gulley, Kevin & Jason Holtzinger of NWG, Kevin Robison, and many others. We appreciate your support! Kevin Noonan of Toby’s Trucking, you were persistent and won the Mayacama Golf Foursome!
6. Donations were made to the ECA Auction and we very much appreciate all of the donations. How about Serres Corporation donating a Hog Hunt and a day shooting at Wing and Barrel?? Huge!! Ghilotti Construction Company stepping up again and donating tickets to the 49ers with the signature tailgate party! Fantastic! The biggest money maker came out of BoDean with their Blast and Brew donation!! Blow it up! And a big thanks to Gwen Trappe, Canyon Rock. You ROCK!
7. To all that bid on silent auction and live auction items, we appreciate you. For all that did not, we will continue to try and provide you with “return on investment” as best we can. We are all in this together and together we will succeed!! Bidders:
8. 9. And to our Board of Directors, those who donated wine to the wine item-thank you! Special shout out to Mr. Glenn Smith for stepping up and letting us hold the auction at his office conference room.
   10. And finally-a shout out to incoming President Walt Turner and Randy for donating $1,000 to our cause on Monday morning!!Brent Stromgren-dressed in his own fantastic style, he was there for rehearsal and on Friday night trying to help us out. Did I also mention he and wife Kelly donated a pool party/BBQ at their house to the ECA cause? Thanks Brent and Kelly!

   That’s my Top 10 for how to make Lemonade out of Lemons! A fine list it is too!

   That’s All Folks!

   John Bly

Standard Disclaimer-The “Soapbox” is not intended to portray any official ECA position or opinion. Nor is it to be inferred that any ECA member shares the opinion stated in the Soapbox. The Soapbox is purely intended to be an Op-Ed piece done by John Bly each week to stimulate interest and thought on a wide range of topics.

I am going to write an opinion piece about being honest with the voters at the time the government asks you to vote to tax yourselves. It has as much to do with the idiotic estimates of the high-speed rail line (represented to voters to cost $33 billion to get voters to pass the bill) as it does with passing a school bond measure that School Boards and Trustees later negotiate to give all the work to union firms. My point is not against unions, it is against deception to the voters. I hope you do not think I am ranting against PLA’s because if you do think that after this, I have failed. I am taking the position that School Boards, our State, and others have a “playbook” that must read “the public is really stupid and cannot handle the truth-so let’s vote this tax measure in and we will let them know what is good for them”.

**

Several years ago, I was in a small room with labor representatives, elected officials, and a few other influencers in discussing a tax measure that was going to go out to the voters. From my perspective, it was a tax measure that would not pass if there was any substantive opposition raised by any special interest group, so we were trying to “hammer out” details that would appease (to the extent that none of our groups would oppose the tax measure) both sides that were trying to get the tax measure passed. Obviously, one “side” was labor, and one side was “business”.

One side of the room wanted very specific labor participation included in the language of the tax measure, and one side of the room did not want that. The discussion went something like this: “if you won’t agree to put that in the language now, we can just pass it as is and then negotiate the terms after the bill passes”. To my surprise, one well known elected official spoke up firmly and forcefully and said “Bull. We are not going to pass something that represents one thing to the voters and then negotiate behind closed doors some “sleight of hand” to get you what you want!”.

Bravo.

One small victory was realized. But the “playbook” still exists today. We saw it when the SRJC Trustees in 2014 supported and got passed a major tax measure that raised some $420 million for much needed improvements at the Santa Rosa Junior College campus. I asked Frank Chong at a public meeting “will they work have a PLA attached to it”? He responded publicly “No. PLA’s have not and are not being discussed as part of this bond measure”.

After the sales tax measure was passed, several “centrist” Trustees were defeated in an election, a manager was hired to manage the $420 million and that manager was a well-known PLA advocate that was hammering out the PLA before the Trustees even voted on whether to impose a PLA on the work. Elections were held, and to nobody’s surprise, PLA friendly Trustees were elected. Back room negotiations continued to take place and “lo and behold”, a PLA was placed on the $420 million worth of projects that was NEVER discussed with the voters.

So, you do not think my angst is simply focused on PLAs, because it is not, I would like to bring up another well-known lie that the government foisted upon the voters in California. And it has nothing to do with “labor issues”.

