Newsletters

July 3, 2019

7-3-19

John’s Soapbox

United We Stand-Divided? Not so Much——

In the General Engineering sector, things could not be too much better for our workers, our owners, and our citizens who are seeing, and will continue to see dramatic improvements to our local and State infrastructure. There comes a time where we should sit back and appreciate those truths.

Of course, there are a few blemishes on the rosy picture I am suggesting. Yes-it is true that California is paying a lot more for fuel than almost any other State other than Hawaii and one or two others. Yes, it is true that our available labor force is tight. And yes, it is true that it costs a lot to live in the gorgeous area of Northern California. But I do not wish to dwell on those negatives, as this is a Soapbox focused on our collective efforts to get where we have gotten!

As an example of how strong we can be if we “unite” behind a cause, I want to remind you of a time 25 years ago when our industry was not appreciated for our collective ability to clean up the biggest fire debris pile in our history, nor were we appreciated for our work in the Community to help others less fortunate. Nor were we friends of elected officials who feared growth because they felt we would become another San Jose if we grew much more.

Years ago, it seemed as if no dollars would go into our infrastructure and we were destined to have growth restrictions because Highway 101 was going to forever be a 2-lane bottleneck for those who live North of Corte Madera. The late great Jim Ghilotti spearheaded an effort to pass a sales tax initiative that has changed our entire region for the better. Arguably because of Jim’s efforts to pull all of us together to back Measure M, we now see the Sonoma County Airport having scheduled flights to the Northwest, Minnesota, Denver and Southern California, amongst other destinations. Because of the increased capacity of Highway 101, we see growth in our Cities that leads to stabilizing the services provided by those Cities. That “smart growth” has allowed young people to have opportunities for careers that they might otherwise not have had.

So here we are in 2019-will we ever have such a single event “unifier” as we did 25 years ago? As we watch the news, it seems our Country and our State could not be less unified than now. Wouldn’t it be nice to all come together and at least appreciate what we have right now instead of the constant clamoring by candidates to “Change Everything”. Of course, there are improvements that can be made to our Country, our Society, and our Economy.

Perhaps our great “unifier” of 2019 is simply to appreciate what we have and make sure we let people know how good we collectively have it. We do not need to tear things apart, but we need to come together and solve our problems collectively, and in a unified manner.

But can we come together for one day and unify in our appreciation of our freedom, our wonderful opportunities we have, and gather our family and friends for one day to enjoy a barbecue, some homemade ice cream and watch some fireworks that honor our independence? Can we set aside the nonstop POTUS bashing, the criticism of capitalism, the arguments over health care for all, and the other endless issues we are bombarded with every day? Can we not come together and just “be”?

I hope we all can set aside our differences and celebrate July 4, 2019 in a safe and “respectful to all” manner. If we can, our families will win, our friends will win, and our State and Country will win. Just for one day.

So, in the spirit of Jimmy G, can we all appreciate for one day the bounty and the freedoms we all enjoy?

I hope so—

Happy Independence Day to All of You!!

That’s all folks

John

June 28, 2019

June 27, 2019

We are halfway through 2019. Are you and your co-workers getting it done? Or are you missing your mark and talking about:

the other guy is too cheap,
we can’t find enough workers,
we can’t get our number

After being an owner and or being involved in this industry for 37 years, I have used and or heard every excuse for not being successful that has ever been in existence.

You know what the successful firms do? What differentiates the successful from the “oh so close but no cigar” firms?

Successful firms do not allow their employees to be victims.

Everybody in the world is facing the same crisis as to finding enough workers to get their jobs done on time and on budget. There is a worldwide shortage of workers. Some of the workers left our industry in 2008-2011 when there was a 40-60% drop in opportunities for construction jobs. Some have come back with the resurgence, but not enough. Young people are not flocking to our industry as a career. Baby boomers are getting older and some are leaving the industry to retire or do something less stressful. Whatever the case, it is tough to find and retain employees today. I get it.

