News
ENLARGE
In terms of “big deals,” last week’s decision to give two local contractors the inside track on a $13 million construction job at the Grass Valley Sierra College campus was gigantic.
If they can crunch the numbers to show they can guarantee the project comes in on budget, Tim Brady of Tru-Line Builders and Keoni Allen of Sierra Foothills Construction Co. will get the bid, creating hundreds of local jobs as soon as this summer.
This comes at a time when Nevada County’s unemployment rate sits above 11 percent and rising.
If the contract comes home — and the odds are excellent it will — it will be the result of a lot of behind-the-scenes work by a lot of people.
For much of the last 10 years, construction and real estate have brought home our bacon. Thousands of locals depended financially on a strong real estate market, and new home construction followed suit.
As we all are painfully aware, that came to a screeching halt a couple of years ago. Those were the days, my friends, we thought they’d never end ... so on and so forth.
When the end came, it started a domino effect that continues to tumble through our communities. Except humans aren’t like dominos.
Real estate agents, construction workers and many small contractors suddenly found themselves struggling to make ends meet, which meant they stopped buying trucks and equipment.
They stopped eating out as much, maybe skipping that morning breakfast they used to have at the local coffee shop. They pulled back from the many nonprofits they once supported and had to say “no thanks” to the routine calls from Little League, Bobby Sox and others.
And they started holding onto what little money they had for their own mortgages, car payments, food and utility bills.
Unfortunately, many didn’t survive, and we saw their foreclosure notices in the news- paper, in black and white like a financial obituary, as the rest of us shook our heads, perhaps muttering, “There but for the grace of God ...”
And although some experts are saying the worst might be over, it will be years, if ever, before we’ll see the good times of old.
That’s why this $13 million project is so very important to our local economy and, for some, the difference between hope and financial failure. Many local companies are teetering on the brink, holding on by their fingernails and living hand-to-mouth in hopes someone delivers some sort of economic stimulus we’ve been reading about.
This project, you see, represents much more than $13 million, especially when you consider the first half of the college project — funded by Nevada County taxpayers, I may add — went to an international construction company that took 99 percent of the $20 million out of town. Most of us never saw a penny of it because that company used its own out-of-town subcontractors to do the work.
When that happened, the Nevada County Contractors Association had seen enough.
It’s bad enough when our local City Halls spend money with out-of-town contractors at a time when City Hall is closed to save money because the city can’t generate enough sales tax money to stay open.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Nevada City gave the sales-tax-supported street repair contract to a giant, out-of-town contractor who can afford to bid lower than the smaller, local guys. It’s called economy of scale, where the guy with the most tractors wins.
And while the city ought to go with the best price, there needs to be serious consideration to the “trickle-down” effect of those construction dollars. The local contractor, you see, generally employs local people, who spend their money locally, which helps City Hall generate sales tax money it needs to stay open. It’s a financial circle of life and the low bid doesn’t always contribute to it. They say every payroll dollar multiplies by four or five by the time it makes its way through the local economy.
Contractors Association Executive Director Barbara Bashall and others met with Sierra College Trustee Aaron Klein, a businessman who knows the private sector struggles better than most elected officials. Klein promised the college would do everything it could to ensure more of the Phase 2 project money would stay local.
Klein and Nancy Palmer (who also represents us on the college board) deserve kudos for championing this significant local effort and for doing what they said they would.
“While I was hoping to see a lot of local subs involved in the project, I never imagined that it would eventually lead to two local general contractors getting the job,” Klein later told me. That’s because government-funded school construction is a specialized field and nobody “on the hill” had much experience with that process.
So Brady and Allen decided to find someone who did, which led them to Clark & Sullivan out of Sacramento, one of the leaders in school construction. The three companies created joint operating agreements, whereby Clark & Sullivan will serve as project managers, using their bonding status and knowledge to help guide Brady and Allen. That relationship offered college trustees the best of all worlds: Keeping the dollars local while satisfying rigid construction regulations and guidelines.
For their part, Allen and Brady have promised to use as many as 70 to 80 local subcontractors. “We won’t use just one drywaller,” said Brady. “Our plan is to spread the work around.”
That’s great news to the many electricians, flooring contractors, framers, plumbers, painters, landscapers and the rest who so desperately need this work.
Thanks, too, to the many local officials who sent letters to the college encouraging a local contract. This result was really a community stepping up and seizing an opportunity.
Both Tru-Line and Sierra Foothills Construction represent some of the best we have to offer, and their many projects (including the renovation on our own building) stand testimony to their high standards for quality. The college won’t find two better guys in Brady and Allen to work with, and I’m not just saying that because they are also friends. They are good men who mean what they say, and this project will mean a whole bunch to our local economy for at least the next year.