Governor Brown wanted to build a high-speed train to connect SF to LA. He and his advisers had no real estimate of costs, but they produced an estimate of $33 billion to build out the train system that would transport folks at 215 miles per hour from SF to LA. Wow-sounds so damn good.

Voters were told they could have a high-speed train from SF to LA for $33 billion and they voted for it. Needless to say, a very small segment is costing 3 times that amount and it does not come close to connecting SF to LA. More like possibly connecting Madera to Fresno for several hundred billion dollars. Did they know about the higher cost? Undoubtedly yes! The strategy was the proverbial “camel nose under the tent” whereby once the camel is allowed to sniff the food inside, you can forget about keeping the camel outside.

So why am I writing about this subject matter now? Because I am getting tired of voters being asked to vote for something that later gets negotiated into something completely different.

Last week, we saw the SR School Board debate imposing PLAs on their bond issued funds passed several years earlier (without any mention of imposing PLAs to the voters to get it passed). The “official play book” of get the tax measure passed then negotiate what we want behind closed doors is firmly in place. To read a little about it, here is a PD editorial written a few days before the School Board meeting which I watched last week. PD Editorial: Don’t tip the scale on school construction contracts (pressdemocrat.com)

So, what does this do to a “schmo” like me? I will tell you what it does.

When the hand-picked School Board votes in a few weeks to impose PLA’s, I will not be upset that a labor agreement is in place. I will be upset that they did not have the balls to inform the voters what it is they were actually voting on when the ballot came out.  Tell us at the time that it is going to be a PLA imposed bond measure.

TELL US THE TRUTH-THE WHOLE TRUTH-AND LET US DECIDE HOW TO VOTE TO SPEND OUR TAX DOLLARS!!!

I say we can handle the truth. I hope I am correct. If Governor Brown had of been honest with us about the high-speed train cost, would anybody have voted for a $3 trillion price tag? I would guess not. But to put forth an intentionally low and wrong estimate of $33 billion price tag, is just plain wrong. If voters had been told that the SRJC needs new buildings and we want you to all pay sales tax for it, but that only signatory contractors will be allowed to bid on the work, would voters have passed the measure? I do not know, but I bet voters would have wanted to know that!

So, as we sit here and see the Federal “hang wringing” of an Infrastructure Bill that has a small percentage of it actually going towards infrastructure costs (and believe me both parties are to blame for passing this “turkey” of a bill), let’s actually make the politicians tell us what they are going to pass. I would have wanted to know that my vote was going to go for a congressman that backs voting on maternity leave before they vote to fix our roads, bridges and airports.

I know, I am preaching to the choir.

Can we handle the truth?

Lord I hope so—and I say we need to DEMAND it from now on.

That’s All Folks!

John

Standard Disclaimer-The “Soapbox” is not intended to portray any official ECA position or opinion. Nor is it to be inferred that any ECA member shares the opinion stated in the Soapbox. The Soapbox is purely intended to be an Op-Ed piece done by John Bly each week to stimulate interest and thought on a wide range of topics.

NINCOMPOOPNESS

Recently, everybody that lives in Sonoma, Marin, Napa and to a lesser extent, Solano/Mendo/Lake Counties have all witnessed a dramatic downturn in supply of housing while seeing a dramatic rise in demand for housing. That lack of supply, combined with low interest rates driving demand, has driven the cost of housing up and up and up. Recognizing that there is a shortage of housing (some might say this shortage has increased the homeless population as one effect) has happened with our State and local politicians and staffers, but have they been effective in dealing with the problem?

My opinion is a resounding NO.

My experience is to see more and more “State mandated” policies come out that are at odds with helping to deal with a housing shortage. Consider one example: the State has stated that they want to see more housing get constructed in higher density areas like downtown neighborhoods, for the following logical reasons:

1. Closer to where people have to work means less commute times, less need for expensive road infrastructure costs and maintenance
2. Building housing closer to transit hubs will promote the use of public transit and lower our dependency on gas driven autos that contribute to greenhouse gases and affect “climate change”.
3. Protection of endangered species has reduced open land that used to be easy to build upon. There is less and less land that is inexpensive to develop.
4. Most folks in Sonoma and its contiguous Counties do not want to see “sprawl” where subdivisions keep getting built out of the City’s inner circle and lead to a “San Jose” type area that is undesirable.
5. Recent years have shown that wildfires can move quickly in areas of rural development making houses in those outlying areas at risk for being destroyed by fires.
6. Policing and fire protection is easier to do in higher density areas than it is in rural areas.