Don’t let the difficulty in finding employees be a crutch to limp along. Do something about it. Look in the mirror and ask yourself the 4 tough questions about your own company that I wish I had done more of when I owned my own firm:

Does my company value and respect the young employee that needs coaching, experience, and training? Because nothing will make a young person look for a better job elsewhere than if he/she does not feel respected in his/her journey up the company ladder.
Does my company really “own our crap”? By that I mean when you lose a bid to another firm, do you hear your estimators and key producers who worked on the estimate simply shake their heads and say “good f’ing luck to those lowballers-they are way too cheap”? Instead, the team should get together and figure out if their way of looking at the schedule and/or production was flawed. Perhaps the low bidder was too low, but companies should not allow their own firm to be a “victim”. Rather you should be looking for ways to have improved the schedule, improved the equipment cost allocation, improved the overhead distribution, or sought out better subcontractors that could get you closer to what you want.
As you look in the mirror-do all of your people attack every moment? If people in your firm are anxious about a bid, anxious about their position in the firm, unclear about what is expected of them, if they need some additional skills so they do not get negative under pressure-THEN FIX IT! Negative energy is non-productive energy and if you are going to be burning energy, you might as well make it productive. Every moment. Your employees should not have time to be a victim. They should see every challenge, every opportunity, and every setback as a moment to seize and attack aggressively in a productive manner.
Finally-from top to bottom in your firm you need to understand being successful is a choice. It is not by being lucky. You have to do the work, be prepared, and because you choose to be successful, your choices will result in being that way. Succeed in getting that key worker some additional training so that person becomes a success instead of “someone with potential”. Choose winning. That does not mean taking chances without knowing your team has the skills and the equipment and training to conquer that chance. Train for success. Choose success.

If you are not hitting your budgeted and planned targets at the halfway point of the construction season, look hard in the mirror. Try to be objective in your reflection. Do not beat yourself up-that is negative. But definitely do not choose to be a victim. If you are choosing success, providing value for your young people, not using excuses to define failures but rather analyzing and making your systems better so you have successes rather than failures, and if all of your people are attacking every opportunity with the necessary skill and positive attitude, you are at the top of the heap. You will find those ideal clients. You will figure out what “bait to use” to land those clients. You will get your needed numbers for success. You will attract and retain employees when other firms cannot.

Look hard in the mirror. I wish I had done more of that when I was in a position to alter my course as a business owner. Do not miss this opportunity!

That’s All Folks!

June 20, 2019

As you all are aware, the ECA rarely gets involved in State Politics. An exception has come up and our ECA Board of Directors swiftly and decisively voted on 6-18-19 to direct “yours truly” to take a position on AB5 which has passed through the Assembly and currently is awaiting Committee comments before going to the California State Senate presumably in August for passage.

I have spoken to several staffers for our Senators in this area, and their comments were to educate our Membership immediately on this Bill, and if folks are so inclined, submit a letter or an email to our Senators to establish a position on this Bill. I will be happy to supply folks with a “sample letter” and the appropriate email addresses to send your opinion in.

Why is this important?

Because the Senators actually have their staff review the position letters and will modify and adjust their positions and voting on the Bill if enough constituents write in!

I will be writing in on the ECA’s Official Position on this Bill. Before I tell you what our position is, here is some information on what this “game changing” AB5 is all about—

Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) is a California Assembly Bill that, should it pass as currently written, puts into State Code the presumption that a worker is an employee UNLESS THE HIRING ENTITY SATISFIES A 3-FACTOR TEST. This AB5 currently exempts from the test certain insurance and real estate occupations, physicians, securities broker-dealer, direct salespersons, hair stylists and barbers, and those performing work under a contract for professional services, as specified.

The 3-Factor test is:

a) The person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact.

b) The person performs work that is outside the usual course of business of the hiring entity’s business

c) The person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.

The amended Bill can be read by clicking on this link complete with the amendments highlighted.

I also would like to include the analysis supplied to me from Logan Pitts, who is Senator Bill Dodd’s Field Representative in the Santa Rosa office. Here is the analysis by Logan, click here.