Jeff Ackerman is the editor/publisher of The Union. His column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 477-4299, jackerman@theunion.com, or 464 Sutton Way, Grass Valley 95945.
If they can crunch the numbers to show they can guarantee the project comes in on budget, Tim Brady of Tru-Line Builders and Keoni Allen of Sierra Foothills Construction Co. will get the bid, creating hundreds of local jobs as soon as this summer.
This comes at a time when Nevada County’s unemployment rate sits above 11 percent and rising.
If the contract comes home — and the odds are excellent it will — it will be the result of a lot of behind-the-scenes work by a lot of people.
For much of the last 10 years, construction and real estate have brought home our bacon. Thousands of locals depended financially on a strong real estate market, and new home construction followed suit.
As we all are painfully aware, that came to a screeching halt a couple of years ago. Those were the days, my friends, we thought they’d never end ... so on and so forth.
When the end came, it started a domino effect that continues to tumble through our communities. Except humans aren’t like dominos.
Real estate agents, construction workers and many small contractors suddenly found themselves struggling to make ends meet, which meant they stopped buying trucks and equipment.
They stopped eating out as much, maybe skipping that morning breakfast they used to have at the local coffee shop. They pulled back from the many nonprofits they once supported and had to say “no thanks” to the routine calls from Little League, Bobby Sox and others.
And they started holding onto what little money they had for their own mortgages, car payments, food and utility bills.
Unfortunately, many didn’t survive, and we saw their foreclosure notices in the news- paper, in black and white like a financial obituary, as the rest of us shook our heads, perhaps muttering, “There but for the grace of God ...”
And although some experts are saying the worst might be over, it will be years, if ever, before we’ll see the good times of old.
That’s why this $13 million project is so very important to our local economy and, for some, the difference between hope and financial failure. Many local companies are teetering on the brink, holding on by their fingernails and living hand-to-mouth in hopes someone delivers some sort of economic stimulus we’ve been reading about.
This project, you see, represents much more than $13 million, especially when you consider the first half of the college project — funded by Nevada County taxpayers, I may add — went to an international construction company that took 99 percent of the $20 million out of town. Most of us never saw a penny of it because that company used its own out-of-town subcontractors to do the work.
When that happened, the Nevada County Contractors Association had seen enough.
It’s bad enough when our local City Halls spend money with out-of-town contractors at a time when City Hall is closed to save money because the city can’t generate enough sales tax money to stay open.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Nevada City gave the sales-tax-supported street repair contract to a giant, out-of-town contractor who can afford to bid lower than the smaller, local guys. It’s called economy of scale, where the guy with the most tractors wins.
And while the city ought to go with the best price, there needs to be serious consideration to the “trickle-down” effect of those construction dollars. The local contractor, you see, generally employs local people, who spend their money locally, which helps City Hall generate sales tax money it needs to stay open. It’s a financial circle of life and the low bid doesn’t always contribute to it. They say every payroll dollar multiplies by four or five by the time it makes its way through the local economy.
Contractors Association Executive Director Barbara Bashall and others met with Sierra College Trustee Aaron Klein, a businessman who knows the private sector struggles better than most elected officials. Klein promised the college would do everything it could to ensure more of the Phase 2 project money would stay local.
Klein and Nancy Palmer (who also represents us on the college board) deserve kudos for championing this significant local effort and for doing what they said they would.
“While I was hoping to see a lot of local subs involved in the project, I never imagined that it would eventually lead to two local general contractors getting the job,” Klein later told me. That’s because government-funded school construction is a specialized field and nobody “on the hill” had much experience with that process.
So Brady and Allen decided to find someone who did, which led them to Clark & Sullivan out of Sacramento, one of the leaders in school construction. The three companies created joint operating agreements, whereby Clark & Sullivan will serve as project managers, using their bonding status and knowledge to help guide Brady and Allen. That relationship offered college trustees the best of all worlds: Keeping the dollars local while satisfying rigid construction regulations and guidelines.
For their part, Allen and Brady have promised to use as many as 70 to 80 local subcontractors. “We won’t use just one drywaller,” said Brady. “Our plan is to spread the work around.”
That’s great news to the many electricians, flooring contractors, framers, plumbers, painters, landscapers and the rest who so desperately need this work.
Thanks, too, to the many local officials who sent letters to the college encouraging a local contract. This result was really a community stepping up and seizing an opportunity.
Both Tru-Line and Sierra Foothills Construction represent some of the best we have to offer, and their many projects (including the renovation on our own building) stand testimony to their high standards for quality. The college won’t find two better guys in Brady and Allen to work with, and I’m not just saying that because they are also friends. They are good men who mean what they say, and this project will mean a whole bunch to our local economy for at least the next year.
Jeff Ackerman is the editor/publisher of The Union. His column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 477-4299, jackerman@theunion.com, or 464 Sutton Way, Grass Valley 95945.
