CLB Minutes 10/11/2000 ROctober 11, 2000
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
CONTRACTORS' LICENSING BOARD WORKSHOP
Naples, Florida, October 11, 2000
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Contractors' Licensing
Board, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted
business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in WORKSHOP
SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East
Naples, Florida, with the following members present:
CHAIRPERSON:
Gary Hayes
Les Dickson
Walter Crawford, IV
Daniel Gonzalez
Richard Joslin
Carol Pahl
Arthur Schoenfuss
Sara Beth White
NOT PRESENT: Robert Laird
ALSO PRESENT:
Patrick Neale, Attorney for the board
Robert Zachary, Assistant County Attorney
Thomas Bartoe, License Compliance
Bob Nonnenmacher, License Compliance
Paul Balzano, License Compliance
Ed Perico, Director of Building Review and
Permits
Judy Puig, Senior Customer Services
Representative
Page
AGENDA
COLLIER COUNTY CONTRACTORS' LICENSING BOARD
DATE October 11, 2000
TIME: 9:00 A.M.
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
COURTHOUSE COMPLEX
ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THIS BOARD WILL NEED A RECORD OF
THE PROCEEDINGS PERTAINING THERETO, AND THEREFORE MAY NEED TO ENSURE THAT A
VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES THAT
TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED.
I. ROLL CALL
II. ADDITIONS OR DELETIONS:
Ill. APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
DATE: September 20, 2000
V. NEW BUSINESS:
1. Robed Bullard - request to quality 2nd entity.
2. Paul Cretella - request to qualify 2nd entity.
Vl. OLD BUSINESS:
VII.PUBLIC HEARINGS:
VIII.REPORTS:
IX. DISCUSSION:
Workshop on ordinance amendments
X. NEXT MEETING DATE:
November 15, 2000
October t 1, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I want to call this meeting to order.
Any person who decides to appeal a decision of this board will
need a record of the proceedings pertaining thereto and,
therefore, may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the
proceedings is made, which record includes that testimony and
evidence upon which the appeal is to be based.
I'd like to make a couple of additional comments. When
speaking today, speak one at a time. Speak clearly, especially
when reading from a document, and speak directly into the
microphone.
I'd like to have the roll call, starting at my right.
MR. GONZALEZ: Dan Gonzalez.
MR. CRAWFORD: Walter Crawford.
MR. DICKSON: Les Dickson.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Gary Hayes.
MS. PAHL: Carol Pahl.
MR, SCHOENFUSS: Arthur Schoenfuss.
MS. WHITE: Sara Beth White.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Are there any additions or deletions to
the agenda?
MR. BARTOE: Staff has none.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Anybody else?
MR. DICKSON: None appear, or we have to make a motion?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Right, I need a motion to approve the
agenda then.
MR. DICKSON: So moved, Dickson.
Second.
I have a motion and second. All in favor?
MR. SCHOENFUSS:
CHAIRMAN HAYES:
Opposed?
(No response.)
Very well.
I have the minutes of September the 20th. We received them
a little late. Does anybody want to review them prior to
approving them or should we just make a motion to approve
them?
MR. DICKSON: I make a motion to approve.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I have a motion to approve --
MS. PAHL: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- by Les Dickson.
MS. PAHL: Second, Pahl.
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October 11, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: All in favor?.
Opposed?
(No response.)
Very well.
Under new business, Robert Bullard, request to qualify a
second entity. Are you here, sir?.
Would you come up to this podlure, please?
I'm gonna ask you to raise your right hand and be sworn in.
(Speaker was duly sworn.)
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Your name for the record, sir?
MR. BULLARD: Robert Bullard.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: And your reason for being here this
morning?
MR. BULLARD: Qualify a second business.
MR, DICKSON: To speed this along, Mr. Bullard, you're now
qualifying Marco Cabinets, Incorporated; is that correct? MR. BULLARD: Yes, sir.
MR. DIGKSON: And you want to qualify Bullard Construction?
MR. BULLARD: No, reverse that, please.
MR. DIGKSON: Just give us a general -
MR. BULLARD: I'm Bullard Gonstruction right now and
qualifying Marco Gabinets.
GHAIRMAN HAYES: What kind of business is Bullard
Gonstruction in?
MR. BULLARD: I do custom homes~ remodels, additions,
Collier Gounty, Marco Island.
GHAIRMAN HAYES: So you operate as a general contractor
currently?
MR. BULLARD: Yes.
GHAIRMAN HAYES: And now you're going to qualify your own
cabinet business?
MR. BULLARD: Yes.
MR. GONZALEZ: Mr. Bullard, is your license now a general
contractor, residential?
MR. BULLARD: Residential and general.
MR. GONZALEZ: You have both?
MR. BULLARD: Yeah.
GHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Neale?
MR. NEALE: Yes.
GHAIRMAN HAYES: Is there any shortage in description as a
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October t 1, 2000
residential general contractor prohibiting him to do this -- from
doing this?
MR. NEALE: I haven't been keeping up, so I apologize. What --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I see in your packet, we have two credit
reports. One from you, and one from a Charles Pipitone. MR. BULLARD: Pipitone.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Pipitone. The reason for that?
MR. BULLARD: He's gonna be the general manager, and he
started Marco Cabinets and I'm into the company now.
MR. DICKSON: In what capacity?
MR. BULLARD: In what capacity?.
MR. DICKSON: Are you a director or an officer?
MR. BULLARD: I'm one of the officers and overseer and he's --
it's kind of expanding and not just being a fabricator. We'll be
doing installations and remodels and stuff like that also within
the cabinet --
MR. DICKSON: What officer are you? I'm not seeing that in
the articles of incorporation. Mr. Bullard?
MR. BULLARD: I'm just kind of looking over here, too.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Is this your company?. You're gonna own
the stock?
MR. BULLARD: No, sir, it's going to be Pipitone's company,
but I'll be the qualifter and supposedly one of the officers.
MR. BARTOE: If I may, Mr. Pipitone has been cited a couple of
times for contracting without a license, so I'm assuming that's
why he went to Mr. Bullard. MR. BULLARD: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: According to my packet here, we have a
letter supposedly from Marco Cabinets, unsigned by anyone, that
says on this date it has been adopted unanimously by the board
that Bullard Construction will be the sole license holder, which
entitles said corporation total access to all business aspects of
Marco Cabinets. That's not good enough for me. I don't -- Bullard
Construction is a business, not a license holder.
I need your name there and I need an officer of the
corporation to sign this thing.
(Mr. Joslin entered the room.)
MR. BULLARD: For Bullard or for --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, whoever's giving you permission to
act as -- access to total business aspects of Marco Cabinets, Inc.
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There's no signature on this. This is just a piece of paper, and
you, yourself, are going to be the qualifter, Mr. Bullard, and not
Bullard Construction.
MR. BULLARD: Right. So I need to sign that paper for you?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, sir. I need somebody from Marco
Cabinets, an officer of Marco Cabinets. I'm understanding -- if I
understand correctly, you have no affiliation actually with Marco
Cabinets at all, except that you're going to be the qualifter?
You're not a stockholder, you're not an officer? MR. BULLARD: Right, right now.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Are you aware that if Marco Cabinets
doesn't pay any bills that we're gonna come looking for you?
MR. BULLARD: Yes, sir, I am.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Bartoe, when you were talking about
this Pipitone being cited, was he cited as a business operating
without a license or was he -- you know, I mean, we have a new
corporation that was formed in August of 1999, apparently,
assuming then that he's operating as Marco Cabinets without a
license?
MR. BARTOE: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MR. GONZALEZ: Mr. Bullard, is Mr. Pipitone compensating you
in any way for the use of your license?
MR. BULLARD: Yes, sir, it's a business arrangement.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I need you to have a little bit more
authority with this business before I can make sense to approve
it. Just the use of your license, Mr. Bullard, is dangerous for you
and it's illegal.
MR. BULLARD: I am going to be overseeing all the jobs and I
don't let things get out of hand. They pretty much know me as
Bullard Construction in the county and I do not let things get out
of hand. I supervise every job, make sure it's done correctly and
everybody's licensed.
MR. DICKSON: Yeah, we understand that, but so that you
understand county code. County code also -- or county law
requires that you either be an officer or director with daily
hands-on activity within the business or if you choose not to do
that, then there has to be a financially responsible officer and
there's a separate form for that. Without either one of those two,
we can't approve this. Okay.
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October 11, 2000
MR. BULLARD: An officer would be fine. I don't think they'd
have any objection to that.
MR. DICKSON: That has to be a notarized document by the
present officer and stockholders of the corporation authorizing
you or telling us that you are an officer of the corporation. I still
have a question on whether or not a general contractor can pull
a cabinet license.
MR. NEALE: It could be -- it doesn't necessarily have to be a
notarized statement, though, if it's a resolution of the board of
directors signed appropriately by the president and secretary,
without notarization, that's fine.
MR. DICKSON: And you're telling me a general contractor can
pull a cabinet license?
MR. NEALE: I don't see any reason why they could not. You
know, it's like some other things in here. I mean, it says that a
general contractor is a contractor whose services are unlimited
as to the type of work which he may do, except as provided in
this article or in the Florida statutes. So it says that it's
unlimited as to what he can do.
MR. GONZALEZ: I think we need to verify if it's a residential
or general contractor, because if it's a residential license, then
he couldn't install cabinets, let's say, in a condominium because
then it would be a commercial lob. So is it a residential license
or is it a commercial GC?
MR. BULLARD: We have both. I have a residential and
general contractor.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: You, yourself hold --
MR. BULLARD: No. My brother has the general, which is part
of my company as Bullard Construction, and I have the
residential, personally.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We're going to have some clouds all over
the place here.
MR. NEALE: Yeah, because the residential can only do --
excuse me, remodeling, repair or improvement of one-family,
two-family or three-family residences, not exceeding two stories
in height.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That may be his intent when he's trying
to say that Bullard Construction is the qualifter, he's trying to
skirt it that way. I don't know that we can accept that as a
format.
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October 11, 2000
You mean if he were a licensed cabinet maker installing and
operating within the scope of a cabinet maker's license, it would
be irrelevant what kind of building he was doing it in?
MR, NEALE: That's correct, but as a residential contractor, he
can't go in a condo as Mr. Gonzalez mentioned.
MR. DICKSON: I still have a problem with -- Mr. Neale, with
your -- with my answer to the original question. You say it's
unlimited.
As you know, Mr. Bullard, or they do, I'm not a general
contractor. It's not unlimited. A general contractor cannot go
pulling licenses for all the different trades.
MR. NEALE: Well, he can't pull a license for the trade, but he
could pull a permit to do a cabinet job, is the way I read it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Where in the ordinance does it say that
he can pull a cabinet -- pull a permit to do a cabinet, but he can't
pull a permit to do the wiring?
MR. NEALE: Well, there's the defined set of specialty contract
-- subcontractors, electrical, plumbing, et cetera, that do require
separate specialty trades.
I mean, if it does define -- our ordinance does define a
cabinetry -- cabinet installation contractor as being a separate
role, and I was thinking along the same lines as you were, except
for the fact then he said they're going to be doing other
remodeling service, which would indicate they could do those
within the scope, because it's my understanding and my
interpretation that a general contractor can hire employees to do
cabinet installation under his license, if he's a general.
Bob, would you agree with that?
MR. ZACHARY: Yes, I think so.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Mr. Chairman, for the record, my name
is Bob Nonnenmacher, licensing compliance officer. You don't
need permits to install cabinets so --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct, but if you're doing a -- if
this gentleman pulls a general contractor's license to do -- or a
permit to do the job, part of the job will be the cabinets and you
don't ask for an additional permit to do that, like if he had -- part
of it was plumbing, you'd have to have the additional plumbing
permit, so that's correct.
MR. NONNENMACHER: That's correct, but also the board
should be advised that if Mr. Bullard wanted to come in and get a
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October 11, 2000
county license for cabinet installation, it would almost be an
automatic thing for him to get, because he's a qualified general
contractor and a qualified residential contractor, which is so far
above a business and law test for a cabinet license.
So theoretically, Mr. Bullard could come into our office with
his licenses and say I would like to separate my business and I'd
like a cabinet installation license and it would be just a matter of
filling out an application in a business name and he would be
granted that license right through staff.
MR. GONZALEZ: But then he couldn't hand that license to Mr.
Pipitone to use, he'd have to --
MR, NONNENMACHER: No, he'd still have to qualify the
company.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: But then as a cabinet installer license
holder, not a general contractor or residential contractor?
MR. ZACHARY: Right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yeah, I understand, but now that throws
another ambiguity, Mr. Gonzalez, on your concerns there. If a
residential contractor can pull a cabinet maker's license and a
cabinet maker can install cabinets in a commercial building or a
residential building unlimited, then him being a non-commercial
contractor installing cabinets in a commercial building would be
wasted, our concerns wouldn't apply.
MR. NEALE: Well, I think it has to do with the significance of
cabinet installation. Someone who's going to install cabinets, in
other words, doesn't put the public health, safety and welfare in
a whole lot of risk.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Well, that would be my question to Mr.
Neale, as far as the cabinet's concerned, there are no permits
required, it's not a structural process. Exactly what does the
residential contractor ordinance say as far as what he can do?
MR. NEALE: Well--
MR. NONNENMACHER: Doesn't have to do with structural?
MR. NEALE: -- it's pretty broad. It says construction,
remodeling, repair or improvement. So if you a deem a cabinet
installation repair or improvement, you know, theoretically, it
would not be permitted under the residential contractor license
in more than three-family or commercial.
MR. NONNENMACHER: And that's state statute?
MR. NEALE: Uh-huh -- well, that's our ordinance, that's a
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October t 1, 2000
Collier County ordinance, but it's directly from the state.
MR. NONNENMACHER: In my opinion, and naturally, I'm not
trying to change the ordinance just by opinion, but if a cabinet
maker can go up into a high-rise and install cabinets and a
residential contractor can't go up in a high-rise and install
cabinets, that doesn't make too much sense to me, and if we're
not required --
MR. NEALE: It may not make sense, but unfortunately, that's
the way the law's written.
MR. NONNENMACHER: -- if we're not required by state statute
to leave it that way, maybe that should be a consideration in our
discussion this afternoon.
MR. NEALE: Well, except I think we're stuck with what we've
got and my opinion is that, and I think Mr. Nonnenmacher brings
up -- brought up a good point, in that if Mr. Bullard wants to do
this in the smoothest possible fashion, it might be easier for him
to get a cabinet license.
MR. BULLARD: If I can just come to you and get a cabinet
license under my license and I wouldn't have to be here, is that
what you're saying?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yes, because you wouldn't be qualifying a
second entity.
MR. NONNENMACHER: You would still have to appear before
the board to request to qualify a second entity.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, not under that license.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Under a cabinet license. He couldn't
get a cabinet license under Marco Cabinets with Charles Pipitone
as owner.
GHAIRMAN HAYES: No, he could get - he gets a cabinet
license as an individual and then he qualifies Marco Gabinets as
his first entity.
MR. NEALE: It would be his first entity for that license.
GHAIRMAN HAYES: So the only other thing that he would
have to come to this board for would be a review, should you
have any questions of the application.
MR. NEALE: He would then be the prior qualifter and that
would be his only qualifying company for that license.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct.
MR. NEALE: So he would have then, by definition, full
responsibility for that company.
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October t 1, 2000
MR. NONNENMACHER: Ms. Puig, do you agree with that?
MS. PUIG: Yeah.
MR. NONNENMACHER: If the gentleman has a general
contractor's license and then he comes in and wants a cabinet
license, could he just qualify a second company under that
cabinet license?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: You're gonna have to come up and grab
this microphone.
MR. NEALE: That's the sort of twisted issue, is that under the
cabinet maker's license, it would be the first company he
qualified under that license. It would be the only company he
was qualifying under that license.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I need your name, for the record.
MS. PUIG: For the record, I'm Judy Puig, senior customer
service rep. for contractor licensing.
For -- if he wanted to come in and get a cabinet license with a
residential contractor's license, we're letting building and
general contractors come in and get specialty trades, but for
residential, we're not really allowing it, because it only restricts
them to residential only, up to a triplex, up to two stories in
height.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That settles that ambiguity, now doesn't
it?
MR. BALZANO: Mr. Chairman?
MR. NEALE: Except only one issue on that, I don't know what
-- I mean, this comes to an issue (sic) that we've run into a
number of times before, is that's a staff interpretation of the
ordinance and the statute and I'm not sure whether .-
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We may need something formal --
MR. NEALE: -- whether it's an appropriate policy or not.