The amendments and “carve outs” the Assembly got included on this AB5 Bill DO NOT SOLVE OUR PROBLEM WITH TRUCK DRIVERS!

The Bill would require that trucking firms like V Dolan, R & S, Kadon, Valdivia, Toby’s and others, that regularly employ independent truck drivers (they do not force them to be independent, these independent truck drivers want to be independent-they have bought their own trucks and established a rate of charge that they do not wish to have changed), to somehow terminate their independent truck drivers and put all truck drivers on their payroll as employees. You might be thinking the same question I am-WHAT TO THOSE INDEPENDENTS DO WITH THEIR $100,000 PLUS TRUCKS THAT THEY OWN? Uh-the authors of AB5 do not seem to have that question answered in their “position” statements you can read in the attached analysis above.

This is terribly important folks. I have attached a sample letter for you to download if you choose to write your Senator. Obviously, you should change some of the wording to personalize it to your own company.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION!

Letters must go in within 3 weeks of today to have maximum impact on the outcome of this AB5!

That’s All Folks

John

June 20, 2019

June 13, 2019

As we approach the Father’s Day Car Show this Sunday at Julliard Park, I am reminded of my old pal Bill Magee. Bill had owned a crane business until he sold it several years ago. Fred Stoke will be at the Car Show Sunday and he knew Bill very well. Bill loved cars, and would attend the Car Show regularly.

As I was thinking of my buddy who passed about one year ago, I also thought of his house at the Sonoma Coast. So I am going to write a bit about history thanks to Bill! link for views of homes.

Many of us remember the stretch of Highway 1 out near Gleason Beach in Sonoma County as not being right on a cliff as it is now due to erosion from the Pacific Ocean. There were some 21 homes built on this stretch of Hwy 1 back in the 60’s and 70’s, and not many remain. Despite expensive attempts by homeowners to drill piers, install cable tiebacks, and do extensive erosion control, the relentless beating of the cliffs by the Pacific Ocean has made the cliff move some 30-50’ over the past 35 years or so.

About two years ago, the late – great Bill Magee invited me out to his house that was at the northern end of this cliff side section of Hwy 1. His immediate neighbor to the South of him had their house tagged as uninhabitable and it was slowly (or quickly depending on your perspective) falling into the Ocean. Bill’s house was built on pretty solid rock, so it was holding on to its foundation and Bill was using it as a vacation rental for lucky folks that had a sense of “adventure”. I spent the night out there and remember when a wave hit the cliffs below, you could feel the shaking in the house (solid rock my foot!!). It was beautiful, it was wild, and it was scenic.

Interestingly, Bill Magee showed me some photos of what the cliff line looked like in the 1970’s. The cliff had moved in some places well over 60 feet from erosion. This despite the best efforts of lots of real smart people building seawalls and drilling caissons as well as installing cables and literally tying their houses back to rock anchors they had drilled into the rock. Nothing works forever. I think of the 21 homes out there, only 7 are still there today and probably only 2-3 are safe.

Caltrans has also spent considerable monies on trying to stabilize this section of Hwy 1 over the last few decades. Caltrans apparently has had their fill of trying to “patch and hold” the roadway as there are now plans to move a major section of the Hwy 1 inland to get the road out of harm’s way.

Here are some links to describe what Caltrans has in mind for this stretch of Hwy 1 that is currently down to 1 lane and even that is tenuous. link

Caltrans held a Town Hall meeting recently to hear input from the public and the slides from that meeting are included here for your pleasure– link

And finally, the actual project itself should be fully designed in 2019 and coming out to Bid at some point in the near (neat in Caltrans years is like “dog years”, I know) future. link

So keep your eyes open for this historic project and keep your eyes open for the stretch of history that will soon be lost to the Pacific Ocean. It will look far differently than it does today when we drive that stretch in about 5 years!!

That’s All Folks!

