Green Building

I sit on the Board of Directors for our local Builders Exchange. It's a non-profit organization for licensed contractors in our area. By joining, members get benefits like group insurance and they have access to plans and projects going out to bid.
Today at our monthly meeting, we had two guest speakers from the City of Santa Cruz to talk to us about the Green Building Code changes the City is making. Builders now have to earn points by doing something "green" in order to be awarded a permit.

I'm all for reducing waste, recycling at the time of demolition and building smarter, such as considering the orientation of a building and roof placement to allow solar at a later date, if not at the time of building. Many of the contractors are disturbed by the changes. It is a lot tougher to get plans approved through the City. Some of the changes are difficult and expensive.

After our guests left our meeting, we were doing our normal monthly business and discussing the Annual BBQ picnic for members. One of the features will be a dunk tank and we agreed that a City Official sitting on that dunk tank would raise a lot of money at the BBQ. I know of at least a dozen contractors who would sign up and pay for the chance of dunking the Green Building official.

Note - July 19th - two building officials actually submitted to the dunk tank. The inspector for Scotts Valley braved the dunking and John Ansic - the Green Building pro mentioned earlier showed up!
As a little boy stepped up to take his first shot, John asked, "Hey little boy, who does your dad work for?" Then when some other contractors stepped up to the plate he'd call out "Double Fees!" or "Red Tag". Thank you for being so good natured.