Business owners bash bureaucracy

At the end of the year, Jeff Pardini's employees at Hills Flat Lumber Co. will have to throw away $30,000 in brass fittings because a small amount of lead in them will make the parts illegal in California starting Jan. 1.

Pardini's family has sold the brass fittings for years, but state regulations say he can't even give them away at his stores in Grass Valley and Colfax.

His story was just one of many told to a packed house Friday at a regional jobs and business retention hearing hosted by Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, and Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Granite Bay, at Nevada County's Rood Administrative Center.

The meeting was one in a series in which Logue, a former Yuba County supervisor, has been gathering testimony to bolster a state economic recovery package he plans to unveil in mid-December.

"People are struggling to find jobs in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression," Logue said in a prepared statement. "These struggles are in part due to unreasonable regulations, predatory regulatory agencies, out of control operating costs and the third-highest tax burden in the nation."

Forced waste, increasing complexity of regulations, the rising cost to meet regulations even as the economy tumbles and being forced to buy poor-quality equipment were among the frustrations voiced by Nevada County business owners.

Lowell Robinson, of Robinson Enterprises energy and timber firm in Nevada City, said clean air regulations have forced him to buy new equipment. His company recently bought trucks with regulated engines.

"Half of them are lemons" that don't get as many miles per gallon as those he was forced to replace, Robinson claimed.

To meet vapor recovery regulations at the company's four gasoline-diesel stations, Robinson had to buy $200,000 worth of new nozzles a year ago.

Since then, "10 of them have failed," spewing gasoline, he said.

In one instance, gasoline spilled all over a customer's $50,000 boat "because the nozzle wouldn't shut off," Robinson said. "Yesterday, I filled up, and it just spilled gas right on the ground."

"This is not funny. It is costing us our livelihoods," said Nevada County contractor Craig Souter, who has been doing business here more than 30 years. "The Nevada County construction industry is drying up. We're dying out here."

In 1979, he said he had a simple state manual on construction rules, but now there are enough to make him invisible if they were stacked on his desk.

"We have to roam through these books figuring out what to do," Souter said. "Where in the world did these regulations come from? What are you going to do to stop this?"

Breeze Cross, owner of the Tahoe-Truckee Lumber Co., said his income fell from $27 million in 2007 to $12 million this year due to the economic downturn, but the cost of meeting government regulation hasn't declined.

Instead of growing his firm so he can turn it over to family members, "I'm in the process of salvaging my business," Cross said. "I don't see government reducing its spending the way my business is and my customers are."

Idaho-Maryland Mine Corp. President David Watkinson told the panel that metal mining "has all but left the state" due to "constantly changing regulations."

It should be the opposite, he said.

"California should be a leader in natural resources manufacturing," Watkinson said.

While most had horror stories, B.J. North, vice-president of Plumas Bank from Plumas County, suggested solutions.

"Focus on getting small loans to small businesses," North said. "Outsource some government to private industry."

As she travels to the northeastern California bank's branches, North said she sees and hears from businesses losing profits to regulatory expenses.

"Don't ignore the rural communities. They're the backbone of the state," North said.

Dave Moller is senior staff writer for The Union of Grass Valley. He can be reached at 477-4237 or at dmoller@theunion.com.