For all those reasons, and some others, the State Government has passed regulation after regulation that borders on “social engineering” in order to accomplish their means to a problem-build more housing in higher density areas.

Editorial: California is on the verge of flushing six years of housing progress down the toilet link

Some recent examples of what is being imposed upon developers and builders: development now must pass the test of whether the new housing starts will increase “vehicle miles travelled” (VMT’s) or not. If not, developers can build. If new housing increases VMT’s, forget it. City and County planning departments and permitting agencies have to deal with VMT’s first and foremost. Making new housing depend on a zero increase to VMT’s seems obvious that the State regulators are forcing house builders and developers to build close to where jobs, schools, and public transit hubs exist. They do not want someone driving 20 minutes out on a rural road to get to their house, and to get from their house to the school/doctor office/store/or place of work.

Let me introduce you to some, for most of you, new acronyms. RHNA stands for Regional Housing Needs Allocation. The State, since 1969, has required each local government to plan (by zoning, urban growth boundaries, open space designations, and general plan amendments) for its share of the state’s housing needs for people of all income levels. Let me translate that-since we continue to allow and welcome more and more lower income immigration into our country, the state needs somewhere to house these folks. Voila-we will simply pass the required housing needs onto the local Cities and Counties! So every eight years, the state requires, through a process called RHNA, that every jurisdiction receive their share of an assignment of housing units which the state determines will meet the state’s housing needs for the next 8 year cycle. In order to get the local jurisdictions to take their assignments seriously, the state has figured out a way to tie transportation funding to whether that jurisdiction is planning to build enough housing for their assigned numbers.

So far are you with me? The state wants houses to be built near city centers. The state wants housing to be built for “all income levels” but they are skewing the “all income levels” by allowing lower income immigrants to cross the border and live in California. The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), is the ones that establish those housing needs numbers to go from the state to the local jurisdictions. And to put the “cherry on top” of this tasty process, the state will FORCE the local jurisdictions to plan for building the new housing by withholding gas tax funded transportation dollars if they do not plan for those new houses. That would get my attention if I were Sonoma County.

Now, Sonoma County and the cities and Counties surrounding them, wait with bated breath for ABAG to give them their new assignments. Certainly, ABAG won’t force the rural area to build a whole bunch of houses that would violate the VMT (vehicle miles traveled) mandate. Certainly—–

Think again.

The new numbers that the County of Sonoma has to plan for, shows a decrease for the City of Santa Rosa of 14% over the next 8 years, while the rural County of Sonoma sees an increase of 654%. Not a typo.

You might ask what happens if the County does not plan for the 654% increase in their housing allocation in the next 8-year cycle? Answer-they could lose $25 million a year in transportation funding from the MTC that was collected from gas taxes.

You might be like me and scratch your head in wonderment at the infinite capacity for “Nincompoopness” that comes out of Sacramento every year. I am not arguing for the housing need-that is a given with all the new folks coming in. I am declaring a “nincompoopness foul” on where they are forcing local jurisdictions to plan for those houses. YOU CANNOT PUT THEM OUT INTO RURAL SONOMA COUNTY-THEY WON’T GET APPROVED BECAUSE OF THE LAWS YOU JUST IMPOSED ON VMT’S!!!!!

Just sayin’

That’s All Folks!

John

Here is the standard disclaimer-these thoughts and opinions are mine, they do not reflect any ECA opinion or any ECA member’s opinion.

Governing “little ole” Northern California from Washington DC does not work. Now that you know I am an advocate for smaller government (SHOCKER ALERT!), let me provide a few examples of a Government for the People and By the People, run amuck.

Ok, now that I have that off my chest, back to my “loose theme”. Before I start my fairy tale about a mythical group called FEMUH, I need to provide a little background of other examples lest you think I am a “conspiracy theorist”.

I am reminded of a fiasco several years ago when the Fed and State prison system was sued for overcrowding and their solution was to release the prisoners back to the local County Jails. The local Counties tried to inform the State and Feds that their jails were set up for short stays by prisoners, and long prison sentences could not be accommodated without major expenditures to revamp their jails. The response from the Feds and State? No money is heading your way-

deal with it.