That's something the board needs to discuss, whether that is an
appropriate policy. I mean, because going to the issue of what --
looking at that type of license, I mean, there needs to be a policy
of some sort on adding specialty licenses to general residential
and --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think that's a good point and we'll try to
discuss that in a second. Mr. Balzano?
MR. BALZANO: The way we've done it in the past, now Mr.
Bullard took an exam, and I don't know what the specialty part of
the exam is, five or six hours, and he takes a two hour business
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October 11, 2000
and law. He would not have to take the business and law exam
again. He already passed it, and all that is required for a cabinet
license is a two hour business and law. So he could use the
scores from that two hour business and law and go in and get
any license in the county that only required a two hour business
and law.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Now according to Judy, he cannot do that
because you've been restricting building -- residential
contractors from that.
MR. BALZANO: We'll, we're saying that a residential
contractor can build a 10,000 square foot house, but he can't put
kitchen cabinets in the sixth floor of a condo. That's what we're
saying. But he already took the two hour exam that the cabinet
maker takes to do the cabinets in a high-rise.
MR. NEALE: Well, except for the one issue that I think
everybody is overlooking here, is that there's still an experience
requirement in every single one of these trades, over and above
the exam.
I mean -- you know, using myself as probably the clumsiest
builder in the world, if you follow that logic, and I can go and
pass the business and law exam, which I would hope that I
could, I could then go in and get a cabinet license with zero
experience.
MR. BALZANO: No.
MR. NEALE'. Following with what you just said, Mr. Balzano, I
could.
MR. BALZANO: Well, I said off of his residential license.
MR. NEALE: But it doesn't say that his -- and I don't want to
be argumentative, but his residential license doesn't say that
he's ever installed or knew how to install a single cabinet.
MR. BALZANO: Mr. Bullard, did you ever put kitchen cabinets
in a house that you built?
MR. BULLARD: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think this may be an issue for the
county attorney for clarification on the ordinance enforcement.
Judy has been doing it one way and Mr. Balzano sees that a little
bit differently, and I don't want to restrict someone from doing
something that they legally are allowed to do and vice versa.
MR. NEALE: I mean, just to extend this, if you go through all
of our categories that only require a business and law test, that
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October 11, 2000
would mean, following Mr. Balzano's logic, he could also pick up
an epoxy stone contractor's license, he could also pick up a --
there's a whole laundry list of contracting areas that we have in
our -- he could be a sandblasting contractor, he could be a roof
coating, painting and cleaning contractor, he could be a ceiling
and stripping contractor, he could be a satellite dish installation
contractor, he could be a non-electric sign contractor, he could
be -- and I'm, you know -- I'm probably belaboring this more than
necessary, but without any further qualification, according to Mr.
Balzano's interpretation, he can go in and pick up all of those
licenses.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Mr. Neale, if I may, I believe there was
a little miscommunication there. When Mr. Balzano said in order
to get this cabinet license, he would have to take a two hour
business and law and fill out a complete application, along with
that complete application are the letters of experience, so on
and so forth.
Mr. Bullard has already taken that two hour business and law
and has a passing score apparently, because we did license him
as a residential. He can use that score, fill out a complete
application showing his experience~ the affidavits, so on and so
forth, just like a new gentleman that has taken a cabinet license
test and then be issued the cabinet license. Now~ if he can prove
through affidavits, like everyone else, that he can do epoxy
stone, he can do sandblasting, yes, he can get every one of those
licenses.
MR. NEAL. E.' But I think that what needs to be clear, is that,
you know, the policy still has to be that the experience in any
relevant specialty trade that someone applies for has to be
demonstrated.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: True, but the bridge once again that
we're crossing over here, is the bridge between the residential
contractor and a general contractor, because everything that
this gentleman is skilled to do, basically falls under the level of
residential contractor's skills.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Mr. Hayes, I think everybody is getting
hung up on this general and residential contractor. Let's just
forget about that.
Mr. Bullard has no licenses and all and we look in a folder now
and he has passed the business -- the two hour business and law
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October 11, 2000
test. Okay? He is now qualified to get a cabinet license --
cabinet installation license, as long as he could prove it through
affidavits, and that's the only requirement we have with everyone
else, to get a cabinet license. Get the general and the
residential off the table and just consider Mr. Bullard as passing
a two hour business and law test with a score higher than 75.
Fill out a complete application with the affidavits saying he has
the experience in installing cabinets and we would give him a
license.
MS. WHITE: I have a question for Mr. Bullard. Does Marco
Cabinets want to install cabinets in condos?
MR. BULLARD: I'm sure there will be some condos involved,
but most of them are residential homes.
MS. WHITE: Well, if you've got the license, I don't see how he
can do that. I mean --
MR. NEALE: Following what Mr. Nonnenmacher says and I
think I completely agree with where he's going with this, if -- and
taking the issue of residential -- and I agree with him, take the
residential building contractor issue completely off the table, but
for the passing of the exam, that he's got a 75 or better grade on
the two hour business and law test. He comes in and fills out the
full application, and in that application, through affidavits, he
shows that he has 24 months' experience at least in the --
reflects that he's qualified to manufacture, assemble, dismantle,
maintain, adjust, alter, extend and design cabinets and millwork
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It's a done deal.
MR. NEALE: -- it's a done deal, and because of the way our
specialty licenses are set up, and we just went through this
recently with another type of license, because of the way the
specialty licenses are, he can do it anyway.
MR. DICKSON: If I can add -- and technically, I agree with
everything you're saying, just forget the residential, forget the
general contractor, it doesn't apply. I can go in as a roofing
contractor that has the business and law, Mr. Hayes could go in
as a plumbing contractor that has business and law, and if I can
prove the experience factor I can pick up every one of those
licenses.
MR. NEALE: Precisely.
MR. DICKSON: And I could, as a roofing contractor with
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October t 1, 2000
business and law, proving my experience in cabinets, I could
install cabinets in high-rises, but it's irreverence (sic),
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It's irrelevant.
MR. GONZALEZ: I make a motion that we adopt Mr..
Nonnenmacher's recommendation and let him go and get his
cabinet maker's license and then he can qualify Marco Cabinets
from there as his first entity.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I have a motion on the floor. I need a
second.
MR. DICKSON: Second, Dickson.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I have a motion and a second. Any
further discussion before I call the vote?
MR. SCHOENFUSS: I don't completely understand the motion.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: The motion, Mr. Schoenfuss, the way I
understand it, is there is nothing in the ordinance prohibiting this
gentleman, Mr. Bullard, from applying and receiving a cabinet
installer's license, and that we're going to suggest that he do
just that, and with his cabinet installer's license, then he can
qualify Marco Cabinets.
MS. PAHL: I have a question. Robert Bullard, who's before us
this morning, only has a residential contractor's license.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It has no factor, not even an issue at this
point.
MS. PAHL: All right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES:
installer, you can go and do it -- MS. PAHL: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- if you've got the business and law and
can show application -- show qualification.
MR. NEALE: I think the thing that Mr. Bullard needs to be
aware of, though, is that if he qualifies the company under the
cabinet maker's license, he can only do cabinetry. He cannot do
remodeling along with that license, except through his other
company.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, that's correct.
MR. GONZALEZ: He'd have to sub it to Bullard.
MR. NEALE: You'd have to sub it to Bullard.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct. Mr. Bullard, you wanted
to speak.
MR. BULLARD: Oh, yeah. Once I do this license, would I have
If he can show qualifications as a cabinet
Page 14
October t 1, 2000
to appear back here or am I clean with you?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, but bear in mind, when you try to
qualify Marco Cabinets as a cabinet contractor's license holder,
you will be asked to be totally financially responsible for that
business. You just bear that in mind, that if you're not an officer
in that business and you're not signing any checks and you don't
basically have a whole lot to do with that business, other than as
qualifter and that qualifter -- or that business has any problems
whatsoever, we're going for you and your license.
MR. BULLARD: Yes, sir. I have it structured so that
everything is coming across my desk. I know every job that's
going on. I don't want to be left out. This is just -- you know, I'm
not just walking away from this company. CHAIRMAN HAYES: I understand.
MR. BULLARD: I will be a big part of it. Everything is gonna
come across my desk. Every job that is done is gonna be on my
desk and I have to sign all contracts. That's one of the issues
that I have put into this stipulation of this company, because,
you know, it is a financial arrangement and I'm gonna know
what's going on.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I just mentioned that as advice, not as a
condition of this --
MR. BULLARD: I appreciate it very much.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- board.
MR. DICKSON: Just so you understand, though, this isn't a
done deal.
MR. BULLARD: Yes, sir, I know.
MR, DICKSON: You have to prove 24 months of experience in
cabinets and you need to get the ordinance and see the
affidavits that you're gonna have to have.
MR. BULLARD: I used to build cabinets.
MR. DICKSON: You've got it made then.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I have a motion and a second. Any
further discussion?
MR. SCHOENFUSS: I still have discussion. I still don't
understand the motion in light of the paperwork in front of us.
We have a gentleman here that is applying to qualify an
additional entity --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We're not going to act on it.
MR. SCHOENFUSS: -- and we're not going to act on it?
Page 15
October t 1, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct.
MR. DICKSON: We're denying it.
MR. SCHOENFUSS: So the motion has no relationship to this
paperwork?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct.
SCHOENFUSS: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Any further discussion?
Calling for the vote. All in favor?.
Opposed?
(No response.)
Very well.
MR. BULLARD: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We will discuss, Ms. Puig, the difference
between residential and building abilities to do things, perhaps in
our ordinance review.
Continuing on, Paul, C-R-E-T-E-L-L-A, Cretella, request to
qualify second entity. Are you here, sir? Come up to the podlure.
I'm gonna have to ask you to get sworn in, sir.
(Speaker was duly sworn.)
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Your name, for the record?
MR. CRETELLA: Paul Cretella.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: You sure you want to continue with this,
this morning? What are you here for, sir?.
MR, CRETELLA: I'm here to qualify a second entity for a tile
and marble contractor's license.
MR. DICKSON: You're trying to qualify Continental Services,
Incorporated, correct?
MR. CRETELLA: Yes, sir.
MR, DICKSON: You presently qualify HFS of Fort Myers,
Incorporated?
MR, CRETELLA: Yes.
MR. DICKSON: That's correct?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: What does HFS stand for?.
MR. CRETELLA: Well, it is -- the entity used to be Heritage
Flooring Systems. They changed it to HFS to turn it into sort of
Home Finishing Solutions and they're making, you know, a
change of name over (sic), so they thought the initials were
better.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: But that's not a general contractor?.
MR. CRETELLA: No, it's just tile and marble.
Page16
October 11, 2000
MR. CRAWFORD: A flooring company?
MR. CRETELLA: Yes, flooring.
MR, DICKSON: What's R-A Tile Company of Naples,
Incorporated?
MR. CRETELLA: R-A Tile has been an installation company
here in Naples since 1995. I have made a deal with the sole
owner, Rob Melo to purchase interest in that company and run
that company, and our -- part of our condition is we're changing it
to Continental Surfaces. Rob had been, his expertise has been
the installation side of things. I have experience with both the,
you know, putting together the building contracts, materials,
processing, administration of the bills -- you know, of the
business. So that's a partnership that we decided to try to
incorporate.
MR. DICKSON: So R-A Tile will --
MR. CRETELLA: I purchased into R-A Tile and we resolved to
change the name of R-A Tile to Continental Surfaces.
MR. DICKSON: Okay. I see your amendment to the articles.
! also see that you are an officer and shareholder in
Continental.
MR. CRETELLA: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I have a credit application that is --
MR. DICKSON: Very good
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- nice.
MR. DICKSON: Mr. Chairman, based on the packet, the fact
that everything is in order, he is an officer of the corporation, as
well as a shareholder, credit report and everything else are in
order, I submit that the application be approved. MR. SCHOENFUSS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I have a motion and a second. Any
further discussion? All in favor?
Opposed?
(No response.)
MR. DICKSON: See how easy it can be.
MR. CRETELLA: Well, I try to do things right.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Excuse me, Mr. Cretella, you will not
be able to come into our office to get that license until tomorrow
because I have your packet here and it will be late getting back
to the office.
MR. CRETELLA: That will be fine. Thank you very much.
Page 17
October 11, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Thank you, sir.
MR. DICKSON: I just - if there's any way -- comment, if
there's any way we can get packets like that on second entities,
it wouldn't be difficult.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It wouldn't be difficult at all. Everything
is understood by the applicant.
MR. DICKSON: That packet is perfectly in order.
MR. NEALE: It's a good packet. It brings up again the new
second entity forms. Hopefully, we can start using those next
month.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: The way I understand it -- real quickly
before we move on here. The way I understand it, as Mr. Dickson
has explained, first of all anybody that is -- can prove experience
in one of these trades, these particular trades and can produce a
business and law exam of passing grade, can apply for any
license they want to?
MR. BARTOE: Yes, sir, the big secret is experience.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: The big secret's experience, and that
generally is proven by affidavits? MR. BARTOE: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Now, just so that we're clear on this as
well, if I hold ten licenses in all these trades, each one of those I
have an incorporated business with, I am not qualifying one
single second entity.
MR. BARTOE: True.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's exactly the way I understand it.
Okay. Just before we moved on, I wanted to clarify that.
MR. DICKSON: Right, but to clarify what you said, what we're
talking about is only specialty contractor licenses, not licenses
that require separate tests within themselves. CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct.
MR. BALZANO: Mr. Hayes, if you have your two hour business
and law and you'd like to become a roofer, you would just take
the roofing part of that exam, not the business and law, because
you already have taken it. That's what I was trying to tell you.
I would think that Mr. Bullard would have an easier time
proving experience, having been a home builder for ten years, to
put in kitchen cabinets, than you would coming in as a plumber
and saying I want to put in kitchen cabinets. He can build a
whole house, I'm sure he can put in kitchen cabinets.
Page t8
October 11, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It does make sense, that's correct,
MR. BALZANO: And that's how we addressed him, by that
issue.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MR. JOSLIN: Who monitors the affidavits when they come in?
MR. NONNENMACHER: I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
MR. JOSLIN: Who monitors the affidavits? He has to come up
with sworn affidavits from people he's either done work for or
said he's done work for or whatever, who looks at these to see if
they're really valid.
MR. BARTOE: Well, the office staff, when they come in, they
just make sure they're signed by the person that's -- and
notarized. We would not have the manpower to start
investigating every affidavit that comes in with all these
applications.
MR. JOSLIN: I see the problem, though, you know, shoot, if I
can go out and get five people to sign the affidavits and not have
personal experience.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I can explain that in just a second. Ms.
Puig, you wanted to speak.
MS. PUIG: That's correct, as long as it's showing the years of
experience required and notarized, they're issued a license.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. However, I want to make sure we
understand this. You're correct, you don't make a habit of going
out and investigating affidavits. However, should I lie on an
affidavit for someone to get a license, my license is in jeopardy.
The way I understand state statute, that if I knowingly lie on an
affidavit, that my license is in jeopardy. So that's a serious and
significant notice that should you happen to be concerned over
this gentleman coming or getting cited for no license and then
wanting to buy a license from somebody, should you happen to
think, you know, I think there might be a little bit of hanky-panky
going on here and you check on the validity of one of his
affidavits --
MR. NONNENMACHER: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- boom, his license -- the gentleman that
supplied the affidavit, that signed the affidavit, his license is in
jeopardy. So you're taking a serious risk when you sign an
affidavit.
Now, however, if you're not licensed in anything and you sign
Page t9
October 1t, 2000
an affidavit, I guess you've got nothing to lose.
MR. CRAWFORD: Doesn't the affidavit have to come from a
licensed contractor?. MS. PUIG: No.
MR. DICKSON: Taking one more point, if Mr. Hayes would do
that, he would not only get caught, he would lose that license,
say, for cabinets, he would also be out of the plumbing business.
MR. BALZANO: And the thing you have to think about, if Mr.
Dickson came in and wanted a license to put in tile and marble
and he brought a list of people and affidavits, that would seem
harder to believe than if a general contractor come in and
wanted to do it, because he would be doing that work. Mr.
Dickson or yourself, you do plumbing and he does roofing, are far
removed from installing kitchen cabinets. I mean, you have to
use a little bit of discretion and I'm sure the girls do.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It makes sense. I just wanted to clear up
some points.
Okay. We have any public hearings?
MR. BARTOE: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Having none, do we have any reports?
MR. BARTOE: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Having none.
All right. Discussion which is the topic of the day, the
workshop for the county amendments on our licensing ordinance.
