CRA eJournal
Meeting and Event News
August 26—What a great day of education, networking, and just plain fun! ARA presented MEWP training in the morning at A Tool Shed in Morgan Hills. And that afternoon, a clay-shooting event took place nearby at Coyote Valley Sporting Clays. The fun continued into the evening with a yard party, featuring street tacos and vendor displays, and ended at The Running Shop and Hops for the after-party.
 
Thank you to our host:
•  A Tool Shed, Morgan Hills, CA
 
Thank you to the sponsors:
•  Direct Sales/Toku Stricker   •   EPIC   •   Generac
 
Rental Center News

Almighty Luxury Restrooms Trailers
Francisco Hernandez
2091 S. Cucamonga Ave.
Ontario, CA 91761
626-201-5643
fhsanitation@gmail.com
 
JC Equipment Rentals LLC
Justin Chavez
5651 Red Hill Rd.
Petaluma, CA 94952
707-782-8192
jusin@jcequipmentrental.com
  
 
CRA’s next 4th Wednesday Rental Workshop will take place via Zoom on Sept. 28 from 2:30-4 p.m. A workshop titled “How to Write Effective Party Rental Agreements/Pulling Permits for Large Tent Rentals” will be presented by Rusty Parr from AV Party Rentals.
 
Training for this FREE MEMBER BENEFIT runs for an hour and is followed by a Q&A session. Participants will have a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card during the raffle held at the end of the workshop.
This year's golf tournament will be held on Nov. 11, and it will once again be held at the Eagle Glen Golf Course, which is located in Corona, California. The proceeds from the event will go to CRA’s Rental Services Industry Foundation (RSIF), which is a qualified 501(c)(3) foundation that provides scholarships to employees and owners of member rental centers and member vendors. It also has the purpose of providing emergency assistance in the case of disasters.
  

CRA’s 2023 Equipment and Party Rental Tradeshow returns to the South Point Hotel & Convention Center.
 
Click here to see who has signed up to exhibit!
Visit www.RentalRally.com for complete Rental Rally Tradeshow information.
Shelter Structures America
Vendor News
 
Associate Members
RMC Consults
Mike Crouch
2205 W. Clearview Trail
Anthem, AZ 85806
480-487-8461
rmcconsults@outlook.com
 
Spyder Products
Susi Waynick
1602 Jasper St.
N. Kansas City, MO 64116
888-471-2239
susi.waynick@spydorproducts.com
  
Makinex USA recently announced that it is moving its U.S. headquarters from its current location in Torrance, California, to a new facility in Dallas-Fort Worth Region. In the wake of substantial growth over the past few years, Makinex USA will relocate to Mansfield in the northeastern part of Texas. The new facility greatly increases the capacity of warehousing, storage, production and staffing capabilities. Business Partners will continue to work with their same Makinex sales representatives throughout and after the relocation.
Each year CRA hosts a fundraising golf tournament for the benefit of its foundation, RSIF (Rental Services Industry Foundation), a nonprofit organization whose primary purpose is to provide college scholarships to young students interested in the rental industry. This year is CRA's seventh annual tournament, and it will continue to draw rental-industry golfers. Numerous sponsorship opportunities are available, ranging from tee sponsorships to co-sponsoring the tournament with CRA. Sign up as a sponsor online! Please consider this request as another avenue for your organization to demonstrate its support of the rental industry. Click on the CRA Golf Tournament link for additional information. And please see our current list of tournament sponsors:

Thank you to our 2021 CRA/RSIF Golf Tournament Sponsors!
  
 
CRA's 2023 Equipment and Party Rental Tradeshow will be back at the South Point Hotel & Convention Center. A great venue choice, with the convenience of having the convention center and hotel on the same property.
 
Reserve Your Booth Today:
Booths start at $1,795* for CRA Members and $2,195 for non-members. Corner Booths are an additional $300. Optional events, such as the Cocktail Party and Gala, are not included in the Booth fee.

Save Money:
• Buy two booths or more and receive a 25% DISCOUNT on each additional boot of equal or lesser value.
• For even bigger savings, buy five booths and RECEIVE THE SIXTH BOOTH FREE!
 
 
Visit www.RentalRally.com for complete Rental Rally Tradeshow Information.
Outdoor demo areas will be available on Monday, Jan. 23, at Dig This Vegas. The optional outside demo area is available only with the purchase of a convention-hall booth. An early bird rate of $300 is available with sign-up prior to July 31, which will increase to $400 after July 31.
  