I am also reminded of a Fish and Wildlife “proclamation” forcing local jurisdictions to hire biologists to set up fencing, set in buckets with sponges in the bottoms, and count how many California Tiger Salamanders they caught after it rained. I recall going to the meeting with the Feds when they were expanding the areas that had to be mitigated for impact on the little critters, because they were supposedly “worse off” than several years before. I asked the question: “Mr. F & W guy, you did not know how many of the critters were around several years ago, and you do not know how many are around today, correct?” Mr. F & W guy says, “that is correct”. So, I followed up with “then how can you say the CTE population is worse off today, then yesterday?”. F & W guy replied, “because that is what this report says”. END OF THE QUESTIONING AND PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD! Final response from the F & W guy when folks complained that we need housing and the land to build affordable housing on-

deal with it!

Bottom line, the FEDS come out and proclaim there is a problem without any thought of how that might affect the local County. They also take zero responsibility for their “study or report” to be accurate before proclaiming it the basis of the new rule the County has to live under. These things have consequences!

In order to protect the “innocent”, I am going to refer to a federal group with a “made up” name-I will call them “FEMUH”. In the style that we have unfortunately become accustomed to, FEMUH decided to declare that South Santa Rosa Avenue is an at-risk area that needed stricter land use designations due to flooding. FEMUH did not wish to be burdened with FACTS such as “this area has not flooded in anybody’s memory”, or the erroneous adoption of elevations of channel embankments that were wrong and pointed out to FEMUH that they were wrong by licensed Civil Engineers, the FEMUH response is basically “we do not care, as our reports and studies show this to be a problem and we are here to solve the problem”. Good Lord. There is no problem other than the one FEMUH created with their new and wrong flood plain mapping.

Bottom line-some 300 landowners will be impacted by these new Flood Plain designations, and their properties will be worth less for no good reason. Ripple effect will go to the County who will most certainly have many, if not all, of these landowners appeal their assessment for property valuation in order to get their taxes lowered. Let’s see-lower taxes flowing into the County bank account might mean less money available to spend on services that are provided now.

FEMUH does not care. FEMUH basically says to the local County government-

deal with it!

Aren’t you glad this is just a fairy tale about a make-believe group called FEMUH? If it were true, maybe the solution would be to pay your taxes with make believe currency called “NOTHING”. Maybe you can write your check and after filling out the amount with “nothing”, you can write in the memo section-

Deal With It! 

That’s All Folks!

John

Last week I put a link out for a survey that would give the City of Santa Rosa Public Works department great knowledge about how contractors and suppliers view doing work with them. Since we have had VERY FEW responses to date, I will devote the Soapbox this week to it and see if that doesn’t generate more survey takers. We would really appreciate if you take this survey, found by clicking this link Here, and the City of SR and everyone else will never know who answers what in case you are concerned about “revenge” or revealing any of your company business strategy.

That’s All Folks

John

ECA Survey

The purpose of this survey is to give constructive feedback to the City of Santa Rosa (first, then to other Cities and Counties if this survey goes well to follow) on how ECA firms perceive and react to doing business with the City of Santa Rosa on Public Works projects. Your responses will NEVER be revealed to anybody from the City of Santa Rosa, or anybody else with your firm connected to the responses. We want you to answer honestly and without hesitation or fear of retribution, or giving your competition any information that could be used against your firm in competitive bidding areas.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8CG3XF5

I apologize for not doing a newsletter last week. I will try to make up for it with a good Soapbox today!

Murphy

Last Saturday night, Murphy, my happy and inquisitive yellow lab, decided a noise on the front porch of my next-door neighbor’s house in Arizona was worth investigating. The noise was a very angry diamondback rattlesnake, about 3’ long, and Murphy got a defensive strike from the snake. I was in Sonoma County at the time, so my long-time girlfriend Debra had to keep her emotions under control and get Murphy to the emergency vet at 9:30 at night. Partly because Murphy had been given a rattlesnake vaccine and booster shot back in January of 2021, he had enough time to get the anti-venom into his system, and he survived.

I flew back to AZ on Sunday and got Murphy back from the vet and after several other vet visits, he seems to be recovering nicely. Life and death for about 3 days. Both of the vets that treated Murphy suggested he go to “rattlesnake aversion training” and I just kind of laughed and explained the following to them: Murphy went to that class in October of 2019. What they do is put a shock collar on the dog, and a handler leads the dog over to a half buried cage with a rattlesnake in it, and when the dog gets close, the rattler buzzes and if the dog shows interest, the handler zaps his collar with a shock-the dog jumps, and presumably learns that showing interest in the snake is not a good idea.