Mr. Neale, I'm gonna perhaps ask you to guide us on some of
our points that we have compiled over the last year or two as to
what we need to address. Also, it will be that I'd like to
recognize the people in the audience that have a comment or a
question on some particular ordinance issue, so that they don't
have to spend the day sitting around working with us that do
have to spend the day.
MR. NEALE: We can do it in a variety of ways. We can either
have the people who are here who waited patiently through the
first hour, come up and testify so that they can leave more
quickly and then we can get on with some of the other tasks.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That may be the best thing to do, then we
can just follow up on our business details. I'm sure that staff has
some concerns and some issues on some of the licenses as well.
MR, NEALE: There's some statutory changes that we're going
to have to make, so -- based on changes to the Florida Statutes,
Page 20
October 11, 2000
so those we can look at too. Descriptions of what people can do
and minor changes, so, you know, as you say, we may want to
just take testimony first and go from there.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. I'm going to question the fact at
this point too, Mr. Neale, are we actually going to be taking
testimony or just receiving comments?
MR. NEALE: Really receiving comments.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So I don't need to swear these people in?
MR. DICKSON: Do we need a recorded transcript?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We need a recorded transcript of
comments. My thoughts are, at normal county commission
meetings and some of the other meetings, we generally sign in to
be a speaker. At this point, we have not signed anyone in and so
I'm going to haphazardly ask that those individuals that do have
some comments or suggestions would come up to the podium
one at a time and give those and then we'll act on them or
discuss on those after we've heard from everyone.
Anybody want to come up and start this thing off?
Yes, sir.
I need your name for the record.
MR. DUNN: Yes, my name is Bob Dunn and I own Bay
Aluminum. We came into a meeting here a few weeks ago and
got things a little bit straightened out. Before I get started, I
want to commend all of you people, I've never seen anybody act
so good and handle it so -- at first I thought it was bad waiting for
30 days, but I appreciate you going and getting legal advice,
which is one of my comments here.
If I go into the county right now and ask to do something and
somebody in the county -- I want to call them armchair attorneys
that they've got there -- gives me advice and it's illegal. I would
like to see you people get something where I can fill out a form
that will go to the attorneys and get a legal opinion on it, even if I
have to pay for that opinion. This will eliminate 50 percent of
your meetings here, I feel.
You're getting people coming in here like me, that have a
problem, and if it would have went to Mr. Neale in the beginning,
that would have been taken care of, I feel immediately, without
any problem.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to object to the
term armchair attorneys, as far as staff is concerned in the
Page 21
October 11, 2000
county.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Thank you, Mr. Nonnenmacher.
MR. DUNN: That might not have been the right word, but
actually what I'm doing is i'm going in the county and I'm getting
advice to run my business and then we're finding out after ten
weeks of hardship that we've been fighting the county's opinion
on that or these people's opinion is not legal, and I feel that there
should be some way that you people or the county or the
individual giving me a legal opinion on a question there~ again
even if cost -- I'd be willing to come in and pay any day to have a
paper forwarded to Mr. Neale and what is your advice or what is
the position of the county on this.
MR, DICKSON: Are you here to address a specific issue that
we can get into?
MR. DUNN: That is one of them there. The other one is the
second floor over on condos that we had talked about at the last
meeting. We are qualified to do work on first and second floor --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Dunn, who are we?
MR DUNN: Bay Aluminum.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Bay Aluminum holding what license?
MR. DUNN: Right, aluminum specialty license, and I also have
a woodworking license and a concrete license. The structural
concrete, I don't feel I even want to get involved in asking to do
work over ground level. I don't feel we're qualified for it, but as
far as doing work that we're doing on first and second floors, I
feel that we should get involved in being able to go over the
second floor to do this work.
MR. DICKSON: What type of work are we talking about?
MR. DUNN: Screen rooms, glass enclosures, railings. Only
the aluminum work that we're doing right now.
MR, DICKSON: So you're saying presently your license does
not allow you to go past the second floor.
MR. DUNN: My understanding is that on a condo we are not
allowed to go over the second floor and do work.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Neale, is that aluminum contractor, or
is that the aluminum contractor including concrete?
MR. NEALE: Including concrete~ he has the including
concrete.
The way I read it, and I went to Mr. Zachary -- because we had
some discussion on this in the past, and I simply don't remember
Page 22
October 11, 2000
exactly where we came in. My memory of this is that as far as
the aluminum installation portion of it, he can do it at any level,
but the concrete portion of it can only be done on grade. So that
can only be done on the first floor.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: In looking at the codified Ordinance
22-162, Section 2, it doesn't say anything like that there. It says
on grade only.
MR. NEALE: Well, on grade only -- read the sentence, it says
these contractors may form, place on grade reinforcing steel,
miscellaneous steel, and pour, place and finish non-structural
concrete incidental to an aluminum accessory structure only, on
grade only, and screen enclosures. So it's -- it's my reading that
that is the on grade portion -- is for --
MR. CRAWFORD: For concrete only?
MR. NEALE: -- concrete only.
MR. DICKSON: So you're just wanting that clarified?
MR. NEALE: The rest of it, it makes no mention of where he
can do it, and I think there's some logical basis to that, because
someone pouring concrete on grade, probably the worst thing
that's going to happen is it's gonna crack. Somebody pouring
concrete on the third floor, it can fall off and kill somebody.
So I think, you know, installing an aluminum room on an
already engineered eighth floor condominium lanai is probably
not a problem. Pouring new concrete to extend that lanai on the
eighth floor is a real problem. I think -- at least that's my
analysis of it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Ms. Puig, does that make sense from your
perspective?
MS. PUIG: Yes, it does, and I believe that's why we have the
concrete form, place and finish specialty trade to cover that
aspect of concrete.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Not a problem. So if this gentleman is
looking at doing a screen enclosure on the eighth floor, his
license is definitely legitimate to do that? MS. PUIG: Yes, it is.
MS. WHITE: And that includes railings as well?
MS. PUIG: Yes, it does. Everything but concrete.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Bartoe, Mr. Nonnenmacher, you see
(sic) any question on that?
MR. BARTOE: I agree with it.
Page 23
October 11, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So the license as it's written is relatively
clear, Mr. Dunn.
MR, DUNN: I was told I couldn't do that. I know -- excuse me
-- anything structural, you say concrete, but that is structural,
and our interpretation is that anything in our license structurally
cannot be done. That's a general contractor's license there. We
can go out and build a room or do whatever we want, but we
change the integrity of the building or the structure, that's out of
the question.
MR. NEALE: If you punch a hole -- part of the issue and now
it's coming back to me, because I spoke to his attorney also.
Part of the issue was whether they could modify the structure
itself on a high level condo, cut a hole in the wall, you know,
remove -- you know, removing and replacing doors was not an
issue, taking out screen doors and putting in rail guards, but the
issue was whether they could cut a larger opening in an upper
level wall, and it was our interpretation that that's not something
that would be permitted under that license. That would take a
GC's license.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Does that make sense to you, Mr. Dunn?
MR. DUNN: That's reasonable. I don't feel we're even
qualified for that, so I don't even want to ask for that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Zachary, do you see any ambiguity to
the way the ordinance is written now?
MR. ZACHARY: No, I think we're straight on the ordinance,
we've got the right interpretation.
I just want -- don't want it to come out of here that the general
public should be coming to the county for legal advice or the
county attorney's office for legal advice. Our client is the board,
the county commissioners and this board and the staff. We
cannot give legal advice to the public.
MR. NEALE: And to be -- to follow on with that clearly. My
client is this board, is the contractors' licensing board.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. One step further then, where
should a citizen go for legal advice on county ordinance?
MR. NEALE: They really need to go to private counsel for that.
I mean we'll be more than -- you know, I think Mr. Zachary and I
would both say that we'd be more than happy to answer
questions from the public from either the contractors' licensing
board or the county's point of view, but it must be, and since this
Page 24
October 11, 2000
is on TV and an amazing number of people watch this, it's
important to note that if they come to either Mr. Zachary or
myself, we're more than happy to answer questions from the
county's point of view, but our clients are the county and the
contractors' licensing board.
If they need to have advice on which they should -- they can
rely, to act for themselves, they really need to go and find private
counsel, as Mr. Dunn did.
You know, Mr. Dunn got his own attorney. He brought some
things to light. We had some very good discussions. Mr. Zachary
and I then reviewed it with county staff and we realized that the
interpretation it was being given was not correct. We modified
the interpretation and now we think we have a much better --
better role (sic), but we both did that in our roles representing,
you know, the Board of County Commissioners or the
contractors' licensing board. So, you know--
MR. CRAWFORD: How about the board of appeals, where does
that fit into this process? Is that more for code interpretation?
MR. NEALE: The board of appeals is a subset -- I may be
stepping on your toes, Bob, but -- MR. ZACHARY: That's okay.
MR. NEALE: -- the board of appeals is a subset of the county
commission. So Mr. Zachary would be, you know, the attorney
that would be representing them probably or, you know, a
member of the county attorney's office.
MR, CRAWFORD: Don't you have a board of appeals within the
permitting division, Mr. Perico?
MR, PERICO: For the record, Ed Perico, building director.
Yes, we have a separate entity, the board of adjustments and
appeals, which usually it's code related. If we have a difference
between fire and the building department, then they'll make a
final decision on the case.
MR. CRAWFORD: That's the other side of the house. This is
the licensing --
MR. PERICO: Yeah, this has nothing to do with the licensing
board.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So the board of adjustments and appeals
would not hear an objection or concern over an individual having
a different interpretation of a licensed ability to do something?
MR. PERICO: No, it has nothing to do with the licensing
Page 25
October 11, 2000
issues.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Then that would definitely still yet have
to come to this board?
MR, PERICO: Yes, it would.
MR. DICKSON: Mr. Dunn, you're good to go, aren't you?
MR. DUNN: I'm what?
MR. DICKSON: You're good to go now that we have this --
MR. DUNN: As far as I'm concerned, if we can do work over
the second floor that we've been doing, I'm ready to go right
now. There's no problem on it.
I do have a little concern over this legal -- I understand what
Mr. Neale is saying there, but we came here for suggestions and
my suggestion is, is there any way that we can go in and I get an
opinion from a county employee and I disagree with it and I fill
out a form, give it to the county employee and he gets advice on
that, whether we got the same understanding, whether the
attorney and the county employee have the same understanding
there. Something that would simplify your meetings here and
eliminate a lot of meetings here, I feel
MR, DICKSON: But that's the reason we're here.
MR. DUNN: Right.
MR. DICKSON: What I would suggest for you, since all this
has been cleared up for you today, is get a copy of the minutes
that took place here today. Maybe keep that on record, if it ever
comes up again. Every single point that affects you has been
discussed. That would solve all future problems.
MR, DUNN: Maybe by the time you get through today, we'll
have all this cleared up, I hope.
MR. DICKSON: That will never happen.
MR. DUNN: Well, I think you're doing a good job. I'd like to
thank you for your time and I appreciate everything that went on
there. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Thank you, Mr. Dunn.
MS. WHITE: Gary, I do have one question. I don't understand,
on installation of screen enclosures and railings on the higher
levels in a condo, because all of a sudden that becomes a safety
factor, that's not the first level.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Let me ask you, Ms. White, are you
finished with Mr. Dunn? Are you directing this question to him or
to us?
Page 26
October 1t, 2000
MS. WHITE: I think I'm directing this question to him as well.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. I'm sorry, if we were finished with
him, we could sit him down.
MS. WHITE: Yeah, aren't there different safety factors for
installation of railings and all that thing (sic) on the upper levels
of condos or not?
MR. PERICO: For the record, Ed Perico. It would be the same
standard for railings, anything over 30 inches, would apply to
anything up on a high-rise, it's the same safety factor. MS. WHITE: So it would make no difference?
MR. PERICO: It would make no difference to the owner.
MS. WHITE: All right. Question answered. Thank you
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Thank you, Mr. Dunn.
Anyone else want to say a few words on any of the
ordinances, the licenses?
MS. HOLLOW: Good morning, I'm Cathy Curtis Hollow
(phonetic) from the American Specialty Contractors' Association.
I had a request from a member who couldn't be here to ask
about a clarification.
On page 17, landscaping contractor.
MR, DICKSON: I knew this would come up.
MS. HOLLOW: It states that a landscaping contractor is
qualified to install decorative stone and/or rocks.
On page 18, paving block contractor, it states that those
persons who are qualified to construct driveways, sidewalks,
patios and decks using concrete paving units -- the request was
that there's some clarification for those representing the
landscaping contracting, are they or are they not allowed to
install driveway pavers?
MR. GONZALEZ: They are not.
MS. HOLLOW: Because it's not real clear in the ordinance.
MR. CRAWFORD: We adjusted that last time and we included
under the landscaping contractor's license the ability to also
include walkways and incidental areas, but not full driveways.
MS. HOLLOW: So in other words, they are not allowed to
install driveways, and I guess I'm asking could that be added -
could that language be added?
MR, CRAWFORD: We discussed that at the last two meetings
and decided against it. The theory was that the driveway was a
larger, more substantial piece of the property and encroached
Page 27
October 1t, 2000
into easements and other drainage issues, and I think the board
was pretty happy with the way that -- what we are going to do I
believe today, though, is in Section 1.6.3.25, clarify that the
decorative stone does include walkways and incidental areas,
such as sidewalks.
MR. DICKSON: The things we discussed on that is the
driveway requires a concrete license. MS. HOLLOW: Right.
MR. DICKSON: Which -- and it does break all these borders.
It's an entirely different license and, no, they cannot do
driveways. Any more than we're gonna give those driveway
people with the concrete license a landscaping license.
MS. HOLLOW: Right, that was the concern. The concern
came from the paving contractors.
MR. DICKSON: No, it's a done deal. That's not going to
happen.
MS. HOLLOW: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Anybody else in the audience?
I want to make note. Appreciate, we're well represented by
the American Specialty Contractors today. We have the
president of the organization, a past president and their
executive director here today.
If we don't have any further questions on the licenses from
the general public, we're going to go ahead and continue our
work as we need to amend it and we appreciate you being here,
and you're more than welcome to sit here for as long as you can
stand it.
MR. NEALE: Does that go for me too?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, Mr. Neale, you're stuck.
Okay. Mr. Bartoe and Mr. Nonnenmacher, I think after a few
of our discussions we concluded that between you gentlemen
and Ms. Puig, that there has been some questions and
ambiguities that you would like to see us clear up from the
dealing with the public perspective.
Ms. Puig, do you have a laundry list, perhaps, of some
questions you'd like us to go over?
MS. PUIG: I just have a bunch of notes from the ordinance.
We can just go through the ordinance.
On page three, owner/builders. I think we need to discuss
about commercial -- allowing owner/builders to do commercial
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October t 1, 2000
work of some sort, get that back in the ordinance to comply with
the state statutes, whatever the state statutes read.
MR. NEALE: There is a legal opinion issued by --
MS. PUIG: The limit would be 25,000?
MR. NEALE: Yeah, issued by Mr. Palmer on April 24th, 2000.
In response to this it says that under 489.103(7), that it
authorizes an owner of a commercial building to be eligible to
obtain a Collier County building permit to improve such
commercial building, provided the cost of the improvement will
not exceed $25,000 and the improvements are not being made
preparatory to lease or sale of the building. The statutory
exemption contained in there cannot be restricted by a county
ordinance. That's based on opinion of Florida Attorney General
dated October 11, 1994, and also the owner/builder must be
provided with a copy of the disclosure statement printed in
489. t 03. Every type of contractor employed by the owner/builder
that is listed in Ordinance 98-105 as amended must be licensed,
however, the owner/builder must be on the job site and
personally supervise all work that can be performed by an
individual who does not require a contractor's license.
This is somewhat expanded on, in my interpretation, by some
other statutory amendments that were made in this legislative
session, whereby under their owner/builder -- under owner/builder
in there, it's required that it also -- this is sort of a minor point,
and doesn't probably even need to be incorporated into the
ordinance, but that under 489.t03, which is the same section
with exemptions, that's the building, the person who is doing --
the owner/builder must still obtain all required building code
inspections. It just read building inspections before, but now it's
building code inspections.
