Good afternoon –
I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself to all of you. My name is Rick Lopes, I’m the new Assistant Commissioner for Communications and Publications at the Department of Real Estate (DRE). I’ve been on the job for a little over a month now and now feel pretty confident I can find office supplies when I need them. That is, when I’m not teleworking!
I wanted to drop all of you an email to let you know about a couple of things:
First, the latest on the closure of our five exam centers due to the latest Stay-at-Home orders. As many of you know, all DRE offices and Exam Centers closed to the public on Monday, December 7, 2020. The original order called for a closure of at least three weeks. That would have our facilities closed until at least December 28, 2020.
Unfortunately, the situation with the availability of hospital ICU rooms hasn’t gotten better. So, since the closure of our exam centers affects hundreds of examinees each week, we have made the decision today to keep our exam centers closed for at least one additional week, at least through January 2, 2021. We’re in process now of reaching out by phone and email to all of the examinees who were scheduled for the week of December 28, 2020.
I’m sure we’ve all got our collective fingers crossed that we’ll be able to resume testing on Monday, January 4, 2021. We’ll keep you informed of developments on that front. We’d also encourage you to get the latest information on the COVID-19 updates page on our website: https://www.dre.ca.gov/About/covid19_info.html.
We appreciate any help you can offer in helping us get the word out to industry on both of these items.
I hope you all have a nice weekend and happy holiday season. Please stay safe.
Rick