Global Equipment Remarketing & Online Auctions. Bidadoo is the largest and most trusted online auction service on the world’s largest auction marketplace — eBay. With eBay’s 140-plus million active buyers around the globe, bidadoo provides equipment sellers access to the world’s largest online auction marketplace. Bidadoo provides professional remarketing for used construction equipment, rental and municipal fleets, trucks, and other capital assets to many of the world’s largest equipment and fleet companies.
  
Business Analysis & Planning, Mergers & Acquisitions. With increasing frequency, organizational leaders realize that their employees are the leverage point to success. Whether focusing on performance management, compensation or benefits, today’s business leaders know that dollars well spent on employees result in a return on investment. By analyzing how performance, compensation and benefits within a company fit with the strategic plans of the organization, company managers can create high productivity, solid profits and steady expansion. However, managing compensation and benefits programs is complex and labor intensive. Monitoring changes in laws and regulations as well as tracking design trends in compensation and benefit plans can be expensive and time-consuming. This is where RMC Consultants provides support. RMC assists companies in developing, implementing and integrating effective performance management, compensation and benefits systems.
Virginia Abrasives Corp.
Alliance North America
Business News
 
As part of its ongoing mission to identify and analyze policies driving up the cost of living and impacting the state's business climate, the Center for Jobs and the Economy is pleased to present this special report, authored by Jennifer Hernandez, who is an attorney and expert in environmental law, housing and land-use litigation. Hernandez also leads Holland & Knight's West Coast Land Use and Environmental Group. The California Center for Jobs and the Economy provides an objective and definitive source of information pertaining to job creation and economic trends in California. The primary purposes of  the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) are to avoid, reduce, or prevent environmental damage as well as to foster an informed and transparent public decision-making process by providing information to decision-makers and the public concerning the environmental effects of projects either undertaken or approved. 
 
Key Findings:
Nearly Half of New Housing Units in 2020 Were Targets of CEQA Lawsuits
• California has built an average of 110,784 homes per year for the past six years, only about one-third of the governor's housing production target.
• With reduced supply, housing affordability has become worse, and residential racial segregation in the progressive Bay Area is worse than it was in 1968.
• CEQA lawsuits targeting new housing continue to expand. In 2020 alone, there were 47,999 housing units targeted in CEQA lawsuits.
 
The Center for Jobs and the Economy has released our full analysis of the June Employment Report from the California Employment Development Department.

As discussed in our preliminary report on the July data, nonfarm jobs posted a somewhat stronger result compared to the prior four months, with an increase of 84,800 in July and a near doubling of the June estimate to 37,300. Employment gains, however, essentially stalled with a gain of only 23,500 — the third lowest monthly gain since the initial losses in the pandemic period and accounting for only 3% of the total employment gains so far this year.
 
With this release, California remained 73,800 jobs (-0.4%) below the pre-pandemic peak in February 2020, and 165,700 workers (-0.9%) below the prior employment peak. The U.S. numbers, however, passed this recovery mark for nonfarm jobs but remained 0.4% short in the employment numbers. In contrast, 15 states continued to exceed the pre-pandemic job numbers, while 31 states were above this recovery point for employment. As those 15 states have moved from jobs recovery to jobs growth, the resulting total has counterbalanced the continuing shortfalls in states such as California and pushed the national economy past this recovery point. Using the unadjusted numbers to show results by average wage level, the higher-wage industries continued moving in positive territory, while medium-wage industries showed a reversal due to the seasonal shifts for schools (educational services and government). Seasonal factors were positive for the lower-wage industries as their previous lagging recovery picked up in July.
Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, issued the following statement in response to the August Employment data:
“Job gains in August were at their lowest monthly results for the year and employment saw a loss of 3,900. National and international issues are slowing our economic recovery, which is concerning because California has the 10th highest unemployment rate among all states and is only now transitioning from job recovery to job growth after the pandemic recession. With record-high inflation and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, now is not the time to further burden working families with higher taxes and costs.”
 
California Business Roundtable President Rob Lapsley issued the following statement on Sept. 16 in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom signing a series of legislation that will significantly increase the cost-of-living:
 
“California’s climate change goals are transforming our economy through a renewable energy policy. The California Business Roundtable has supported these goals and California being a leader in climate policy. However, the actions taken today create a path no other states or nations can follow. To achieve all of these goals, we must start with reliable and affordable energy for all Californians, but the results to date show we have the highest gas prices in the nation and highest electricity prices among the contiguous states and must now depend on Flex Alerts to get us through the summer months.
 
“There was no major policy reason to rush these new goals at the end of session, especially when at the same time the Air Resources Board is working to pass the next generation scoping plan to achieve the state’s current climate change goals and the state has not yet built a robust electrical grid to ensure we can implement them. The politics of climate change cannot take precedence over common-sense policy if we are to ensure that lower-income — and increasingly middle-income — residents do not bear the brunt of paying for the state’s ambitions. The business community continues to support common-sense market-based climate change solutions that is a catalyst for economic investment and growth and are not paid for by those who can least afford it.”
 
