Equip your homes with clean, efficient natural gas appliances and heating and your buyers will save up to $150 a year. That makes your home an even better value. And a faster sale. For more information visit xcelenergy.com today.© 2010 XCEL ENERGY INC.

38BUILDERS' DIGEST| OCTOBER-NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2010BUILDERS ASSOCIATION OF MINNESOTAThe BAM Board held its quarterly meetingin Duluth on Wednesday, July 21st. It was a fullagenda and much was accomplished. Below isa recap of the discussion and decisions madeby the BAM Board.NAHB ResolutionNAHB recently gave official notice of a pos-sible dues increase. The issue will be discussedat the NAHB Fall Board meeting in New York.The BAM Board discussed at length whetherMinnesota supports or opposes a dues increaseof $15 per year over the course of three years.NAHB is projecting a $10 million deficit. TheBAM board voted to put forth a resolution stat-ing BAM opposes any NAHB dues increase andcalls on NAHB to present a good-faith bal-anced budget proposal.SNBA TerritoryThe Suburban Northwest BuildersAssociation recently voted to dissolve, and theBAM board voted to remand the territory backto CMBA from which the territory came.Building Performance StandardsThe Board created a task force to revise thecurrent BAM performance standards. The law,requiring builders to provide a copy of build-ing performance standards along with thehomeowner's contract, goes into effect January1st and the task force will be producing therevised document in October.NAHB Position RecommendationThe BAM board also discussed at length thereports NAHB recently published about thereorganization of NAHC. To see copies of thereport, please contact us at 651-646-7959. BAM President and state rep Mike Gohmanattended the meeting in Washington, D.C.where these documents were discussed. Theitems up for discussion at NAHB are:1. Including Associate members on thesenior officer team;2.Option to discontinue life and seniorlife director position, sunsetting in2020;3.Term limits for exec board of twoyears, three-term limit;4.Limit number of face-to-face meet-ing to save cost;5.Reduce the number of full commit-tees from 21 to 13;6.Convert councils to networkinggroups up to 10,000 relying onsocial media to distribute informa-tion;7.Review social media outlets andstreamline;8.Consolidate local associations.The BAM board elected to create a task forceto review NAHB's organization plans and sur-vey, and to put out a survey of BAM's members. New EPA Lead RulesThe BAM board participated in a grassrootseffort the day of the meeting wherein all mem-bers signed letters to the EPA asking them notto make the cleaning requirements more strin-gent. If you want to help us advocate, pleasejoin in by voicing your concern. To make iteasy, BAM has three pre-written letters.Contact us for copies.BYPAMPERRI//Executive Vice President of the BuildersAssociation of Minnesota Third Quarter BAMBoard MeetingUpdatescene it.Did you get snapped? Check out our member snapshopsfrom BATC events. View more pics at www.batc.org.1 & 2. Peter Coyle, Larkin Hoffman Daly & Lindgren atthe August 12th Developers Council Luncheon "puttinga square peg into a round hole." 3 & 4. US Representative Erik Paulsen chatting with BobEngstrom, and George Cundy, James Vagle, & MikeSwanson on a visit to BATC to share ideas.1234