Well-Murphy got led to 3 different rattlesnakes that first class and got zapped harder and harder each time. Murphy failed his class. They suggested I bring him back in April.

I did, and Murphy failed the class again in April of 2020. At that point, I decided to quit spending $90/class as Murphy simply wasn’t going to go against his personality-he obviously would prefer putting up with an electric shock then ignoring something as interesting as a buzzing rattlesnake.

You might wonder what the Hell I am telling you all this for. Good question. It has little to do with the ECA. The rest of this newsletter is filled with useful information that is business related. This Soapbox is simply written out of thankfulness that my dog survived a snake bite. Despite my taking other precautions like “rattlesnake avoidance classes”, Murphy still got exposed to a snake. And that part of the reason he survived that encounter was because he got a vaccination shot that gave him a better chance of surviving should he get bit.

It worked.

I’m glad.

That’s All Folks

John

It must be frustrating to estimators and project managers these days, to get something as “old school” as construction water. I decided to call the various cities and counties to find out what each of them are doing during this prolonged drought in the hopes that the information will be useful to you!

To better serve our ECA members, I have called many of the service areas you all do work in to find out if the contractors can get construction water. Here is what I found:

8. North Marin Water District (Novato)–No on Construction Water hookups. I called and was told there no new hydrant meters are being issued at this time due to the drought. Contractors can apply for recycled water through their recycle water use program and you can access the application and cost online by going to NMWD website, hitting “Menu”, go to “Your Water” and clicking on “Recycled Water”. Calling and talking to a person is not easy, and the one I spoke to insist all the information to apply for recycled water was available online. I did not find that to be true. I hope you find the application for construction water (recycled) easier than I did as I could only find residential pickup information for recycled water use.
9. Petaluma Water District–No on Construction Water hookups. –Maybe!I called 707-778 4672 (from their website) and talked to Tiffany. She was better able to assist, but it does not seem like a “cut and dried” process to get water. I asked if a contractor is bidding on work in Petaluma (road repair specifically), how does the estimator know what to put in the bid for construction water? Tiffany referred me to two sources of information as all construction water is “dependent on what it will be used for”. The two places to go to were Ken Eichstaedt (Petaluma Engineer) at 707-7784546 and the other is the Ellis Creek Recycled Facility (she did not give me that number as they want the calls to go to either the 4672 or 4546 numbers first. Clear as mud? Good luck to you!
10. Rohnert Park– Yes on Construction Water Hookups! I spoke with Mark Henderson (Operations Manager) and he told me hydrant meters are being issued for construction water inside the City limits of Rohnert Park. To start that process, you call Utilities at 707-5856750. They seem to be in slightly better shape because of their multiple wells that are producing.
11. City of Santa Rosa-waiting for a call back.
12. City of Sebastopol–Yes on Construction Water Hookups!I spoke with longtime friend, Joe Gaffney, and he told me Sebastopol has a “flat fee” on their grading permits that covers the cost for construction water. To get the dollar amount for bidding purposes, a good ECA contractor would call 1-707-8232151. Very helpful!
13. Town of Windsor– Yes on Construction Water Hookups! I spoke with Cheryl (Cher), and she said for projects inside the Town limits, a good ECA contractor could call 1-707-8381004 and get the estimated cost for temporary construction water and deposit. This sounds so “old school” that it was my favorite call so far! Good on you Windsor!
14. Healdsburg-No to Construction meters. You are guided to 2 outlets for recycled water. One is at the WWTP off Westside Road, and the other one is on Kinley Dr.
15. Marin Water District–Unknown. I called and spoke with receptionist who put me through to engineering, but I could not speak to a live person. Instead, the number 1-415-9451530 has a recorded message that says the process for a construction meter can be found on their website. I tried to find it, and I did find the application for a new water meter service. I am not sure that is exactly useful to you all, but that is the best I can do in this week’s newsletter.

Next week-I will tackle Mendocino County water meter policies, Napa County, Lake County, and Sonoma County (County only, I have already done the Cities in Sonoma County). If you want specific information on cities in Marin County, please let me know (there are 13 of them!).

That’s All Folks

John