That’s All Folks

John

June 10, 2019

June 6, 2019

Last week the North Bay Business Journal held a great Conference on Construction and Housing. I felt the messaging was so important from that conference, I am using some of the Power Point slides from Peter Rumble of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber for this edition of my Soapbox. There was too much info to include all aspects in this “Soapbox”. Some of the speakers addressed the high cost of development as part of the reason for our collective inability to build the needed workforce housing in the last twenty years or so.

To illustrate a bit about the importance of the ECA in all of your lives, the ECA is unofficially going to be the sponsoring organization for doing a survey on protected wetlands and endangered species such as the California Tiger Salamander.

It is hoped that the survey being proposed will provide valuable information that would help or enable alternative plans be developed to mitigate habitat costs for the California Tiger Salamander and other endangered and protected plants and species. If we can help to make those costs more reasonable, we effectively are removing part of the impediment to building more affordable workforce housing in Sonoma County.

The Conference started out with Peter Rumble making some points and I have included a few of his points in the following paragraphs:

**California is the 8^th largest economy IN THE WORLD! For a single state to make that accurate claim, is “eye popping”. With unemployment at 3% or lower, obviously, this California is still the land of opportunity-right?

Housing and Our Economy

I would “move to another state in order to heighten opportunity to purchase a home” says 63% of Californians in a recent survey.

Peter’s slide on the poll showing 63% of California residents are willing to move due to housing costs should open our eyes to the magnitude of the housing crisis. The inability or unwillingness of California Cities to build enough housing to keep up with expanding businesses is out of control and getting worse. These are not just words. Businesses are now choosing to relocate (which means their current and potential future workforce will not live here) and so are many long-time residents that see the opportunity to “cash in” and retire to a less costly area for their retirement years.

It is not just housing of course, burdensome regulations and difficulty in getting projects from “need” to “idea” to “built” are all contributors. Politically, it seems “left and right” cannot be farther apart but both “left and right” share one common result-they suck at getting the houses built that we need! Even though I wrote this before Dan Walters column, he agrees with me. click here

Peter Rumble’s presentation last week commented:

Change in Perspective

What Republicans want to do with I.C.E. and border walls, wealthy progressive Democrats are doing with zoning and Nimbyism. Preserving “local character,” maintaining “local control,” keeping housing scarce and inaccessible —the goals of both sides are really the same: to keep people out.

-New York Times, May 2019

Whether the New York Times article is too political or not, we must combat Nimbyism, we must combat regulatory “BS”, we must combat politicians who point the finger at the other party rather than accept responsibility for the failure our housing situation is. All of these have led to the housing crisis and all are currently a factor in making it difficult to “build our way out” of the mess we are in.

We must embrace change, and not think of cities and roads as concrete, glass and asphalt. They are flesh and blood, our sons and daughters, our grandchildren, our doctors, our teachers, our soccer coaches-and they all need a place to live! I feel so strongly about this I would recommend to the Board that they task me with writing letters of support for any City in our area of influence that has a housing project being proposed. Unless the project is truly horrible for the site, the ECA should help give local politicians a “soft place to land” by supporting the development.

What do you all think?

Peace out—

That’s All Folks

John

June 3, 2019

May 30, 2019

John’s Soapbox

Heritage Roads-Flight of Fancy?

I spent many years going out to remote areas of Northern California to build water and wastewater systems for small communities. One of the very few “fun” parts of those projects was “diving into” the local history and how those communities got started, how they survived, and how did their past history shape their future. As an example, when Kirkwood Bly got a project to upgrade Garberville’s sewer system, I not only ran the project but read several local books on why Garberville (a guy named Garber in 1853 settled there and decided to name the town that sprung up around his property after himself) was founded and what economy of that little town was founded upon, and what it has morphed into now (the first “Cash Crop” was tan oak, then the economy switched to Redwood timber harvesting and finally to Marijuana). I knew nothing of Tan Oak and how important that product was to the tanneries who used the bark from ok trees in the leather tanning process. As early as 1814, tanneries in Stockton and San Francisco were using tan oak bark in their process needed to supply the world with inexpensive leather goods in the 1800’s. The area around Garberville and Weott, California, was home to these tan oaks that were used and that created opportunity for folks to go in and harvest the bark and then transport it by wagon, rail and schooner to the tanneries further South. I loved reading about how the Highway 101 got built in the 1960’s and what roads preceded our “modern” roadway that we are familiar with today? The Avenue of the Giants was created using convict labor from San Quentin Penitentiary from 1910-1918. This road mainly followed the South Fork of the Eel River and not the main fork because the railroad had secured the right of way along the main fork. To read a short article on this road history, click on this link—