MR. CRAWFORD: I do not like that idea at all, but we have to
follow the state --
MR. NEALE: We unfortunately or fortunately have to follow
the state statutes. I think where this comes in, and to give you a
little personal comment here, is in issues -- I'm involved with a
couple not-for-profits that want to do some minor renovations to
the offices and so forth, and so they can act in that instance as
their own owner/builder, pull the permit, have licensed
contractors do the work for them and it saves them money. So I
think it's really a small business owner's exemption, I think, is
Page 29
October 11, 2000
why it's in the statute.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: The exemption is that a small business
owner be allowed to do his own --
MR. NEALE: Well, it doesn't specifically say small business
owner, but it does allow an owner/builder permit for commercial
buildings up to $25,000, but it requires, you know, direct on-site
supervision by the owner and things like that. So in the case of a
corporate owner it would mean someone who is, you know, duly
qualified to act for that corporation.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So, Ms. Puig, in reviewing the 489 Statute
adapting -- adopting that wordage and modifying Section t.3.1,
owner/builders, we could possibly look at doing and making that
as a recommendation for an amendment? MS. PUIG: Yes.
MR. BARTOE: I think we have to do that.
MR. NEALE: Yeah, we don't have a choice really.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We don't have a choice.
MR. DICKSON: Can I ask a question? How do we monitor the
25,000? I've seen, and you've caught people, doing over
$100,000 worth of work with a $2,400 permit. CHAIRMAN HAYES: The inspectors.
MS. PUIG: The inspectors, and by the way the permit's pulled,
and the value of construction they have to put on the permit
application.
MR. DICKSON: That's the only way we can catch them?
MS. PUIG: Yeah.
MR. NEALE: The big issue that I'm concerned about, and
there's really very little, except by Mr. Perico's office keeping an
eye on it, is the guy who comes in and pulls six $25,000 permits
to do $150,000, and that's a real concern.
MR. PERICO: For the record, we've got a tracking system that
was put into place a few years back, just for that need. You
know, we had it many years ago where a guy had come in and
pulled a plumbing permit, electric, and before you know it, it was
a full blown kitchen, restaurant and everything else put in there,
that was done for minimum fees, $36 each pop and, you know,
we do have a system of tracking it now.
MR. DICKSON: Are your inspectors also looking for valuations
on the permit?
MR. PERICO: Yeah, they'll look at the valuations and also
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October 1 t, 2000
actually for the notice of commencement and everything else,
but when it comes in for permitting, we do the valuation of it, you
know, not just what's written down there.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Well, we understand that
suggestion.
MR. NEALE: Mr. Hayes, we have a gentleman who --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I'm aware of that. Mr. Smart, I'll get to
you in just a second. I just want to put to rest our issue
currently.
MR. NEALE: So we'll make the amendment on the
owner/builder to conform with state statute on that.
MR. GONZALEZ: Mr. Neale, does it definitely say that the
subcontractors will be listed on the application?
MR. NEALE: It says that they -- you know, they have to use --
they have to put in a permit application just as if they were a
licensed contractor.
MR. GONZALEZ: So the list of subs --
MR. NEALE: All has to be there, for anything that requires a
license. You know, if there's an unlicensed sub on there, the job
gets shut down just like it would -- actually, in that case then
they would get cited by the department for using an unlicensed
sub, they get the -- you know, the citation would be brought into
here and so forth. So there's -- because of the computerization of
the department and the way the department works now, I think
there's a pretty good control on this kind of issue so --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Any other discussion on the issue?
We have another individual from the public that wants to
speak. Would you come up to the podium, please, sir?
MR. SMART: Thank you. My name is Sam Smart. I hold a
glass and glazing competency license here in Collier County and
also Lee County. I wanted to talk to the board basically about
what I am able to do under this license and, perhaps, talk about
a need to expand the limits of my license.
There's a new building code that's coming into effect, I guess
July 1st, as the way it stands now, and it's gonna have quite a
drastic effect on the glass and glazing industry. I'd say probably
90 percent of the windows installed in Collier County are going to
have to have impact protection, and what the industry is doing,
they are coming out with a number of different products that do
pass different tests that will meet the impact requirements under
Page 31
October 11, 2000
the new building code, but also there is the provision that you
can still install a shutter system in front of a typical glass
window.
Now, under the provisions that currently exist, I do not
believe a glass and glazing contractor is able to install hurricane
shutters or panels in front of windows. I believe that falls now
under specialty aluminum contractors, and specialty aluminum
contractors install siding, gutters, soffits, prefabricated rooms,
screen enclosures and so on.
And the way the world is moving here, the industry -- the glass
and glazing industry is coming up with systems even that
incorporate a shutter system within a window system, and I
would expect there's going to be a number of innovations also
forthcoming, and I cannot even predict what all (sic) industry
might come up with to meet this impact requirement, but as a for
instance, we installed some windows recently at the new
Corkscrew Middle School and there is a building there that is a
gymnasium that is also going to be a shelter, a storm shelter,
and I installed windows that basically are a window, and also
incorporated in the window, there is an aluminum Iouver system
that can be closed in case of a hurricane. So the -- the
demarcation between impact protection, glass and glazing and
shutters is actually going to become blurred, I would say, and
again, I would think that perhaps the board should think that
maybe a glass and glazing contractor is competent to install
storm shutters.
It's almost mandated that when I install a window, it be
impact rated and if I leave that opening and it doesn't have some
sort of protection there, you know, I guess the county inspectors
are going to have to look to another contractor to come and
make sure that there is a shutter system there.
I think economically for the community, it behooves people
that, you know, when I'm there installing a window, if they
choose to go to an alternate shutter system, that I also be able
to do that, and I personally don't think there's anybody more
qualified to install storm shutters than the glass and glazing
people that are working with the openings in these buildings,
anyhow.
MR. DICKSON: Mr. Smart?
MR. SMART: Yes, sir.
Page 32
October 11, 2000
MR. DICKSON: Describe these units, the ones that have the
shutter in the window system? Is it all a contained unit within a
frame?
MR. SMART: It is, it's a single frame. I've seen designs too
where they have a wider window frame that will have provisions
for a panel going outside of the window, but it's an incorporated
system.
The one that we installed at the school was actually a
projected window, but it would have what I can describe as a
jalousie window on the outside. Rather than glass, it had
aluminum panels in it. It was a special operation, that you could
close the aluminum slats, but it basically was one frame.
MR. DICKSON: The other question I've got for you, aren't they
also coming out with a window that has glass in it that cannot be
broken?
MR. SMART: Well, it can be broken, but it will -- the integrity
of the window will be maintained and, yes, there's a number of
products right now that are in the marketplace. I've been
installing them for a number of years.
MR. DICKSON: Then I'm going to throw something at you. For
what you're asking this board to consider, I want you to
remember also that the people that only put up shutters are
going to want to put in windows. It goes two ways.
MR. SMART: Well, I would leave that to you whether they're
qualified to do that or not. I -- you know, I feel very strongly that
we are qualified to install shutters. Whether specialty aluminum
contractors are qualified to install windows, I don't know about
that.
MR. DICKSON: I assure you they'll stand there and say they're
very well qualified.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Ms. Puig, how is it -- what licenses
separate them now? Is it the aluminum contractor's license that
does shutters?
MR. CRAWFORD: Yes.
MS. PUIG: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Aluminum contractors. So if somebody
wants to put a shutter up, they need to contact an aluminum
contractor?
MS. PUIG: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: And aluminum contractor as written says
Page 33
October 11, 2000
qualified to fabricate, install, maintain, repair, alter or extend
accessories, such as metal and vinyl siding, awnings, security
shutters, gutters, soffits and prefabricated rooms.
MR. BARTOE: If I may, in your packet, there were two pages.
The first page is Experior's assessments and it says hurricane
shutter installer. We had a young lady from the other coast
licensed in a couple counties in our office and she feels that this
license, with this one hour test, is much better than the
aluminum license if you want to install shutters.
There's nothing in the aluminum test that involves installing
shutters at all and she said a person such as herself, you know,
that is only interested in installing shutters, she feels that Collier
County should also offer this license and then she stated a more
appropriate test.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: This is the Experior assessments that I
have in front of me. This -- okay. I see on the second page, it
says hurricane shutter/awning contractor.
MR. BARTOE: That second page is a sample of how Palm
Beach County's ordinance reads.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: What I wanted to do, I noticed in our
audience we have an aluminum specialty contractor. I'd like to
find out what his interpretation or view of this wordage would be
prior to suggesting, perhaps, that we look at it as part of maybe
not only an individual ordinance, but as part of a window glazing
ordinance.
I am concerned over what Mr. Smart has brought up. When
these things start coming together as one piece, is he illegal one
way or is he illegal the other? Would you come up to the
podium?
MR. BARTOE: I don't know where you're going, Mr. Hayes, but
if you're talking about combining glass and glazing and shutters,
I'm sure the person that holds this shutter license doesn't want
to take the three hour test on glass and glazing.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, I'm not interested in them taking the
test. I'm more interested in adding wordage. Mr. Monnot.
MR. MONNOT: My name is Ray Monnot from Aluminum
Specialties.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We have a glass and glazing gentleman
here and now we have an aluminum specialty contractor. What
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October 11, 2000
do you see to fit?
MR. MONNOT: Are you asking me specifically about storm
protection at this point?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Storm shutters.
MR. MONNOT: Storm shutters fall under three basic
categories. You have storm panels -- four basic categories. You
have storm panels, you have accordion shutters, you have what's
called roll-down or roll-up shutters, then you would have the
newer laminate that goes over the glass, and I think you could --
that would fall into this too.
Right now I self (sic) limit myself to just storm panels. These
are the manual panels, they are available principally in aluminum
and they are available in steel, that store in your garage and then
the homeowner would put them up in case of storm. I do not do
accordion shutters, nor do I do roll-down shutters. Never have.
When you get into roll-down shutters, I would say better than
50 percent of the time you are into electric, and that is in
another trade. So I don't know how that's handled intra-county
(sic) right now. I'm not in that business, nor do I intent to get in
it, but over 50 percent of the applications with roll-down type
shutters, they are going to be electric.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: This is what Mr. Bartoe and I were
discussing the other day, and the way this wordage is written,
any electrical work connected with the installation of the
shutters or awnings must be done by an electrical contractor.
So that wordage by itself would fix that.
MR. BARTOE: That's already required by the county.
MR. BARTOE: If you pull a permit to put in shutters, if there's
electric, you better get an electrical contractor.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: You have to do that on anything, whether
it's a dock or --
MR. BARTOE: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct. What I'm concerned with,
what I was looking at with you, Mr. Monnot, was that as Mr.
Smart has discussed, the window industry is evolving and there
are new products and some of the new products he's speaking of
makes him feel that he as a window installer is qualified to
install these types of shutters and things. Do you see any reason
that that wouldn't be a possibility?
MR. MONNOT: Well, Mr. Smart's a good friend of mine, and I
Page 35
October 11, 2000
hope he continues to be, but I would disagree with that. I would
say that with storm protection, in my opinion, a person who
wants to get into it should take some type of test, a written test,
and/or get the -- what you alluded to earlier in the presentation,
the affidavits of experience. It is a very critical thing and, you
know, you're dealing with the life and welfare~ safety of the
general public, and should one of these systems or more fail in
the event, heaven forbid, we're ever hit by a storm, you can have
catastrophic results. It's not to be taken lightly.
MR. BARTOE: Mr. Monnot, do you agree with this person that
has a hurricane installer's license on the other coast, if that is all
you're going to do, do you think this one hour test on shutter
installation would be more appropriate than the three hour
aluminum test?
MR. MONNOT: Not having seen the test and not knowing
anything about it, I'm hesitant to give you an answer, but --
MR. BARTOE: I can show you -- I can give you -- all I can do is
give you what she gave me.
MR. DICKSON: Did the aluminum test -- does the aluminum
test have anything to do with hurricane shutters?
MR. MONNOT: I took my state test ten years ago, and to the
best of my knowledge, a lot of moons have gone up and down
since then, I don't believe there was anything on my state test
regarding storm protection, to the best of my knowledge.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think that's what Mr. Bartoe is alluding
to. This exam that we're speaking of strictly and specifically
addresses that issue.
MR. NEALE: I think~ if I may, Mr. Smart even alluded to that
when he said there's all kinds of new products coming out for
this, and with the state mandate, I think the board can
appreciate that there's gonna be all kinds of new products
coming out, but there's also gonna be all kinds of -- not to put too
fine a point on it -- charlatans out there trying to tell people what
they need to have.
MR. CRAWFORD: There's a lot of new products, but they are
gonna be integral. I think Mr. Smart makes a good point,
whether it's an integral frame system or whether it's a film.
Right now you can buy glass that is hurricane resistant to a point
or you can hire a hurricane shutter contractor to install film on
existing windows. So there really is an overlap there that needs
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October t 1, 2000
to be addressed.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, that's true, and in essence if you
really wanted look (sic) technical, the glass of today could be
considered a hurricane shutter.
MR. CRAWFORD: And it will be acceptable by the new code in
certain laminates. It needs to be an integral license, in my
opinion.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's why I combined the two
discussions here because I thought they would be interly (sic} --
Mr. Monnot?
MR. MONNOT: Well, I want to make sure what I'm being
asked. In my opinion, if you are going to work with shutter --
storm shutter systems in this county or any county, you should
be -- you should have to take a test, in my opinion.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. I think what Mr. Bartoe is looking
at here is that currently in Collier County the only people that
can do shutters are aluminum specialists.
MR. MONNOT: I don't know what that is.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Aluminum specialists are the only people
that can do storm shutters.
MR. MONNOT: Is that what you call an aluminum license in
this county, because I have a state license?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's the whole point.
MR. BARTOE: That's correct, that's where we've placed
shutter installation for years, and this woman that was in the
office advised, such as you did, that on the aluminum test there's
not one question that has anything to do with installing shutters
and that test --
MR. MONNOT: Let me be clear, Mr. Bartoe, I said ten years
ago it didn't have -- now, I have not talked to anyone who's taken
the test recently.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Mr. Bartoe's point here is not to do
away with hurricane shutters in your license. His point is
suggesting to add an additional license to our ordinance called
hurricane shutters and awning contractors, that will say that
these individuals can only do hurricane shutters and awnings.
They can't do screen enclosures or anything else that your
license allows, is what he's trying to look at here.
MR. MONNOT: I would be very much in favor of that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's what I was thinking. It looks to
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October 11, 2000
me like it would open the door a little bit to those that don't want
to go into your whole business, but just want to do hurricane
shutters. You know, there's certain things in all of our licenses
that can be pulled out and be a specialty of, and this was just a
suggestion to do that.
Now, what I was questioning and looking at here in respect to
Mr. Smart, was that, Ms. Puig, have you read the hurricane
shutter/awning contractor wordage that Mr. Bartoe has
presented us?
MS. PUIG: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: What I'm questioning is that -- could part
of that wordage be maybe scrutinized with Mr. Neale, and added
to the glass and glazing contractor's license that would allow
this transition and crossover that we're talking about, Mr.
Crawford, that you were asking about earlier? That's all I'm
trying to do.
I mean, we're probably going to make a recommendation or
suggestion or at least act on Mr. Bartoe's that we add this
hurricane shutter license to our ordinance as it is, but now I'm
looking at perhaps bridging this gap that Mr. Smart's alluding to
without saying that he needs to be or he doesn't -- he's going to
be installing aluminum that he doesn't qualify for.
MR. DICKSON: Can I bring up a couple questions?
One, if we adopt this, hurricane shutter installer, I don't think
we want the word awning in there. That's a whole other basket.
But hurricane shutter installer, and I see that we have to
grandfather in the current hurricane shutter installers that we
have in this county. You can't just immediately throw up a new
license for them.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, I disagree.
MR. DICKSON: Secondly--
CHAIRMAN HAYES: If they're licensed as an aluminum
specialty contractor, why do you have to grandfather them into
another license? We're not going to take it out of the aluminum
specialty contractor's license. We're going to leave it in there.
MR. DICKSON: Well, I'm not going to grandfather it in to a guy
that does glass.
MR. NEALE: Well, he currently can't do it. So what I think --
let me -- because I've got -- since Mr. Zachary and I are going to
be the ones that are gonna have to figure out how to do this,
Page 38
October t 1, 2000
maybe I can ask a few questions. I guess it's my understanding
where Mr. Hayes is going, that there would be a new category of
license created called hurricane shutter installer for people that
just want to do hurricane shutters.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's one item.
MR. NEALE: Number two, would be then certain language,
either from the Palm Beach County code, for the scope of work
under the hurricane installers would be added to aluminum
contractors.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, glass and glazing.
MR. NEALE: Okay. To the glass and glazing contractor for
certain types of shutters.
Now, my question, and I admit almost complete ignorance on
this, and then maybe the two experts here can help Mr. Zachary
and I out a little bit. It's my understanding that there may be two
separate types of hurricane protection that's out there in the
market now. There is the independent type, which is a separate
shutter that you hang up there, be it the accordion or whatever,
and then there's the integrated system where you put it in along
with the window; is that true or not true or am I completely lost?
