Articles

From Kevin Pedrotti, Legislative Advocate, Golden State Builders Exchanges

Building Standards Commission Passes Green Building Code

The struggling Bay Area economy received a big boost thanks to the BART Board, whose historic vote on December 10, 2009, means BART customers will finally have a swift, world-class train-to-plane connection between the Coliseum BART Station and the Oakland Airport.

When you think about workplace safety, you probably focus on the responsibilities that employees have to work safely. But don’t forget, they have rights, too.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act gives your employees 14 specific workplace rights. Workers have the right to:

from the CEA Weekly Update, California Employers Association

On December 21, 2009 the President signed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (“Defense Act”) extending the COBRA subsidy.

Contributed by Eddie Bernacchi, Politico Group

SACRAMENTO – Year after year construction contractors have watched counties perform an enormous amount of “new” road construction with maintenance crews, while circumventing competitive bidding laws by using what is commonly called the “Road Commissioner” authority. This outdated statute allows counties to self perform road construction projects, ignoring accounting procedures and contracting out requirements.

In 1992, the State of California Department of Water Resources (DWR) adopted a water-efficient landscape ordinance, which was established as a voluntary model for application by local municipal and special-district water agencies (Assembly Bill AB 235). The City of Redding opted not to adopt such an ordinance and made findings, based on climatic and topographical conditions and water availability, that a water-efficient landscape ordinance was unnecessary.

from Kevin Pedrotti, Legislative Advocate, Golden State Builders Exchanges

Raucous CARB Meeting

After six hours of testimony from over 80 witnesses, the state Air Resources Board last week signaled it may delay rules aimed at curbing toxic diesel soot from trucks. Despite that possible delay, a majority of the board stated they still expect truckers to eventually replace older rigs or retrofit the dirtiest engines. That would most likely happen in 2014, when the state must startcomplying with more stringent federal clean-air requirements.