SAN JOSE, Calif. – The California High-Speed Rail Authority has been recognized by the American Planning Association’s California – Northern Section with the 2023 Excellence Award for Advancing Diversity and Social Change in Honor of Paul Davidoff, an urban planner who pioneered inclusionary zoning. The recognition is for high-speed rail’s San Jose to Merced Project […]
Author Archives: Victor Valdez
WASHINGTON — FEMA announced that federal disaster assistance has been made available to the state of California to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe winter storms, straight-line winds, flooding, landslides and mudslides beginning on Feb. 21, 2023, and continuing. More
Inflation, added scope of work and the need for additional contingency funds have added just over $2 billion to the price of an ongoing high-speed rail line project in California, according to the agency that oversees it, and questions remain over funding for future planned segments. More:
The Small Business Administration announced the launch of a new Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) preview map. The HUBZone preview map shows changes that are scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2023, reflecting updates from the 2020 U.S. Census. Read more here.
Funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is finally making it to projects, according to the CEOs of several major public construction companies. Additional federal money from the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act is also boosting the civil construction outlook, they said. More
Billions of dollars are needed to fully repair, maintain and renovate academic buildings and facilities across the 23 campuses in the California State University system, according to a legislative report. But that is money that the system, and the state, don’t have readily available. Meanwhile, some students have complained about unbearable heat waves in classrooms […]
Skanska’s Western Region is hosting its first Construction Management Building Blocks (CMBB) training program for small construction businesses and is now accepting applications for the free 10-week course, which starts March 7, 2023. Organizing the course to include the entire western region will give participants “access to the pool of personnel that we have across […]
On January 1, 2023, the minimum wage for government contractors under Executive Order 14026 increased from $15.00 per hour to $16.20 per hour. We wrote about Executive Order 14026 and its requirements previously here. There continues to be confusion as to when and how Executive Order 14026 applies, so here are a few key components […]
Last year’s big spending at the Pentagon will continue this year, with small business getting more opportunities to share in the wealth. Defense contract spending rose 6.7% in 2022, hitting its second highest annual total at $436 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg Government. The spike in unclassified procurement resulted from numerous factors including […]
The Department of Defense is tweaking its contracting strategy to place more of an emphasis on meeting small business acquisition goals, even it if means supplanting its use of Best in Class vehicles. The Office of the Under Secretary for Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment released a memorandum on Jan. 27 that described small businesses […]