California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

I want to thank all of you, our committed members, who took the time to vote in our election. I also want to thank all of you for your desire to be involved at your local chapters all the way up to the executive committee. It is because of your input, involvement and membership that our association continues to grow in strength and numbers.

Thank you all.

As the year comes to a close, I want to remind every member to make sure you are ready to register or report with CARB as soon as they get their website up and running. You will need proof of reporting compliance if you want to work for a broker, who will likely be co-responsible for making sure your truck has been reported to CARB. Remember if you need help registering, you can call Sean Edgar, an endorsed CARB consultant which specializes in CARB regulatory compliance. He can be reached at
(916) 718-7050, and have him complete the registration for you. Sean is very capable and you will be guaranteed to be registered correctly if you use his services.

We also have a couple of important dates in the near future. First is December 15, 2011. This is our hearing date in the CARB lawsuit, when we will hopefully get the judge to issue an immediate injunction on the implementation of the on-road diesel rule until there is a judgment in the suit. A preliminary injunction is a temporary order made by a court at the request of one party that prevents the other party from pursuing a particular course of conduct until the conclusion of a trial on the merits.

The second date to remember is January 31, 2012, the last day you now have to register your power units with CARB. Maybe I should put a disclaimer on this last date: As I remember, our illustrious CARB employees assured us that their engine reporting site would be up in September or October at the latest, but as of early December, the site is still not up. I’m sure they will let us know if they are going to miss the target date of January 31, 2012, so all 1 million trucks that need to be reported don’t create a problem!
As for those that spend our tax money from the State of California, I just read that our illustrious governor, Jerry “Greenbeam” Brown, wants to increase sales and state income tax on the “wealthy” tax payers of California. The governor wants to put this in a ballot measure in the June primary election. I hope the voters will tell Jerry he needs to cut spending like the rest of us have had to do instead of continuing to spend other people’s money as usual.

Well, so much for the negative points; let’s look at something positive. This year has flown by and been very eventful for me. I hope you all have had a prosperous 2011 and will have an even better 2012. May this coming year bring great things to our association. With our new name, we look forward to a great future ahead representing all of the construction transportation industry’s interests in California. Our name change to the California Construction Trucking Association is a major step forward for all of us and provides new opportunities as well as many new members, who will value what our proactive association does for the industry.

Well, in closing, I want to wish each of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I look forward to serving as your president for the next two years, and I encourage all of you to get involved at the chapter and state level. Trust me, if you come to the board meetings you will learn more about what is going on in our industry than you ever knew, and more importantly, you will get to know some pretty great people from all over this state. It’s an experience you will never forget!
Remember, there is strength in numbers—we have to stick together!

Until next month,

Fred Martin