MR. MONNOT: Well, no, you're not completely lost. The
integrated systems that Mr. Smart was referring to earlier really
are just now the tip of the javelin. I mean, they're just now
coming out onto the market. I know nothing about those
systems. I don't profess to and I would say most screen people
in the county don't know anything about them, but I am versed
on the other forms of protection and -- did you have a specific --
MR. NEALE: I guess the question, and this is probably making
it far more complex than it needs to be, is it appropriate to
consider the hurricane shutter installer separate, make more
clear in the aluminum installer that they can do hurricane
shutters, non-integrated systems and then integrated systems
into the glass contractor set?
So that if it's an integrated system that goes in with the
window, the glass and glazing contractor can do it. If it's a
separate aluminum or whatever material system, the aluminum
contractor can do it, and then the hurricane shutter installer can
install shutters and awnings that are designed to protect
residential and commercial dwellings from hurricane storms
forthwith.
Page 39
October t 1, 2000
MS. WHITE: I agree with Mr. Neale.
MR. NEALE: Am I making it too complicated or --
MS. WHITE: No, I agree with you.
MR. DICKSON: But if you listened to Mr. Smart originally, Mr.
Smart's saying that the two are going become so integrated that
you're going to get into a situation of a window that doesn't have
the integrated system, but yet because of the complexity of the
window, you need to put the outside shutter on as well, and
that's what he's asking.
So, I mean, it's easy to say integrated window, yes, he can do
it, it's all one piece. I can see problems coming with that.
I see another way to head off the problem by maybe adopting
this hurricane shutter installer, grandlathering in those that are
doing hurricane shutters like right now, like -- I always want to
say Monet, but it's Monnot, right -- like Mr. Monnot, but that also
gives the opportunity -- grandfather him in, but it also gives the
opportunity for people like Mr. Smart to bridge the gap and go
take that test and then eventually we all get into that test, which
I see a much better system, and you've got nine months to do it,
ten months to do it. So you do your integrated system, but you
also have an opportunity to go for the installer's license.
MR. MONNOT: I agree with that, Mr. Dickson, that's well put.
MS. WHITE: I agree with Mr. Neale, because I think both of
them should be qualified to do hurricane shutters, and since it's
required so much now in the county with all this hurricane
protection, it would seem to me that both the aluminum
specialties test and the glass installation test should include
questions regarding hurricane installation in their particular
areas.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Unfortunately, we don't have any control
over the way the licenses -- or the tests are written. So we can't
change anything on what they're tested for, unless we ask for an
extra test in our ordinance.
MR. DICKSON: The other thing is, if you think about it, and
this an astronomical change, it's one of the biggest issues on the
state code. We're talking not millions, we're talking billions of
dollars in the State of Florida that are all of a sudden going to
come up. I see people coming into this business, well, what
license do they go get, and all of a sudden here we have a
hurricane shutter installer's license, it just seems like the smart
Page 40
October 11, 2000
route to go.
MR. NEALE: Well, if I may make a comment. The hurricane
installer, the way I read the qualifications in the Palm Beach
County code only allows people to install independent shutters,
shutters and awnings, and I want to bounce this one off of Mr.
Smart and Mr. Monnot too. I don't think either of them would
want someone who has a glass and glazing license to just go into
the hurricane shutter business to install hurricane shutters. I
don't think that's why he became a glass and glazing contractor.
But would it be appropriate, and this is a question for the board
and the experts, would it be appropriate to put in the glass and
glazing contractor, hurricane protection -- hurricane protection
systems attendant to glass and glazing or window installations,
as opposed to just throwing in that they can do hurricane
shutters, and say that it must be something that's attendant to a
window installation?
MR. DICKSON: At the very next meeting RoI-Safe will be here
and they'll want the glass and glazing, because it's got a
hurricane shutter in it.
MR. NEALE: See, that's why I wanted to say if it's defined --
the hurricane shutters, the way I read the definition, will not
allow people to install windows. They can install hurricane
shutters. The aluminum contractor, under the definition, can
only install hurricane shutters, they can't put windows in.
Neither of these guys can put windows in, even integrated
window systems. They can hang shutters, they can't put -- this is
-- I can see a contractor coming in and beating up Mr. Zachary
from this three months down, or as you said, RoI-Safe coming in
next week. So I'm trying to anticipate some problems here.
If in the glass and glazing, and I don't think RoI-Safe or Mr.
Monnot would want the glass and glazing contractors to be going
out and just selling shutters. So that's why I suggest that if the
board think it's appropriate to put in language in the glass and
glazing that would say that they can install hurricane protection
systems because that allows them to install the hard glass and
the Iouvers or whatever the devil else they've got in there, you
know, x-ray beams or whatever they're going to put up next, to
protect the windows, but doesn't allow them to just go out and
install shutter systems.
MR. DICKSON: The only thing I'm thinking is okay, who does
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October t 1, 2000
the impact film, and there's products coming out that they
haven't even seen yet?
MR. NEALE: Well, I would suggest that, and that may be
something, a bridge that we have to cross down the road. I think
at this point it's a glass and glazing issue, because it goes onto
glass. It's a glass system.
What we may end up doing, what this board may end up doing
down the road is doing what they did with the *ethis system,
where there are new kinds of systems that require their own
training to install, that there might be a necessity to create a
license just for those.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Another thing that might be taken into
consideration is incidental too. Mr. Dickson can go up and
re-roof a house and find rotten plywood, and he can replace that
plywood. He doesn't need a carpenter's license. A general
contractor, in his own new construction, can put on a roof,
except for tile. Maybe this board can consider incidental to his
new window installation, the hurricane protection.
MR, NEALE: That's what I was trying to drive at.
MR. NONNENMACHER: I'm not suggesting that. I'm just
throwing it out at as maybe you might want to consider
something like that, incidental to his own new work.
MR. DICKSON: But I also see a guy coming in here or going to
Judy and he wants a license to put impact film on windows. He's
not putting in shutters, he's not putting in glass, where's he go?
MR. BARTOE: Occupational, solar film installation.
MR. DICKSON: You know, no test. I want -- I'm pushing for a
hurricane installer license. I think we need one.
MR. NEALE: Even o- unless we modify the language in here,
which, you know, that --
MR. SCHOENFUSS: Well, under glass and glazing contractor,
it mentions the word panels. Why doesn't that cover it?
MR. NEALE.' Well, that would cover impact film -- well, impact
film is not considered a panel, probably. I mean, there is a way
to modify the language. It would say those that are qualified to
install, maintain or replace shutters --
MR, DICKSON: Hurricane protection.
MR. NEALE: -- hurricane protection, films and awnings, I
mean -- you know, I think Mr. Dickson brings up the point that the
technology is changing so fast right now, it's a little hard to nail
Page 42
October I l, 2000
down where it is.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, I'm all for adding the hurricane
shutter license category to our ordinance, no question about it. I
think we need to do that anyway and we've got a specialty
license there.
You know, leaving the license exactly like it is, so that it can
be done within the aluminum license, like it has for years, but if
someone wants to do a hurricane shutter system themselves,
then adapting that license and requirements thereof is very
necessary. I would suggest that we do add a hurricane shutter
license to our ordinance.
MR. CRAWFORD: I think we do that and we add that testing
requirement to new glazing and glass contractors and make that
an integral license.
I'm very comfortable as a general contractor with having the
glazing contractor also install hurricane shutters. I mean, most
window systems nowadays are pretty complicated and I think
that they can handle that additional work and like you said, I
think that's a good way to go. If the hurricane shutter companies
want to come back and get involved in the glass and glazing
business, then I think we deal with that when that comes up, but
I think it's two different issues.
MR. DICKSON: I also think for to us do anything right now is
premature. There is so much stuff coming out.
MR. NEALE: Other than potentially adding the hurricane
shutter contractor category.
MR. DICKSON: Other than that, yeah.
MR. BALZANO: Mr. Hayes?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yes.
MR. BALZANO: I agree with what Mr. Neale said. Keep
everything the way it is, and under the glass and glazing, if it's
part of that window system he's installing, he can do it. If you
start letting him do hurricane shutters, before you know it, you
have glass and glazing people going to houses 15 years old
putting in storm shutters. So if it's part of the window system
he's installing, a new window system, he should be able to do it.
MR. DICKSON: I don't think that was ever an issue.
MR. BALZANO: In the awnings that they're talking about, in
Palm Beach, they're hurricane awnings. They're not awnings
with canvas on them. These are the awnings that come down
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October 11, 2000
over the windows. They serve as an awning and as a storm
shutter. I think the way Mr. Neale put it is the way we should go
or think about going.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: If I read and understand this correctly,
I'm looking at adding this wordage to the glass and glazing.
Those who are qualified to install, maintain, repair or replace
shutters, integral with the window systems.
MR, NEALE: Some language to that effect, yes.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. That's what I'm looking at possibly
adding.
Mr. Smart, is that along the lines of where you were headed?
MR. SMART: Yes. The line of distinction between impact
windows and shutters is going to be blurred, I think it has been,
and yeah, I just don't want to be -- I want to comply with the law,
and again, what the future is going to bring, yeah, I think I ought
to have a little latitude, perhaps, that will allow me, and again
this whole thing about impact protection, it's certainly I think a
discussion worthy of the board and I appreciate your time and
interest in it and I've enjoyed the discussion, but yeah, I do feel
that changes are occurring, and I'm wondering even how the
county is going to assure that under new construction where you
have a requirement for impact protection, I don't know who
they're going to look to and say that, yeah, these windows are --
or the system is impact rated and tested.
In some cases, they would look to me as the glazing
contractor and I would provide certification that these windows
have met certain protocols and test procedures, and if I don't
provide a window that meets impact standards, who's
responsible to do that? And I guess at that point maybe they
have to go to some shutter manufacturer or installer and get the
certification from him.
One of the window manufacturers had a seminar recently on
changes and they asked if the glass and glazing people could be
considered negligent if we left construction without impact
protection~ and that might become an issue too. Where does
that responsibility lie?
MR. CRAWFORD: What you're saying, Mr. Smart, is that the
code probably refers to an opening and it doesn't -- you know, it
doesn't separate the shutter from the window, it refers to
protecting an opening --
Page 44
October 11, 2000
MR. SMART: Right.
MR. CRAWFORD: -- and that's where the gray comes in.
MR. SMART: The impact protection has to be there, impact
rated, and again, I think the new state code is going to have a
drastic effect on construction and what's happening with
windows.
MR. CRAWFORD: And perhaps you're right. Perhaps this is
something we should table until the new code is issued.
MR. DICKSON: I've got a suggestion. What I'd like to do is --
maybe through AFC, I don't come to the meetings enough to even
say it right, but I'd like to get Mr. Smart, Mr. Monnot, I'd like to
get someone who does roll-down shutters, I'd like to get
someone who does garage doors, because that's an issue too,
and someone from the county and Mr. Neale in a room together,
and you've got everybody there, hash this out, about this
hurricane installer.
MR. NEALE: And somebody that does film too.
MR. DICKSON: Get it in stone, then bring it back before this
board. I think it's something we can put together. What I'm
trying to head off -- I've been on this board longer than I want to
remember, but I see them lined up out here, if we don't get it
right the first time, and just to throw something out to solve an
immediate problem is not the answer. I mean, I'll buy dinner if
that's what it takes, but let's all get in a room and get the thing
right to start with.
MR. NEALE: I agree with you, Mr. Dickson, I think it's -- while
we want to go forward as rapidly as possible with this ordinance
amendment, it's not going to get in front of the Board of County
Commissioners until probably January realistically. You know,
we've got a new board being elected next month.
MR, DICKSON: Because if we're going to do this, we need to
move fast also so the people have adequate time to go out and
get this new license.
MR. NEALE: Get tested and everything.
MR. DICKSON: Obviously, we're going to grandfather some in
so everyone doesn't --
MR. NEALE: I feel -- I think Mr. Zachary and I would both be
more than willing to sit down and meet with an appropriate group
at a mutually convenient time.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: What I would suggest then is that Mr.
Page 45
October t 1, 2000
Perico's office, Judy maybe particularly, author some wordage
that could be reviewed by this group that he's talking about as
an amendment to that section of the ordinance.
MR. NEALE: If I may, I suggest that one of us author it, simply
because --
MR. BARTOE: I agree --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I don't have a problem with that from the
legal standpoint. I just want them to understand it from the
technical point, and two, who authors the amendments to begin
with?
MR. NEALE: Mr. Zachary really does.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Zachary's office does?
MR. NEALE: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. That's what I wanted to make sure
of. On any of the recommended amendments that we make
today, you're the one that's going to be adding that particular
type wordage, legally reviewed, to the ordinance amendment?
MR. ZACHARY: Basically, yes. I mean, it won't come with no
thoughts or just do it from nothing, but I think the groups -- the
group that you've suggested to come together to get the
language right the first time is going to help me and our office
put the proper language in the ordinance.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Deny this if this isn't true.
Historically, Mr. Perico's office is the one that writes the
amendments to the ordinance, then sends it to the county
attorney's office for legal approval? MR. NEALE: No.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That does not happen?
MR. PERICO: No. For the record, Ed Perico. What we
normally do is just a draft and then it's reviewed by the county
attorney's office and any discrepancies --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: You authored a draft? You're the one
that put the words together the first time, then sent them to the
county attorney's office?
MR. ZACHARY: I think it happens both ways. Sometimes
we're asked can you draft an amendment to the ordinance or this
is conceptually what we need. Then we do it or sometimes we
get the idea almost completed from a staff -- CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's right.
MR. ZACHARY: -- and we wordsmith it, make sure it meets all
Page 46
October I t, 2000
the legal requirements before it gets in the ordinance.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Neale, that's what I was alluding to.
MR, NEALE: Yeah, but more -- I think Mr. Zachary hit it on the
head. More typically what we see is we'll work with staff, staff
will put together just sort of an outline of what they need to have
done, and then we'll craft it in the clumsy language that we
usually do.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So what I'm asking is, to expedite this
process, that we start with something. Right now, all we've got's
a concept rolling around here, and we've got to mold it into
something, then we can start shredding it, pulling it apart, adding
some words at this meeting that Mr. Dickson is suggesting.
That's all I'm trying to do. Get the ball kind of rolling.
So if Mr. Perico's office puts together some wordage from the
technical -- from the administrative section first, and then we
come together at this meeting, with these individual minds, then
we can perhaps make this thing happen right then and there.
MR. ZACHARY: And technically too, the direction to amend an
ordinance, which is county law, typically comes from the Board
of County Commissioners. So I think it's gonna be incumbent
upon maybe Mr. Perico to walk the halls back here and say this
is what we've come up with, and then we sort of get the okay
from the county commission to go ahead and amend the
ordinance because I think there'll probably be a discussion at a
county commission meeting and we'll talk about the reasons that
we need the amendments and so forth~ and then when we go
ahead that comes to my office and get the thing done. So, I
mean, there's a whole process but --
MR. NONNENMACHER: I'm sorry, wouldn't this be a little
premature for staff to start writing it up prior to the meeting,
because we don't know the ideas that will come out of the
meeting?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, because we have some ideas that
came out of this meeting.
MR, NONNENMACHER: And they might all change once you
have a meeting with all the specialty contractors and staff. They
might say -- they might throw something else in and everything
that staff has written up prior to this meeting would just be
thrown away.
MR. GONZALEZ: We need a starting point.
Page 47
October t 1, 2000
MR. NONNENMACHER: I think we need a meeting first.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It's just a starting point.
MR. DICKSON: I don't want to spend 30 minutes on a
paragraph.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's my point exactly.
MR. DICKSON: Let's just draft something up and get started
with it. We don't need to beat that into the ground.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's all I'm trying to do.
MR, DICKSON: Next, let's get these people put together. We
need to move fast on it. The meeting should be within the next
two or three weeks. Is there a room at the county that we can
use?
MR. PERICO: We can always arrange one. That's not a
problem.
MR. DICKSON: Like do it at the noon hour and we bring in
some sandwiches or something? The county won't pay for it.
Okay?
MR. PERICO: I hear you.
MR. DICKSON: Let's get this thing done, so that there's
something to come back before this board at the meeting. Let
this board tear it apart or what they want, then get it to the
county for approval. Then before the end of the year, hopefully
before December 1, you've got something going on and you can
implement the test and there's plenty of time for this July 1
deadline.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's what I'm trying to look at. No, it's
January deadline.
MR. DICKSON: I thought it was July.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: The ordinance will be -- the ordinance
amendments will come up in January in front of the county
commission for approval.
MR. BARTOE: There's no deadline. It can come up in
February, March or April.
MR. DICKSON: I'm talking about the state code.
