California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

Annual Membership & Board Meeting Updates First

We had a great time at the very nice La Quinta Resort & Spa in La Quinta, just south of Palm Springs. It was CDTOA’s 69th Annual Membership and Board Meeting. It was also the 15th Annual Board Meeting for C-DATA/AADT.

The turnout was good, and we value the time our members take to show up and participate in this very important association management process. I would hope all who attend get value out of the cutting edge information and the relationships that are fostered at these meetings. In these hard times, the networking, information, ideas, and education could be the difference in being profitable or going out of business. We can all drive a truck, but the reality is that securing payment from contractors and brokers, understanding laws that affect our industry have become far more important these days. I can personally say that I have learned much from my years and involvement with CDTOA.

Return-of-Dues Program is Frozen

It has become clear that we need to limit the expense burden of this program to the membership. The estimated pay-out costs are in excess of $60,000 for this year alone. This program, which was started in 1980, forty years after the association was organized, may have been well intentioned but it was never well thought-out! When the true actuarial costs of the program were exposed in 1998, we were forced to make changes to it. In fact, the program has been modified at least four other times to limit its huge, growing financial burden on the association. I’ve been told on many occasions that no other trade association, at least in the U.S., has ever had a program like this—for obvious reasons.

Now that we have lost over 50% of our members, the financial burden is even greater, and we have been forced to make some changes to the program that will limit its liability now and in the future. This was discussed at the Executive Committee meeting in November, and our recommendations were brought to the attending Board and members in good standing for a vote. The entire detailed motion is here to the right for your review. It was read out loud to all in attendance at the meeting, and the vote was unanimous to adopt all the amendments as stated.

We are grandfathering all existing members in and limiting our total annual liability to $30,000. The exact language is, “Commencing in fiscal year 2011-2012, and for all fiscal years thereafter, the total payment for all benefits and program liabilities paid in a single fiscal year shall not exceed $30,000. If the total for all benefits and program liabilities in any single fiscal year exceeds $30,000, the benefits shall be paid out proportionally to all eligible beneficiaries, in a total amount not to exceed $30,000, after which their benefits shall be deemed paid in full.” This will mean that all death claims will be paid-out proportionally at the end of each fiscal year, or after June of each year.

All new CDTOA members, beginning November 13, 2010, will not be eligible for this grandfathered program, and of course existing members can opt out at any time if they choose.

If you know the history of this program for our association, you will agree that it had served the members for many years, but it has become totally impractical. We have changed the Membership Investment Application form and removed all information from the website, magazine, and all printed materials.

Broker Bond is Ready to Go!
We have partnered with a variety of new businesses and resources, from a new bonding company that is offering CDTOA members exclusive “Broker Bond Pricing” and an additional 10% discount, to a law firm, Carno & Carlton, LLP, which specializes in construction payment resolution. CDTOA will be posting articles by this firm on your responsibilities to effect timely payment and steps you need to take to be paid. See page 7 for Anna Carno and Andrew Carlton’s proposal and vitas.
CDTOA is committed to providing resources you need to stay ahead of your competition. With the Broker Bill being signed into law effective January 1, 2011, you will now have another tool available to you to collect money you are owed. Many of the things CDTOA has been involved with over the years, including legislation, has been focused on industry payment improvements. The new $15,000 Broker Bond is another example of our attempts to level the field within the construction trucking broker industry. It is far too easy to be a broker in our industry and handle hundreds if not millions of dollars of other people’s money, without anything—not a bond, capital or good credit, a history or ethics—nothing. While the $15,000 bond in not perfect, it’s a good start.

Also note the on pages 9 & 10 we are including the letter from Dan at Armstrong & Associates and a Broker Bond Application. Dan has been working with the bonding industry to secure this bond along with special member pricing and discounts—10% off for members only! The letter and application was sent out to both members and non-member on December 8th, we’re reprinting it again here, and the application will also be available on our website. Don’t be late to get your bond; it’s a $5,000 fine and a misdemeanor if you don’t!

