As we kick off 2021, it is my honor and privilege to enter another year of leading CNCDA. This is my 19th year at the association and the 8th year as your president. As the years go by and the experiences continue to mount, I am continuously reminded of the importance of our core missions — advocacy and compliance. The uncertainties dealers faced last year with the pandemic only underscored our need to provide members with timely, thoughtful and accurate compliance guidance. I remain proud of our team and dealer leadership for taking on unprecedented challenges and remaining committed to bettering California’s automotive retail industry. It is with this valuable lesson that we plan to forge ahead into a successful 2021.

As we continue to navigate the ever-changing Coronavirus landscape, always keeping it top of mind, we are also charging ahead through increasingly tough political, legal and regulatory climates. If you have been doing business in California, this is no surprise to you or any of us at CNCDA. To address these challenges, CNCDA has prioritized a proactive and comprehensive plan aimed at improving and modernizing automotive retailing in the state of California. This will be a long-term program to tackle California’s outdated retailing process and the existing unlevel playing field that dealers are currently operating in. We have already developed a Dealer Working Group to better inform our efforts and will continue to work closely with this group as we refine our strategy and tactics, ultimately targeting a 2022 legislative solution. We are eager to get this program underway as one of our top priorities and look forward to keeping you updated on developments.

There are still many uncertainties about what this year will hold for all of us and when we can get back to “business as usual.” As we all maintain hope that we will resume in-person events sooner rather than later, we have decided to hold this year’s Dealer Day virtually, taking place on April 21st. We still plan to have a robust program, including informative policy discussions, guest speakers, and critical meetings with your legislators. This event remains just as important as ever, if not more so. Policymakers need to hear from you; this is your opportunity to share your compelling stories and urge them to continue supporting dealer efforts. Stay tuned for more information on this event coming your way soon. Additionally, we are planning for our Annual Convention to take place at the Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui October 3-6. With cautious optimism that travel will resume by the Fall and the health and safety of our members won’t be in jeopardy, we are planning for this event to take place as it has in the past and will share with you in the spring an exciting agenda and the compelling speakers we are lining up for the California dealer event of the year.