The campaign to Stop AB 257 issued the following statement in response to Gov. Newsom signing into law Assembly Bill 257, the so-called Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery (FAST) Act: “By signing this bill, Gov. Newsom is siding with special interests rather than the people and small businesses of California. This bill has been built on a lie, and now small business owners, their employees, and their customers will have to pay the price.”
 
“By signing AB 257 into law, Gov. Newsom has not leveled the playing field but instead targeted one slice of California’s small businesses and consumers who rely on counter service restaurants to feed their families. As individual employers and neighborhood restaurants across the state, we will use every tool at our disposal to protect our consumers, workers, and other job providers from the pain and havoc that will result from enacting this bill.
 
“In the midst of record inflation, consumers and small business owners will pay a 20% increase to fund the outsourcing of the legislature’s duties to union-led bureaucracy. California’s own Department of Finance said AB 257 will only add more burdensome costs to the taxpayer-funded government without any actual certainty that it will fix anything.
 
“By arbitrarily singling out a sliver of the restaurant industry, California’s approach imposes higher costs on one type of restaurant while sparing others, putting some workers at a disadvantage and picking clear winners and losers. Gov. Newsom ignored the arbitrary and haphazard nature of this bill and signed into law a reckless precedent, which will have far-reaching harmful impacts beyond the state’s borders.”
 
The broad state and regional business community today responded to the introduction of AB 2133 (Quirk) and other end-of-session climate change proposals presented by the governor earlier this month:
 
“Our organizations have been actively engaged in the yearlong Air Resources Board Scoping Plan process, helping the state craft a pathway that achieves our goals of an equitable and reliable energy future. As supporters of the state’s climate goals since AB 32 was initially passed in 2006, the Legislature and all previous administrations have engaged with us and other key stakeholders – until today. Rushing policies that will impact every aspect of California's trillion-dollar economy through the Legislature at the end of session and without time for a thorough debate addressing reliability, affordability and equity is the wrong approach. We have more than a decade of data demonstrating how lower-income Californians are paying disproportionately for our existing policies. This approach is not sustainable or equitable, and creating a better path forward will require significant feedback from business, environmental and civil rights advocates. We strongly encourage the Legislature to reject these last-minute proposals.”
In the latest report from California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA), total new light-duty vehicle registrations in the second quarter of 2022 were largely unchanged from the first quarter but were off 17.5% from the same period in 2021 and down roughly the same compared to the same quarter in pre-pandemic 2019. Total sales for the year are now expected to be just slightly below the 1.86 million seen in 2021. The limiting factor continues to be constrained production levels and dealer inventory.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 term will begin in October, and they will be hearing several cases that could make major differences for small businesses. Here are four cases where the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) submitted amicus briefs arguing for the interests of small businesses against unfair regulations and stifling mandates. NFIB is the voice of small business, advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is nonprofit, nonpartisan and member-driven. Since their founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses and remains so today.
Calendar
Sept. 28 – Santa Fe Springs, CA
Inland Territory Meeting hosted by PDQ Rentals
 
Oct. 16-18 – Seaside, OR
Northwest Rental Conference
 
Oct. 19-20 – Seaside, OR
CRA Board of Directors Meeting
 
Nov. 7-10 – Greenville, SC
MATRA – The Tent Show
 
Nov. 10 – Riverside, CA
CRA Pre-Golf Territory Meeting hosted by Wiest Rentals
 
Nov. 11 – Corona, CA
CRA/RSIF Seventh Annual Golf Tournament
 
Nov. 30 – Berkeley, CA
SFBA / Vintage Holiday Party at Skates on the Bay
 
Dec. 5 – San Diego, CA
San Diego Holiday Party at Eddie V’s
 
Dec. 6 – Ventura, CA
Tri-County Holiday Party at Café Fiori
 
Dec. 7 – La Mirada, CA
Greater LA/Orange Holiday Party at Clearman’s North Wood Inn
 
Dec. 8 – Corona, CA
Inland Holiday Party at Kings Fish House
 
Jan. 23-25, 2023 – Las Vegas, NV
CRA Rental Rally Tradeshow
 
Survey Results
This month, we asked members about their new equipment purchases. If you have an idea for a survey for CRA members, please send your request to CRA at Info@CalRental.org
Billy Cheesman from Redlands-Yucaipa Rentals in Redlands, CA, is the winner of September's Survey Raffle. Congratulations, Billy!