I know, this is way more info than you wanted to know about early Humboldt roads but I am writing about it to illustrate the topic of this Soapbox.

Maybe it is just me, but I like musing about how Sonoma County’s rural roads came to be. So how did Sonoma County’s 1384 miles of unincorporated roads become roads? For example, back in the early history of Sonoma County, what prompted anybody to travel over Coleman Valley Road? How did the Petrified Forest Road come into being? This column is too short to answer those questions, but I suggest the history of local rural roads is at least as fascinating as Humboldt County’s early roads history. I suspect many of you enjoy an occasional drive on your Harley or in your car on those old roads to go wine tasting, or just get out and enjoy the beautiful environment that marks Sonoma County as unique. I know my sons, who have settled in the Central Coast area that is part of Southern California, enhance their return trips to Sonoma County by taking a leisurely drive on some of the back roads.

So why all the historical chatter about our roads? This past weekend, an article by columnist Gaye LeBaron in the Press Democrat, presented the topic of “Heritage Roads” of Sonoma County-to read the article, click here—

Here is a crazy idea to help preserve these roads and add an historical plaque to them: what if the ECA led an effort to coordinate with the Sonoma County Transportation and Public Works Department to formally list roads that could be categorized as “Heritage Roads” and protect their alignment and nature?

Perhaps, bit by bit, an historical marker could be constructed that told the modern traveler of the origins of the paved road they were travelling on.

Flight of fancy? Or a solid idea? Wouldn’t it be a nice way for the road building community of members to give something back to future generations?

That’s All Folks!

May 23, 2019

Soap Box 5-23-19

Jobs Jobs Jobs

Here is some recent News that is important to our ECA members:

1. County got denied $21 million for FEMA funding to fix roads damaged during the fire fighting and subsequent cleanup. Our Supes are appealing this decision with the help of Congressman Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman. My guess is that we will prevail on at least part of that funding.

2. State Senator Mike McGuire, Congressman Jared Huffman, and State Assemblyman Jim Wood have “teamed up” to get the final $40million funded to do the environmental work on a permanent fix in Del Norte County for the Last Chance Grade repair. Once designed, that will be a big project! link

3. Sonoma County just voted to award $14.7 million to Team Ghilotti and Ghilotti Construction Company for fixing roads in Sonoma County

4. Sonoma County just voted on allocating over $36 million for their Pavement Preservation Program for 2020/2021 construction season to fix over 50 miles of County roads. This makes the County expenditure on road repair in the years 2013-2021 nearly $150 million!! link

5. The County just landed the first $10 million for a Sonoma County Airport expansion with another $10 million “promised”. link

6. SMART is seeking $194 million to get the rail line 5 miles across the Russian River from Windsor to Healdsburg. Another $170 million will complete the rail line the 17 miles to Cloverdale as originally planned. link

I have long been explaining why the ECA is important to our industry as far as establishing relationships with the County Supervisors that have done an outstanding job since 2013 in funding our roads. As several of our local politicians have moved on to Sacramento, those relationships between the ECA and our Supes and the Supes and McGuire/Dodd/Wood have really benefitted our “oxygen supply” of funding for our roads and slide repairs in Sonoma County.

I urge you to keep this successful advocacy going when you receive your Dues invoices in the next week or two and please increase the amount you pay for our asked for Political Action funding. Money is necessary to form these bonds with the Politicians, and we have done a great job in fostering those relationships that have benefitted our firms and our community in the last 6-10 years.