Scholarship Program – How Sweet It Is!
The Scholarship Working Committee hosted a raffle of a 55-inch LCD TV to help fund our College Kids Awards. It was a success, selling more than 175 tickets. At twenty-five bucks apiece, the scholarship fund was in the black for around three grand. Great job, all of you who helped put this great fundraiser together! Things are looking up. Just a side note: I apologize for winning the TV, but I did want to say thanks. It looks great in my bedroom.

69th Annual Meeting - Well Done Staff
My thanks go out to all the staff members at CDTOA/AADT for their efforts to make all of the Board Meetings run so smoothly. And thanks to all of our members and affiliates who showed enough interest to come to the meetings and participate. Friday evening’s dinner was an especially great time, and I always look forward to sharing all of this with you. I want to again thank the many sponsors, too, like Dan Ugalde, Dan Bertrand at Armstrong & Assoc. Insurance, Stewart Holt at SCIF, and of course AADT for helping to sponsor the meeting meals and events.

Work Could be Better, Lets All Hope Next Year Is
Work in the North has been a challenge, and winter has come early (where is that damn global warming? We needed it this year!), so we will hope 2011 brings us a better year than the last two. Contractors I have spoke with seem to agree that now that the election rhetoric is through, some signs of life are happening in the bidding of jobs (mostly public works). These are all pretty good signs that we may be getting back to making a living in construction trucking.

Kill CARB – Like a Cruise Missile
Not to be forgetful of the bureaucracy that has taken up so much of the Association’s time and money, I remind everybody that “KILL CARB” is still a goal we should all keep in the back of our minds. Mary Nichols and her band of enviro-jihadists do not celebrate Christmas; no, they are still plotting and planning ways to curtail diesel use in California—It’s killing the children!
Fortunately, we have made someprogress in our fight with CARB…. read on in this month’s issue, especially Sean’s report on page 16. CARB again has come at us with a proposal to initiate rules, which seem to many to be aimed at suppressing our free speech by threats of criminal prosecution for making false statements to CARB.

What country’s playbook does that come from? Hint: maybe from our governor’s homeland’s neighboring country from the 1930’s and ‘40’s? I’m telling you, from what I have seen at the public meetings in Sacramento when they march those little brown-shirted, weeping and coughing Oakland school kids down the isle to make statements about our trucks having killed thousands this year alone, it seems is CARB’s goal to put us all out of business –I have to wonder. Incidentally, I read that Oakland has a high school dropout rate of about 40%. With that rate you would think the city school administrators would make it a priority for the kids to stay in school on school days instead of hanging prayer flags in the CARB meetings. I wonder where the flags were for the 120 people murdered in Oakland this year? Now those are real statistics, not the garbage science that CARB uses to justify the Nazi-esque taking of our property.

I look at my John Deere tractor and trucks, and I can’t help but think of all the things owners have to do to make sure we have serial numbers for everything diesel-related for easy identification by CARB. Now doesn’t that remind you of another program perfected by the same people noted above about 70 years ago?

If the CARB wants to worry about “integrity of information,” it should first look into its Chairwoman, Mary Nichols, admitting to the Board she purposely withheld the fact that the CARB’s own lead health effects report author Hien Tran was not credentialed for the study offered to the Board, on which the diesel regulation vote was based. CARB’s own mortality rate for PM2.5 has been presented to the board members as being over 11,000; then it was 9,500, then 3,000, and now we are to believe them when they come back officially with a new extrapolated 350 figure! Deception and lies, CARB is the true new “Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda,” no different than the one from the same era I mentioned above.

Nothing in these regulations compels CARB to be truthful in anything they have perpetrated on California and the U.S. In fact, they themselves are feeling the effects in the press of their own off-road emissions models being off by a whopping 300-plus percent.

CARB’s budget of $878 million dollars equates to about $2.5 million per extrapolated death due to PM emissions. Ironically, the cost to our industry is another $25 billion; it just doesn’t pencil out to me.

So after all of this, Tran still has his job, Mary Nichols is still lying to the Board and public, the regulations are based on a foundation of scientific lies, and the idiot voters want more of this by voting down Prop 23.

All I can say after all of that is, let’s keep the pressure on. Call your new elected officials and get their attention. We cannot stop now. Our industry depends on us to stop this stupidity…. and always remember to KILL CARB!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Strength in numbers: Bring a new member into the fight.
Rob McClernon