MR. PERICO: The state code effectively is supposed to be
going July 1st of 2001, and from our understanding, between the
Florida Home Builders' Association and everything else, there's a
lot of challenges going on right now with the code. We might not
see this for a year, year and a half so, you know, it's -- but the
given date was July of 2001, which we've set up with the CBIA
Page 48
October 11, 2000
and other organizations to have a workshop as soon as we get a
final draft. We don't have a final draft on this state code yet.
Nobody does.
At the 11th hour, there was about 350 modifications made to
that code that were put in and the commission was asked to look
at it and vote on it the very next morning. There's a lot of issues
that are hanging out there with this code. So, you know, we'll
get to what we've got to do, but a lot of it might be premature
and, in fact, things might change. We don't know.
Mr. Smart's concerns about, you know, the enforcement of
how it would be, as far as whether it be shuttered or his liability
as a glazing contractor, that would all be addressed at the
permitting stage. Whether you're gonna have impact resistant
windows, that would be his responsibility to supply, or it's
shuttered, but that would be whoever the contractor is. They
have that option, but that would all have to be done prior to
permitting and prior to the issuance of a CO, everything would
have to be in place, whether it be impact windows or shutters so,
you know, we'll be staying on top of it.
MR. DICKSON: What you're saying, Mr. Perico, is I just wasted
40 minutes. Right now we just address the integrated shutter
window system and table the rest until we see the code?
MR. PERICO: Well, I'm not saying you're wasting now. These
are things that have to be discussed because we've been
through this all before and it doesn't happen overnight, and we
have many meetings, you know, bringing it up to snuff, that was
years ago, and there are always going to be issues, and I'm sure
there's going to be a lot of issues coming out of this code. We're
all going to be learning from this, but like I said, we don't know
where it's going at this point.
Like I said, our goal is to have a workshop down in the city
somewhere, if we've got to rent a hall. We're trying to get CEU's
involved in, you know, where contractors will show up, and they
get something out of it, not only a learning process, but they'll
get their credits that they need for their licenses, you know, as
part of the learning process.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Once again, when we're talking about the
state code. The state code has been jacked around, mauled
around, questioned, for the last three years, and it doesn't look
to be any closer for adaptation than it did three years ago, and
Page 49
October 1 t, 2000
once it does, it's still gonna be loaded with ambiguities because
somehow or another it is just not structured well yet.
So my concern is that if we continue to put off everything that
we want to do until after that code gets in here, we're going to
be lawless for a while, so we need to move along with at least
something that handles our needs in Collier County.
MS. WHITE: I agree with Gary. I don't think we ought to wait,
and I think what we should do is integrate the hurricane shutters
into each of those specialties because it's been my experience if
you hire one guy to build the cabinets and another one to install
them, each guy says oh, it doesn't fit because it's his fault. It's
like Mr. Smart said, if he does the windows and the hurricane
shutter guy comes in and does the hurricane shutters and they
fail, oh, well, you know, the windows were wrong, no, no, the
shutters were wrong, and I just think if we get too many
specialties out there we are gonna have that problem, and I'd
like to see with all the new integrated windows that are coming
out on the market, and there's so much new stuff, and we don't
even know what's gonna come out in the next -- I mean, we know
it's (sic) gonna be tons of it, because of all the hurricane
problems, and I think -- I agree with Mr. Smart. I think that his
license should incorporate integrated shutters that are interior in
the windows and I think that Mr. Monnot's aluminum industry
ought to include the shutters that are on the exterior, that are
totally separate from the windows. CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MS. WHITE: At the present time, until we get this code, a year
or two or three years down the road.
MR. PERICO: I have to agree with that. Like I say, with all the
new products that are coming out now, even if there wasn't a
new hurricane code coming out, we would still be looking at
what Mr. Smart is looking for, you know, be able to put in these
shutters that are integrated with the windows, and if there is an
approved product and it reached the 110 mile per hour that we're
-- at this point, it meets the impact loads, that he should be able
to install them at this point, irregardless of the new codes or not.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Can we go ahead then -o to move this
issue along, my suggestion is that we go ahead and author some
wordage so that we've got something to pick at, and change,
apart, even if we have to throw the whole thing out and start
Page 50
October t t, 2000
over, and then institute a meeting within the next two or three
weeks between the individuals mentioned by Mr. Dickson to
review that, and see if we can't move forward with that
coverage.
MR. DICKSON: Yeah, because we just simplified it a little bit
more simpler than what was originally brought out. There are
window systems that will not have integrated shutters, but will
require shutters that because of the window system he needs to
put in, and we failed to remember that point, correct, Mr. Smart?
MR. SMART: Right.
MR. DICKSON: So it's not as simple as just saying an
integrated window, he can do it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Does this address your issues, your
questions, Mr. Smart?
MR. SMART: There's been a lot more discussion than I
expected and I hope it's been productive and it is a changing
word and we have to keep up with the times, but yeah, I'd like
the latitude to be able to provide the service that my customers
would expect of me and I'm afraid with this impact requirement
that includes shutters, if not impact glass.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Then what we're gonna try to do is
start with some wordage and then we'll put together a meeting
and we will invite both Mr. Monnot and Mr. Smart there to lend
their expert opinions as to wordage. Ms. Puig?
MS. PUIG: Okay. If the window is not integrated with the
aluminum shutters, therefore, you can install the window, but
you turn around and hire an aluminum contractor to put the
shutters in, correct?
MR. SMART: It's my understanding that that is the current
requirement, that's right. There would be other trades involved
and, again, just as a matter of efficiency and cost, if I have
installers there on the job, working in an opening, putting a
window in, I would think it would be, you know, more efficient
that we also put in, you know, a panel system or whatever at the
same time, rather than bringing in another contractor on the job
to go back --
MS. PUIG: So the windows are not integrated with the
system?
MR. SMART: Well, yeah, the new code, it's my understanding,
Page 51
October 11, 2000
you can use a conventional window that exists today that is not
impact rated, but if you do that, then you are going to have to
have the impact protection from a supplemental system, being
one of the type of shutter systems that's available on the
marketplace today.
MS. PUIG: Well, to me that's two -- two different, separate
licenses. I would say we should add to the glass and glazing that
you can do the integrated window system, allow you to do that
incidental to your window installation, but if it's not integrated
with these aluminum panels and that's separate, then you have
to either get your aluminum license or turn around and have an
aluminum contractor come do it. That's the way I see it should
be done.
MR. NONNENMACHER: I agree.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. We have some understanding on
some wordage then that we can get something started. In the
next two or three weeks perhaps we can have a meeting and put
these -- all these people together. Is that a problem, Mr. Neale?
MR. NEALE: No, just let us know and we'll make our best
efforts to be there.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MR. NONNENMACHER: When we have this meeting, do we
need to be recorded? Is -- MR. NEALE: No.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Just a regular meeting with
contractors?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct, because then what that
means is renderance (sic} will come before this board for
approval as well. That will be public.
Okay. At this point, our court reporters need to change out.
I'm going to take a ten minute break. We'll be back at ten
minutes after t 1.
(A recess was taken.}
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Can we get back into operation
here? Anybody not here preventing us from continuing?
I want to call the meeting back to order.
Mr. Dickson has a suggestion.
MR. DICKSON: Mr. Hayes has agreed to chair this
subcommittee, which will be represented by a glass and glazing
business, the aluminum specialty contractor business, the
Page 52
October 1 t, 2000
hurricane shutter business to include electrical roll-down, to
include people to address the issue of bracing garage doors, so
someone from the garage door industry, someone from the
county attorney's office and someone from the county to set up a
meeting and contact these people. We meet over at -- in the
county by -- designated by Mr. Perico or Judy. And I move that
Mr. Hayes pursue that.
MR. JOSLIN: Joslin, second.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I have a motion and second. Any
further discussion? All in favor?
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. So it looks like I'm going to be in
the middle, one more time. Okay. What I'll do is, I guess, Judy,
I'll be contacting you, perhaps, and we'll work together on
getting something going, and then, Mr. Zachary, I guess, I'll be
contacting you. We'll put together a meeting maybe in the next
two or three weeks.
Is that okay with you, Mr. Neale?
MR. NEALE: Yep.
MR. ZACHARY: I'll be available.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay, super. I appreciate it.
Okay. We can move on with our laundry list.
MR. DICKSON: Since I did that, I will bring sandwiches.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Oh, you will bring --
MR. DICKSON: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MR. ZACHARY: I was going to ask, what about that dinner
that you'd promised?
MR. DICKSON: Well, it's now become sandwiches.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: ! believe, Mr. Bartoe, that we're not
really looking at adding this hurricane shutter at this meeting
that we're talking about. I think we're already in agreement to
do that.
MR. BARTOE: Yes, but while we're on that subject, if you
look at that page two, I personally feel we should take the line
out that says this contractor can brace existing garage doors to
comply with said code but shall not install new garage doors.
Let the garage door people do that.
MS. PUIG: Right.
Page 53
October 1 t, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Anybody on the board disagree
with that?
MR. BARTOE: And also the last line, electrical work to be
done by certified electrical contractor. I think we should scratch
certified. It could be a registered electrical contractor as well.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Also on that suggested or,
perhaps, amendment -- recommended amendment to the glass
and glazing, that would also have to be added to that. MR. DICKSON: Invite Mr. Bartoe.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. I'll write his name down.
All right. Onward and forward.
Ms. Puig, do you have some other ones that you want to look
at?
MS. PUIG: Okay. Page five in the ordinance, if someone is
currently licensed in another county and they let their license
lapse in Collier County, can we reinstate them without having to
retest, and can we notify -- clarify that up in section t.4.97
Because it basically says, if as of the date of receipt of the
county of said new application three years have passed since the
date of his or her most recent exam that individual passed to
acquire the former certificate, that individual must pass all
applicable testing requirements.
It states that if the request is to reactivate a dormant
certificate, retesting can be waived, or if they're an inspector or
investigator in the trade it can be waived, but if they're not, and
say they're licensed in Lee County and they've been current in
Lee County, they had a Collier County licensed that lapsed, and
it's been more than three years since they tested, but they're still
active in Lee, can we activate them in Collier without retesting,
or are we going to make them retest?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: The key question here that I read is
dormant, the definition or description of dormant. Is -- that's --
dormant, is that expired, lapsed --
MS. PUIG: No, dormant is like an inactive license.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- or inactive, because an inactive
license is a formally -- a formal process to go through. I want to
render my license inactive.
MS. PUIG: Right. And they pay for their license fees, they
hold their license, but they're not actively in business, so we call
that a dormant license.
Page 54
October 11~ 2000
MR. NEALE: Yeah, Mr. Hayes, it's actually, in our ordinance,
it's called a dormant license.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: The dormant license describes one that
has expired?
MS. PUIG: No.
MR. NEALE: A dormant license is what you're referring to as
an inactive license.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: One at a time.
MR. NEALE: Dormant license is what you're referring to as
an inactive license. Under Collier County ordinance it's called a
dormant certificate.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, that's what I'm trying to get at.
What we're saying here though is that if you've left Collier County
and you moved to Charlotte County and you've been operating in
Charlotte and you let your license lapse, that is not a dormant
license.
MS. PUIG: No, that's cancelled.
MR. NEALE: Yes, it is a dormant -- well, no, that's not a
dormant license. That's a license that has gone void.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's my point.
MS. PUIG: Cancelled, right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Currently our ordinance does not apply.
This section, 1.4.9, does not apply to a lapsed or expired
license.
MR. NEALE: No.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It only applies to a dormant or
inactively rendered license. MR. NEALE: Right.
MS. PUIG: Well, it says~ any individual who fails to renew his
or her competency card prior to December 31st. CHAIRMAN HAYES: Oh, it does?
MS. PUIG: Okay? Will automatically have a competency
that is null and void. Basically the system -- I go in and I cancel
them, that haven't renewed, and that they come in a year after
it's been cancelled, and it's been three years since they haven't
fetested, but yet they've been current in Lee County that last
year, two years, whatever, can they reinstate without having to
retest? According to this --
MR. NEALE: My interpretation --
MS. PUIG: -- I say no.
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October t 1, 2000
MR. NEALE: -- is no because of the fact that they have the
option under our ordinance to make their license dormant if they
go somewhere else.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. However -- now, wait a minute.
Mr. Bartoe?
MR. BARTOE: But Mr. Neale, if they move somewhere else
during the year and we send out their renewal to their old
address, they'll never get it. It does not get forwarded. But
meanwhile they went to Sarasota and have been there for four
years doing the same trade. It's just my personal opinion that if
they would come back here four years later and show that they
have remained active, I believe we could put in the ordinance
that anyone that has shown that they've remained active in the
trade can get his license back here without retesting. That's just
my opinion.
MS. PUIG: But I have a problem.
MR. NEALE: He has the option to do that by coming before
the board and applying for a waiver of testing requirement.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's all, in a new license application.
MR. NEALE: In a new license application.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's what I'm trying to get at.
Separate the reinstating and no license. No, he can't do that,
that's history, but in the application for a new license, that
section allows us to utilize it in lieu of taking a test again for a
new license application.
MR. NEALE: Right. The staff can refer him to this board --
MS. PUIG: Okay.
MR. NEALE: -- and say, sorry, our ordinance says this, you
can appeal this to the board, the board can then make the
decision. If you've been working, they can say that it renders
further testing superfluous and the board can waive that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Did that clarify that, Mrs. Puig?
MS. PUIG: Yes, it sure did.
MR. BALZANO: I have a question for Mr. Neale. We have a
reciprocal agreement with Lee County, and I'm an active
contractor licensed in Lee County. And I -- whether I had a
license in Collier County or I didn't have a license or I let it
expire, but I have an active license in Lee County, can't I come
to Collier County and get a license? I have an active license in
Lee County.
Page 56
October 11, 2000
MR. NEALE: But you bring up, we have a reciprocal
agreement with Lee County. Do we? No.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I don't think we have. We tried to
author that --
MR. NEALE: It's my understanding, based on lots of
discussion we had over the last two years, that we have no
reciprocal agreements with anybody.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We tried to put that in there and it just
didn't fly.
MR. NEALE: It didn't fly.
MS. PUIG: Right. I was going to get to that later in the
ordinance. The only thing we reciprocate are grade scores, so if
they make a 75 percent or higher grade, we will honor the
scores, but they still have to come in and do their experience
affidavits, complete application, credit reports, insurance,
everything.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Exactly.
MS. PUIG: The whole thing, so the only thing we're
reciprocating are scores, and we've been trying -- MR. NEALE: Yep.
MS. PUIG: -- to not reciprocate with Dade and Broward
because they use special testing through Experior. They don't
use the same testing, so if anybody calls from Dade or Broward,
we tell them we do not reciprocate. They have to retest.
MR. DICKSON: And I might point out that --
MS. PUIG: So that's been a big issue.
MR. DICKSON: -- Lee County does it exactly the same way.
They will not reciprocate our licenses, but they will reciprocate
the test scores.
MS. PUIG: Right, that's correct, and they do the same thing
-- application, go before their board for approval.
MR. NEALE: If I can bring up something too. Judy brings up
a point that I was going to bring up later, but we might as well
throw in now, it's an ordinance amendment that I believe we're
going to have to make, is the state in the legislature this year
changed the -- or added additional testing bodies to the statute.
They've added Experior. So we're probability going to have to let
Experior be one of those. And it also says, at least as far as the
state goes, the board may not impose or make any requirements
regarding the nature or content of these cited exams, which was
Page 57
October 11, 2000
never in there before. And this is for registered contractors, so.
MR. BALZANO: Did it at one time say that Block and
Associates are equivalent?
MR. NEALE: What it now says is, for purposes of this
subsection, a written proctored exam such as -- so it gives them
wide open says -- that produced by the National Assessment
Institute, Block and Associates, NAI Block, Experior
Assessments, Professional Testing, Inc., or Assessment
Systems, Inc., shall be considered to be substantially similar to
the examination required to be licensed as a certified contractor.
It probably is, you know~ a stretch to say that that -- you
know, that's because of the certification, but I think that it would
be appropriate -- unless Mr. Zachary disagrees with me, it would
be appropriate to incorporate what's in the state statute now,
which would, fortunately or unfortunately, require us to take the
Dade and Broward County test scores.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Ms. Puig?
MS. PUIG: Okay. That's fine.
MR. NEALE: And that -- we'll have to make -- when we get to
that part, we'll make sure that we note that change. MS. PUIG: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Your next item?
MS. PUIG: Under general and building contractors, page
five, somewhere can we add they can do paint booths? I get a lot
of contractors coming in who want to pull a permit to do a paint
booth.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: What's a paint booth?