We may not agree with all that our elected representatives are doing, but it is hard to argue with the $131.7 million listed above in items 1-5 for roads and airport work with another possible $364 million to extend SMART all the way to Cloverdale.

Jobs Jobs Jobs folks!

That’s All Folks

John

May 16, 2019

ECA Newsletter

5-16-19

John’s Soapbox

Expensive Neighbors

It is estimated that we in Sonoma County need 30,000 housing units in the next 10 years or so to make up for decades of slow growth. Many of you probably are feeling the housing shortage and cost of living “pinch” when you try to retain your young talent or attract new talent to grow your operation. It is tough because it is costly to live around here.

Having enough housing units are important to the ECA member firms partly because our livelihood is linked to the infrastructure that supplies those housing units, and partly because our employees, our children, and ourselves need a variety of housing units across the spectrum from low cost housing to luxury housing. We need housing that is simply not available right now. As ECA members feel this lack of housing, so do the larger employers.

Many of the large employers like Medtronic, Kaiser, Kendall Jackson and others have formed the Employer Housing Council to deal with the acute housing shortage we face. Those firms, and others, are seeing employees reject their offers and positions are going unfilled because of the lack of housing and the high cost of housing.

Let me give you a short list of why housing starts have been lagging for decades around here:

1. Cities and Counties have not done their best at approving housing starts for decades because they have added lots of cost to the permitting and entitlement process

2. Environmentalists have succeeded in putting regulatory permitting requirements in place that arguably “protect the environment”, and without question, substantially raise the price of local housing.

3. Businesses have not done a great job of dealing with the shortage of housing units. They hire and expand, yet do not turn out to support new housing projects nor build housing for their own workers. This puts a strain on exiting housing stock and makes living costs more expensive then if we just built more housing.

4. Folks that already have their houses have done a great job at protesting projects that would bring others into their neighborhood partly because their home values go up if less housing units are built, and partly because they play on the fears of others that new housing units will deteriorate their area and their neighborhoods.

In summary-that short list #’s 1-5 describe our very expensive “neighbors”. We need to make them less expensive.

Substantial progress towards that end has been made in a very short time. Ironically, the fires of 2017 have put a renewed focus on our housing issues and we should never “waste a good disaster” right? Cities, Counties, and employers all realize we need housing. There is energy behind this movement. There is experience behind this movement. And there is substantial money already being put into this movement.

The Employer Housing Council will soon be making some major announcements as to the funding I mentioned in the previous paragraph. In the meantime, they are setting up shop to do some very necessary work in the short term:

A. Addressing the accountability issue of Cities in our area building enough housing within their jurisdictions. The number of units, the cost of permits, and the time of gaining entitlements for those housing units all need to be monitored and these Cities that are not doing their fair share, will have some problems (hey Marin County, can you hear me?).

B. Hiring a full-time person to advocate for projects that are in, or going into, Planning, and helping to mobilize emails, phone calls, and in person public comment supporting those projects. We as an industry have been terrible at this, so we recognize the need to put some resources to the task so we can have YIMBYs at the meetings instead of NIMBYs.

C. Financial assistance for funding affordable housing. There is some big money coming in locally and from nearby that will “move the needle” on helping employees get into housing they can afford.

All this is happening fast. On Tuesday, May 21, 2019, I will be asking our Exec and our Board of Directors to make a contribution to a group that is doing a study of the California Tiger Salamander and other endangered species in order to come up with better and more workable solutions than the existing $1 Million per acre that is keeping about 50% of the approved housing starts from moving forward right now. The system is broken, and the ECA will be asked to join forces with some powerful allies very soon to make a difference. We need to so something about our very expensive “neighbors” like the salamanders and wetlands and NIMBYs.

We can do this. We cannot do this alone. For many years, I have been explaining that one of the main benefits in keeping the ECA healthy and viable, is to strengthen our relationships with other like-minded organizations.

We have done so.

The payoff is happening now. Thanks for your support in the past, and your continued support into the very bright future!

That’s All Folks!

John

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