CLCA San Francisco Bay Area Chapter

Mission Statement
CLCA serves and protects the interests of its members, promotes professionalism, and advances public awareness of the landscape industry.

Unicensed Operator Task Force

The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter has initiated an Unlicensed Operator Task Force to tackle the problem of unfair competition from unlicensed and/or unethical landscape companies. The task force recently met and developed the following strategy.

We've decided to begin by visiting each permit office in our chapter's geographic area and request they allow us to leave CLCA and CSLB literature on the counter to be made available to the public. We'll need the people who visit the various permit offices throughout the area to determine the permit issuing requirements of each and what educational materials they currently make available to the public. If needed, we will visit city council meetings to present the problem, what we believe to be the solution and request increased code enforcement for the benefit of their citizens. To accomplish this, we have divided our chapter into four distinct geographic regions assigned to individual directors. Kevin Burns will cover the northern region (S.F. to San Mateo); Bill Buchin of Coastal Range Landscaping will cover the San Mateo County Coast and County offices; Catherine Greer of Greer Gardens will cover the mid-region (from San Carlos/Belmont to Mountain View); and Mike Hertzer will cover the South Bay region. We'll need all the help we can get to accomplish this task.

We ask all of our contractor members to carry Operation Helping Hand brochures along with S.W.I.F.T. Hot Lead Referral forms (click on blue text to download a copy) in their truck so they can approach unlicensed operators where they work, present them the opportunity of Operation Helping Hand while at the same time presenting the consequence. To request Operation Helping Hand brochures, contact taskforce@clcasfba.org.

We hope to provide information to workers of unlicensed operators that will explain the risks they are exposed to when they work without the benefit of workers' compensation insurance, state disability, unemployment insurance, etc. and at the same time explain the benefits of working for CLCA member companies that offer a viable "career path".

We will offer our members and their employee's continuing education that promotes professionalism at every level. These may seem ambitious goals, but we believe they are achievable. Many of the programs we'll need to accomplish our mission are already in place.

We need to assist in increased enforcement to offer an effective deterrent to unlicensed operators. We need to increase the effectiveness of Operation Helping Hand by getting the information more broadly circulated and by encouraging more members throughout the state to offer help as OHH Mentors and develop a means of tracking the effectiveness of the program. To be most effective, we need to get as many people involved as we possibly can. To do this, we must all agree that this effort is needed and we must know that we are all working towards a common goal: to serve and protect the interests of our members, promote professionalism, and advance public awareness of the landscape industry.

For more information, contact Kevin Burns (650) 343-0011.