MS. PUIG: A booth that they paint in.
MR. CRAWFORD: You spray doors and stuff. It's a room
within a building that you do specialized painting.
MS. PUIG: And we didn't know where to -- what kind of a
license -- who could do that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Wait a minute. I don't understand.
MR. NEALE: To build the paint booth or to operate the paint
booth?
MS. PUIG: To build it and pull a permit to operate it, I guess.
They pull a permit for it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. A general contractor comes to
you and wants to build a paint -- a place to paint stuff in his place
and do painting, should he be allowed to? Is that what your
Page 58
October 1 t, 2000
question is?
MS. PUIG: No.
MR. CRAWFORD: I think they want to build paint booths for
auto companies, manufacturing companies, et cetera.
MS. PUIG: Right, right. And apparently they've come to our
office wanting to pull a permit -- they just come up and say, I
want to do a paint booth.
MR. CRAWFORD: It is kind of a specialized room in that
there's special vending requirements and things. Some of them
are premanufactured that you actually buy and stick in place, so
it is kind of a specialty item, but I don't know why -- I don't know
who else could do it other than a general contractor.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Thank you. That--
MS. PUIG: Exactly. That's -- building or general is the only
two categories that I've said that can do it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think you're right. ! believe that it
doesn't matter what the specialty is, whether the specialty is
preparing food, whether the specialty is painting or whatever it
is, a general contractor's going to be required to do the
construction to begin with.
MR. GONZALEZ: Because it's commercial.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct.
MS. PUIG: Right. It's usually not residential, so that's why
it's just building and general contractors, so maybe if we could
add, can do paint booths or something.
MR. DICKSON: I do -- can I ask you another question, Judy?
MS. PUIG: Go ahead.
MR. DICKSON: I'm seeing some pretty phenomenal paint
booths in body shops like Tamiami and some of the others that
have these companies that travel around the country and only
they are capable of setting them up. Do you have to go get a
general contractor to pull the permit for them?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yeah, because--
MS. PUIG: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- they're going to pull wiring in the
place for it, they're going to have to do a whole lot of things.
This will be just another specialty contractor that you'd hire as a
general. I don't really see, actually, that a need to amend the
ordinance --
MR. CRAWFORD: I agree.
Page 59
October 11, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- and add something to it is necessary.
I mean, it's almost to me like common knowledge, then you
want to add the words kitchens, you don't want to add the words
-- whatever other specialty -- MS. PUIG: Right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- structure.
MS. PUIG: So that falls under the unlimited category?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Right.
MS. PUIG: Okay.
MR. GONZALEZ: Commercial application.
MS. PUIG: Under sheet metal, page seven, air-conditioning
class A, B, sheet metal and mechanical contractors. We had a
situation where a contractor came in and wanted to do exhaust
hood systems~ and we had a big discussion back and forth
between county and state, so I received a letter from DBPR
stating that class A, B, sheet metal, mechanical contractors can
do exhaust hood systems. So maybe we can add those into those
three, that they can do exhaust hood systems.
MR. NEALE: Air conditioning, A and B and --
MS. PUIG: Sheet metal and mechanical.
MR. NEALE: Those are like restaurant exhaust hoods or --
MS. PUIG: Yeah. I mean, any type of exhaust hoods.
MR. DICKSON: I do sheet metal.
MS. PUIG: Industrial sheet metal hoods, provided additional
licensure requirements from the fire marshal's office has been
satisfied is what the letter says from the state.
MR. NEALE: Could you get us a copy of that, Judy, so we
can --
MS.
MR.
PUIG: I'll make a copy.
NEALE: Thanks.
MR. DICKSON: It's just -- it's a wide open category. Like I
have a roofing license and I do sheet metal, but my sheet metal
falls under the category of metals associated with that trade,
because I don't do duct work nor am I licensed to do duct work,
and you're saying just add -- I don't see a problem with adding
that to the sheet metal A contractor at all. He's fully capable of
doing it.
MS. PUIG: Right. It just -- it wasn't in there and we didn't
know who could pull the permit to do this exhaust hood, so we
had to go back and forth with the state to find out who could
Page 60
October 11 ~ 2000
actually do that type of work. So I got a letter from the state,
and I attached it to my ordinance so that I know, next time
someone comes in and wants to pull a permit to do exhaust
hoods, who can do it, so it helps if it can be in the ordinance
under those classifications so we know when we go to look,
okay, yeah, you can do exhaust hoods.
MR. DICKSON: Okay. I don't see any problem with that,
because basically an air-conditioner system is a form of an
exhaust anyway.
MS. PUIG: Okay.
MS. WHITE: Well, it even says in here, air handling systems
including the setting of air handling equipment and
reinforcement of same, including balancing of air handling
systems. Wouldn't that cover it?
MS. PUIG: I don't know if air handling is the same as
exhaust hoods. I don't think so. MS. WHITE: No?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No. Air handling is a term specifically
related to air-conditioning, because you're talking about the
blower motor, the blower fan in an air-conditioning unit, that's
the air handler, it handles the air for the air-conditioning system,
not necessarily to mean you couldn't relate it to exhaust. But I
think that the term air handling basically relates to an
air-conditioning system. Okay.
MS. PUIG: Okay. Page 11. We get a lot of contractors
wanting to do Marciting (sic} only. Right now the only people
that can do Marciting is our swimming pool contractors. Well,
they don't want to get a license to build a pool. They just want
to do Marciting. So I got a copy of Lee County's ordinance, and
they have a category, Marciting contractor, three years'
experience. They make them take a three-hour general specialty
exam. Marcite or plaster any swimming pool, hot tub or spa, but
does not include emptying any pool, hot tub or spa.
MR. JOSLIN: So they're strictly just the hands-on with the
pool.
MS. PUIG: Just Marciting only.
MR, DICKSON: I don't know any swimming pool contractor
that does Marciting. Does he?
MR. JOSLIN: Yeah, there are some.
MR. DICKSON: Don't you sub that out?
Page 61
October 11, 2000
MR. JOSLIN: No. I do it myself. It can be done in-house.
MR. BALZANO: How do you do it without emptying the pool?
MR. NEALE: That was my question is --
MR. JOSLIN: That's the next question.
MR. NEALE: That's a great trick.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: One at a time, please.
MR. NEALE: Doing it with a full -- I want to see the guy do it
with a full pool. If he can do that, he is really talented. MR. JOSLIN: Someone has to empty the pool.
MS. PUIG: Right. I don't know. Lee County has -- does not
include emptying any pool, so I don't know if they require
someone else to come in --
MR. NEALE: Swimming pool con --
MS. PUIG: -- and empty the pool?
MR. NEALE: A pool emptying contractor maybe?
MR. JOSLIN: Some cases, in a new construction, then the
swimming pool contractor, if he's building the pool, it would be
emptied anyway.
MS. PUIG: Right.
MR. JOSLIN: So someone would clean it, then the material
is on the job, then it would get done. But on a renovation~ let's
say -- is this just for new construction or renovation or both?
MS. PUIG: Both. They just want to come in and do
Marciting work. They don't want to build the pool. They just
want to do Marciting only.
MR, CRAWFORD: Does that fall under the epoxy stone
contractor or is that something completely different?
MR. DICKSON: That's a different --
MR. JOSLIN: That's different.
MR. CRAWFORD: Never mind.
MR. DICKSON: Emptying a pool, can't that cause some
pools to float up?
MR. JOSLIN: Yep, that's where you have the specific
liability.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think the purpose of the wording was
strictly to keep them from being pool contractors.
MR. JOSLIN: Yeah, I think so, but maybe in the wrong way.
I'll logically answer that question, because you have to empty
the pool, I'd like to know who's emptying the pool. There's no
way to check with Lee County to see --
Page 62
October t t, 2000
MS. PUIG: I could call them, sure --
MR. JOSLIN: -- who they require to empty the pool?
MS. PUIG: -- and find out what that interpretation means,
sure.
MR. JOSLIN: I mean, if it's a renovation, then obviously that
Marcite contractor is opening up a door, he could go out and sell
a job to Joe Homeowner, and the homeowner's not going to
empty the pool. If he does, then he's taking liability on himself.
MS. PUIG: Right.
MR. JOSLIN: I see a lot of popping out, for sure. Maybe the
wordage in their language, maybe need to find out what they
mean and who's actually emptying the pool and who are they
working for.
MS. PUIG: Right. Okay. I'll check that out. That comes up
a lot--
MR. JOSLIN: I mean, it's a good plot for a license, I believe.
MS. PUIG: -- for Marciting.
MS. WHITE: That's not under the servicing and repair, 16297
The next to the last line it says, replastering. Isn't Marciting
replastering?
MR. JOSLIN: Yes.
MS. WHITE: And that's in -- that wouldn't cover it?
MS. PUIG: Well, it would --
MR. JOSLIN: It would, but they don't have a license.
MS. PUIG: -- but they don't want to do the three-hour exam
or -- they don't want to do all the repairs, they just strictly want
to do Marciting only. They don't want to do the whole
involvement of a pool, what it entails for a pool or cleaning and
maintenance and repair.
MS. WHITE: But this is not building the pool. This is only
servicing and repair.
MS. PUIG: Right.
MS. WHITE: It seems to me like they would have to have
that license to re-Marcite.
MS. PUIG: Well, right now they can. They can get that
license. That's where we would put them. But they don't deal
with the, you know, replacement of the motors, the pumps, the,
you know, cleaning of the pools. They strictly want to go in and
Marcite.
MR. BARTOE: I have a question. Under epoxy stone on page
Page 63
October 11, 2000
16, at the very end, it says, or to pour, place and finish over
concrete base.
MS. PUIG: And then I also have for epoxy stone, spray-crete,
decorative concrete coatings. Where and how should we license
these contractors? We're getting a lot of requests for
spray-crete and decorative coatings over concrete.
MR. CRAWFORD: That's becoming very popular, yeah.
MS. PUIG: Very popular.
MR. CRAWFORD: That's kind of what I was getting at. I
wonder if we can't incorporate it all into one license -- MS. PUIG: Right,
MR. CRAWFORD: -o somehow, just to --
MS. PUIG: Because either they're going under concrete
place and finish or we're sticking them under epoxy stone. I
mean, we don't have a specific category where to put these
people.
MR. JOSLIN: Epoxy stone probably should fall under that
category only because it's the same type of coating. It's a
coating on top of a pool deck, basically, or driveway or --
MS. PUIG: So maybe we can add the verbiage, Marciting
under epoxy stone and spray-crete and decorative concrete?
MR. JOSLIN: I don't know that I would agree with epoxy
stone under Marciting, no. I don't think I would agree with that.
MS. PUIG: Okay. But the spray-crete and decorative
concrete we could possibly --
MR. JOSLIN: Yes. I mean --
MS. PUIG: -- put that verbiage under epoxy.
THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me. I can only get one at a
time, and you're kind of talking over each other.
MR. NEALE: Also, while we're kicking around pool and
swimming contractor, not -- there has been some fairly
significant amendments to the language in the state statute in
the last year in commercial pool and spa, residential pool and
spa and swimming pool and spa servicing contractor, the
changes are all strike-through and underlined, so they're a little
hard to read, but it does make -- make some significant apparent
changes to it, so -- more in terms of what it says.
It's added some things, like in -- swimming pool and spa
servicing contractor now reads, means a contractor whose
scope of work involves but is not limited to the repair and
Page 64
October 11, 2000
servicing of any swimming pool or hot tub or spa, whether public
or private or otherwise, regardless of use. The or otherwise
regardless of use is an addition.
The scope of work includes the repair or replacement of
existing equipment, any cleaning or equipment sanitizing which
requires at least a partial disassembling, excluding filter
changes, and the installation of new pool/spa equipment, interior
refinishing, the reinstallation or addition of pool heaters, the
repair or replacement of all perimeter piping and filter piping, and
this is all new, the next language, the repair of equipment rooms
or housing for pool/spa equipment and the substantial or
complete draining of a swimming pool or hot tub or spa for the
purpose of any repair or renovation.
The scope of such work does not include direct connections
to a sanitary sewer system or to potable water lines. The
installation, construction, modification, substantial or complete
disassembly or replacement of equipment permanently attached
to or associated with the pool or spa for purposes of water
treatment or cleaning of the pool or spa requires licensure;
however, the light usage of such equipment for the purposes of
water treatment or draining shall not require licensure unless the
usage involves construction, modification, substantial or
complete disassembly or replacement of such equipment. Water
treatment that does not require such equipment does not require
a license.
In addition, a license shall not be required for the cleaning
of the pool or spa in any way that does not affect the structural
integrity of the pool or spa or its associated equipment.
Everybody got that?
MR. DICKSON: An attorney wrote it.
MR. NEALE: What this brings up -- and I want to review this
with Mr. Zachary -- is a couple of issues. One is, of course, this
does allow a pool servicing contractor to repair rooms and
housings, so it does allow them to do some construction work, I
guess, whether it be aluminum construction work or wooden
construction work to repair a, quote-unquote, equipment room.
MR, JOSLIN: One question. On the equipment room, I think
they're referring more towards the pool equipment room.
MR. NEALE: Right, they're referring to the pool equipment
room.
Page 65
October I t, 2000
MR. JOSLIN: But I think they're referring to the pool
equipment, not the room.
MR. NEALE: It says specifically, the repair of equipment
rooms or housing.
MR. NONNENMACHER: And what is the title of that again,
Mr. Neale?
MR. NEALE: Swimming pool/spa servicing contractor.
MR, NONNENMACHER: Are you aware we have two
categories, swimming pool/spa servicing, repair contractor and
swimming pool/spa servicing contractor?
MR. NEALE: Right. What I'm saying is, this is the new state
ordinance that -- what -- and I want to look at our definition of
swimming pool/spa servicing contractor while we're sitting here.
It's never simple, is it? Because what it appears to say -- and I
want to look at them again more closely -- is it appears to say
that licensure is not required for the cleaning of a pool or spa or
water treatment that does not require equipment such as the --
does not require equipment. So cleaning and water treatment
that does not require equipment, according to my reading of the
state statute, does not require a license and cannot require a
license under the state statute.
MR. NONNENMACHER: So we would have to eliminate
t.6.2.9.t?
MR. NEALE: Or at least modify it.
MR, JOSLIN: I think the reason why that came about, that
particular clause, was because last year sometime the state
brought out an ordinance that said that any servicing, or what I
call servicing contractor, where you maintain a pool only, did not
require a license in the State of Florida.
We, though, as -- I think under ordinance, we kept the old
verbiage in our laws as far as, we weren't going to honor that.
We were still going to have -- they were still going to be licensed
in Collier County to maintain a pool.
MR. NEALE: Yeah. And I'd want to see, you know, whether
we can, in fact, do that.
MR. JOSLIN: I see, okay.
MR. NEALE: But it does make some significant changes to
that.
MR. GONZALEZ: Doesn't it say that if they can maintain a
pool without equipment?
Page 66
October t t, 2000
MR. NEALE: Without permanently installed equipment.
That's it. It refers specifically to permanently installed
equipment.
Obviously I think Mr. Joslin hit it on the head, that it appears
that there was a fairly significant lobbying effort that went on in
Tallahassee to -- by the people who just service pools to not have
to get licensed.
MR. CRAWFORD: I think that's a mistake. I guess we can't
do anything about it, but that -o there's a lot of those guys in
Collier County, and they're throwing those chemicals around left
and right, and it just seems like they ought to know what they're
doing.
MR. NEALE: And they are licensed now, and I will, either
myself or Mr. Zachary, will get in touch with the state to see.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: All right. To get back to Ms. Puig's
original question, you're going to get in touch with Lee County
and find out how you can Marcite a pool without emptying it and
why that section's there before we can maybe go any further on
that issue?
MS. PUIG: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Your next issue?
MS. PUIG: Gas contractors. The only people -- natural gas
is coming to Collier County. It's becoming a big thing now. The
only people that can do gas, natural gas, would be a plumbing
contractor.
MR. BARTOE: And mechanical. Mr. Turner advised me this
morning, plumbing and mechanical.
MS. PUIG: Okay. I wasn't aware of mechanical. Plumbing
was the only one I knew of.
MR. BARTOE: And he advised me that a gas contractor can
only run the piping to the building.
MS. PUIG: Now, Experior has three exams they offer, gas
contractor, master gas and journeyman gas. Something you may
want to look at.
MR. CRAWFORD: This was one of my hot topics for today.
In our high.rises we're installing natural gas by TECO, and they're
bringing it to town. And typically they're going to hire the local
plumbing contractor to do the work, and maybe my question is
directed toward Chairman Hayes in that, just as an end-user of
these buildings, I would like to make sure these guys know how
Page 67
October 1 t, 2000
to pipe natural gas. Maybe they all do, but it's new to everyone
here. And I don't know if that means a separate testing
requirement or what that means, but I think it is something we
need to address here, and now is the appropriate time.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: The chief plumbing inspector is correct.
It is in the -- under the mechanical license in section 1.6.2.3, so
the mechanical contractor currently and the plumbing contractor
are the only two that can legally, by license, install natural gas.
Mr. Crawford, I have to agree with you. I haven't seen a
natural gas piece of pipe since I moved from my home town.
MR. CRAWFORD: Right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: And I'm probably the only one in my
organization that has a clue what it is. MR. CRAWFORD: Right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: And I'm going to tell you that most of
the plumbing contractors that were licensed that weren't
licensed somewhere where there was natural gas, that got
licensed in Florida, has never seen natural gas piping, and that
does concern me. I don't know if we have the ability, authority,
administrative heart or manpower or assets it needs to do it
properly, but at this point in time we need to maybe scratch our
head and start some kind of information, because I doubt if 10
percent of the plumbing and mechanical contractors in the whole
state have a clue what to do with it. And we're getting these
people coming in to town serving as their own contractors,
installing these pipings, that aren't plumbing or mechanical
contractors, that actually know more about it than the plumbing
or mechanical contractor does.
MR. NEALE: Well, the question I have is, you've got the
category of LPG contractor, liquified petroleum gas contractor. I
don't -- you know, and I'm sort of out on a limb here a little bit.
MS. PUIG: I don't believe they can do natural gas.
MR. NEALE: Well, they can't do natural gas, but does it
make sense for them to be able to do natural gas?
MS. PUIG: That's strictly a state license. I don't know.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Let me give you a little history lesson
on that. For as long as I was a plumbing contractor up until, I'm
going to say maybe 10, t5 years ago, all piping, whether it be
natural gas, bottled gas, water, sewer, it didn't matter, all piping
was done by a plumbing contractor. The bottled gas people in
Page 68
October 11, 2000
the State of Florida lobbied Tallahassee and asked for their own
license, not only so that they didn't have to be plumbing
contractors, but so that the plumbing contractor himself couldn't
even do it. They were successful, and that's why that license is
in this ordinance today. MR. NEALE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Now, to add gas licenses, natural gas
license to that, may possibly fly, but what I don't want to see
happen is the natural -- the bottled gas people say that we don't
even want to -- we want to see that pulled out of the plumbing
and mechanical license as well. We're separating piping
industries way too far with that. Just as a history lesson there,
Mr. Neale.
MR. NEALE: Appreciate it. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So I don't know where it's going to go,
but I would suggest -- and we don't have any information
currently in front of us. I haven't been told by anybody. But it
wouldn't be a bit surprising if there are already lobbyists in
Tallahassee trying to lobby the state to get a natural gas license
in place. That's not totally good, it's not totally bad. Once again,
natural gas piping doesn't have anything to do with potable
water and sanitary waste systems, so I could see that, if they
wanted to do that and that's all they wanted to do, I could see a
license for it.
MR. DICKSON: Why would they be doing that and why is it
such a big issue when we have natural gas on the west coast of
Tampa and we have natural gas on the east coast all the way
down to Miami? We're only talking about an issue that faces
Southwest Florida.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, currently it faces Collier County.
MR. DICKSON: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Like Mr. Crawford says, we don't -- the
plumbing contractors and the mechanical contractors in this
county right now probably don't have 10 percent of their staff
that's ever seen natural gas, let alone installed it.
MR. CRAWFORD: I think all that this board can do is
possibly add an additional hour, or whatever the criteria may be,
to our testing in the natural gas subdivision of a plumbing
license, right?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's possible, but I don't know how
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October 11, 2000
far we can go with limiting a person that already handles that
license or that trade to stop them from doing it until they go --
MR. CRAWFORD: No, I agree.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- further exam.
MR, CRAWFORD: It would have to be a grandfather.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Maybe. You may have a point there
though. It may be that we look at it like a grandfathering thing or
a qualifying thing. If they were to produce affidavits attesting to
their experience, then we would waive the additional testing,
something of that nature.
MR. PERICO: Why couldn't that be something to the idea of
a certification working directly on the -- that your people are
certified gas installers?
MR. CRAWFORD: Like a welding certificate?
MR. PERICO: Exactly.
MR. GONZALEZ: Maybe they could teach it at the Vo-Tech.
MR. CRAWFORD: I kind of like that idea.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Maybe that's possible. I'm just
concerned how far we can go with the amendment to the
ordinance.
MR. PERICO: Well, I would think, you know, in all honesty,
that if you've got people there and you're taking on a contract to
do it, that you want to make sure that your people are certified,
you know, working for you. I mean, that would be a given.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, there's no question about it. But
maybe if we -- well, who would provide the certification?
MR. PERICO: I'm sure there's got to be something to do with
the gassing industry that would serve as a training program for
installers.
MR. JOSLIN: If I'm not mistaken, I think in the LPS (sic} --
whatever.
MR. PERICO: The gas companies.
MR. JOSLIN: You know what I'm saying, right? I believe
there is a certified test that these installers had to take. I'm
almost positive.
MR. NEALE: LPG operates under a completely separate --
totally separate world. They're under chapter 527, and they've
got their own thing.
MR. JOSLIN: Right. But I mean, the testing must be
something similar that it would be for natural gas too.
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October 1 t, 2000
MR. DICKSON: Couldn't we see if TECO has a training
certification program in place.
MR, PERICO: I think it would be, you know, the right move,
you know. Because it's coming to town and we've got to get
people that are qualified to do it. You know, there's a life safety
issue, so --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think it's a good idea to maybe look at
providing an additional line in the ordinance that says, to be able
to produce affidavits of experience or certification at least from
a recognized authority. Yeah, because I think you're right, Mr.
Crawford, we're going to blow some places up.
MR. CRAWFORD: Well, on the flip side, on the flip side,
natural gas is not as scary as everyone perceives it in Southwest
Florida. It's very safe. It's lighter than air. And, of course, I'm
talking to the salesmen, but -- but we've got to be careful.
MS. PUIG: But as it stands now, the only people that can do
natural gas would be master plumber, mechanical?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Master plumber or mechanical
contractor.
MS. PUIG: So if someone wanted to come to Collier and
they wanted to do gas only, they didn't want to be a plumbing
contractor, they can't do it?
CHAIRMAN HAYES:
of change.
MS, PUIG: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Now, I don't know that we can -- do we
need to look at, perhaps, adding another category of license
called natural gas contractor?
MR. JOSLIN: I bet you we will.
MR. GONZALEZ: I think that's coming.
MR. JOSLIN: I think it's on the way.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Do we have any natural gas now in
Collier County? Has there been any installations of it at all any
place?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Oh, yes.
MR. CRAWFORD.' Yes, we do. Ritz Carlton is --
MS. PUIG: Yes, but that's just done by a master plumber is
what I tell them.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Mr. Perico, do we inspect that? Our
inspectors inspect that?
That's correct, until we make some kind
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October 11, 2000
MR. PERICO: Yes, we do.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's part of the plumbing contractor's
inspection.
MS. PUIG: Now, what if we get someone from the east
coast that comes over to Collier and wants to just do natural gas
only and they're not a master plumber, they're a gas contractor?
MR. CRAWFORD: I don't know that you're going to get a lot
of that, I really don't. I think the plumbing contractors on the
projects are going to be doing this work. I think that's the
reality.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think, see, that the plumbing
contractor -- it's been in the plumbing contractor license for so
long that if somebody's coming over from the other coast, they're
already in possession of a plumbing contractor's license. MS. PUIG: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay? I think maybe we need to look at
it. I don't know how fast we need to look at it and how far along
we should extend research, but I'm going to say that there's got
to be, maybe the northern part of the state, where they've had,
perhaps, natural gas for a little while. How have they
approached this position? Because I just don't want to be the
only municipality in the State of Florida and maybe even the
United States to have a natural gas contractor's license, just
because we're nervous about something new that has been
around forever elsewhere.
MR. BALZANO: On this Experior assessment test~ they have
what they call a gas contractor. In the scope of his work are
those who are qualified to install, maintain, repair, alter or
extend gas piping, appliances, gas mains, gas lines, lateral tanks
and other -- I don't have my glasses.
MS. PUIG: Apparatus.
MR. BALZANO: Apparatus.
MS. PUIG: In connection therewith.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That wordage would encompass LP gas
and natural gas. And I'm not sure the LP gas people would buy
into that.
MR. BALZANO: Well, what I'm saying is, someone in Florida
uses this if they offer this exam. So the question is, if someone
comes, let's say, from the east coast that is a gas contractor
licensed and has put in gas lines and mains and appliances, are
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October 11, 2000
we going to allow them to work, where he knows more about it
than you do?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Good point.
MR. NONNENMACHER: But what category would we put him
under?
MR. BALZANO: Gas contractor.
MR. NONNENMACHER: We don't have that category.
MS. PUIG: That's my question.
MR. BARTOE: That's why we're here.
MS. PUIG: See, this all came about -- some gentleman
called from up north, out of state, and he wanted to come to
Collier, he heard gas was coming, and that's when I started
researching all of this, and that's when I came to the conclusion
the only people that could do it is a plumbing contractor, now
mechanical.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: You have wording in there that that
municipality is used for licensing gas contractors; is that
correct?
MS. PUIG: I don't know which municipality is using this. I
received this from Experior.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: What's Experior?
MS. PUIG: Our testing agency, the Block and Associates.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MS. PUIG: Now called Experior.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So we don't know if anybody's got a
license --
MS. PUIG: No, I don't.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- currently in the state? Is there any
way we could put a question out to see? Again, I don't want to
reinvent the wheel. If we had some other municipality in the
state or even Tallahassee that is looking at -- scratching their
head over it, you know, and revising their state ordinance,
there's a good possibility that they've been -- they've touched
base on this issue as well, and then, perhaps, come back with us
on it, Ms. Puig, and let us know, because I don't want to reinvent
the wheel if we don't have to, but --
MR. DICKSON: It would already be in the state ordinance.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It may possibly already be.
MR. DICKSON: We've got gas statewide, if it's -- and there's
nothing in the state ordinance, is there, Mr. Neale?
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October t 1, 2000
MR. NEALE: The only thing I've found is the LPG contractor.
I have not found anything else, so --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct. It's always been under
mechanical or plumbing, you see. I'd just like to do some outside
research for two reasons, see what else -- how other people are
handling it, and, number two, perhaps how they've worded it so
that we can be standard.
MS. WHITE: Is this too far removed from the LPG contractor
to be part of that?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yes. Like I'm saying and like Mr. Neale
says, they did some serious lobbying to Tallahassee. They have
their own section in the statutes that applies to LP gas. To get
that license -- to do gas, natural gas, they'd have to go through
all the hoopla of a bottled gas contractor~ and that may be way
more than they need to deal with, and vice versa. MR. BALZANO: Mr. Hayes?
MR. NEALE: If I may, one of the exemptions, and it doesn't
get all the way into it, but one of the exemptions under 49.103 is
public utilities, including gas districts, are exempt from getting
licensed when they're constructing maintenance or development
work employed by their employees, so --
MR. CRAWFORD: Yeah. Well, the way that works is TECO
brings the line to your property --
MR. NEALE: Then you have to install it from there.
MR. CRAWFORD: -- up to a point, and then you distribute it
within the unit.
MR. BALZANO: Mr. Hayes?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yes.
MR. BALZANO: Isn't there a big difference between running
o- what do you use in LP gas, three-eighths copper tubing?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Three-quarter.
MR. BALZANO: Three-quarter, half-inch, whatever, and it's
usually one piece. They're on a 50 or 100 yard roll. There's a big
difference when you start piping natural gas and you're using
black iron pipe.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, that's correct, but they have a
new product out, a nonmetallic roll piping that they're using in
bottling -- in running natural gas. I don't think we even need to
look at the old metallic piping any longer.
MR. BALZANO: What I'm saying is, they're bringing that
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October 11, 2000
main into a high-rise. You're not just running a little pipe up
there. You're running mains through that building and you've got
to cut off it. I think you -- you could have some problems if
you've got people that don't know what they're doing, that never
saw natural gas.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, there's no question about it.
MR. BALZANO: I mean, Mr. Crawford says it's safe. Well, I've
seen a lot of buildings that will tell you differently that aren't up
anymore. Because if you don't know what you're doing, that
building's gone.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It can be dangerous, there's no question
about it.
MR. CRAWFORD: The gas provider would be responsible for
bringing the main lines into the high-rise. From there they are
relatively small lines. They're three-quarter inch lines that run
top to bottom of the building.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, I don't know how -- where that
separation is going to be because we have the same
circumstances as a plumbing contractor with your sanitary
sewer system leaving and your water distribution coming. You
know, the natural gas provider would be a utility purveyor, and
his responsibility and operation would stop at your property line.
Private property work would have to be done by a private
company, and I'm -- so from the property line -- MR. CRAWFORD: That's true, that's true.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- into the house, perhaps, it may be a
gray area there. Okay?
MS. PUIG: Okay. Ready for the next subject?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yeah.
MR. CRAWFORD: I just want to state for the record that I'm
not for or opposed to gas. I was told that it was safe, and --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MS. PUIG: Okay. Page 14, cabinet installation contractor,
section 1.6.3.5. Lee County requires a three-hour general
specialty exam. So when they come into our office and they
want to get licensed for a cabinet installer, we have to give them
the whole drill, okay, do you want to work in Lee County,
because if you do, then you have to take the three-hour general
specialty exam. We only require a two-hour business and law.
So if we offer them the two-hour business and law, Lee County
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October I t, 2000
will not honor the grade score, so they have to retest again to
work in Lee County.
So I think, to make everything simpler, let's just change our
ordinance to read three-hour general specialty. That will cover
for both Lee and Collier. Because nine out of 10 contractors
now, we're signing them up to take general specialty so they can
work in both counties.
But if, down the road, they get -- take the business and law
exam through us and then two years down the road they want to
work in Lee, they're going to come back and yell at us because
we never told them they had to take another test for Lee County,
which we do tell them that. But it could prevent a problem.
MR. BARTOE: I might add, your three-hour specialty that
she's talking about does include business and law in it.
MR. NEALE: So really they're taking just an additional
one-hour test?
MR. BARTOE: Correct.
MS. PUIG: Right. It's like the business and law, same exact
book for both exams, it's just an hour longer, more business
questions involved.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. So in section 1.6.3.5, cabinet
installation contractor, that's the license you're talking about?
MS. PUIG: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Currently all we require is 24 months'
experience and a two-hour business and law exam --
MS. PUIG: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES:
MS. PUIG: Right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES:
specialty exam?
-- to get a license in Collier County.
You're saying you need to add a
MS. PUIG: Change it from two-hour business and law to
three-hour general specialty.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Just to comply -- just so that they won't
have a hardship if they get a license here, going to Lee County?
MS. PUIG: No, that -- correct.
MR. CRAWFORD: Just to be consistent with Lee County.
MS. PUIG: Correct.
MR. NEALE: Okay. This sort of goes back to what we were
talking about earlier. We've got a whole lot of categories that
require 24 months' experience and a passing grade on a two-hour
Page 76
October 11, 2000
business and law. If we're going to change one, do you want to
change them all?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, see, now that's what I'm trying to
get at here.
MS. PUIG: Well, most of the major specialty trades that
require the three-hour test, Lee County honors the two-hour
business and law. They do the same thing. It's just cabinet
installers we've been having problems with.
MR. NEALE: I just -- I don't want to be argumentative, but I
just get this sense that you're going to have the cabinet installer
guy saying, why am I singled out to have to take this doggone
three-hour test when everybody else is only --
MR. CRAWFORD: I kind of agree with Mr. Neale. We have a
whole bunch of two-hour tests. We don't have one test
anywhere.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I'm concerned with that as well.
MR. DICKSON: I don't care what Lee County does.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: You know, Lee County also doesn't
allow registered contractors in the county. That doesn't mean
that Collier needs to do that -- MS. PUIG: Right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- just to comply with Lee. We're asking
-- that's basically increasing the --
MS. PUIG: The exam, one-hour long.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: -- the exam. Well, no. That's two
different exams now. That's a business and law and a specialty
all in one.
MS. PUIG: Why would they take both? No, they would take
one or the other.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Huh?
MS. PUIG: Right now they have the option. We tell them, if
you want to work in Lee County, you have to take the three-hour
general specialty exam because they will not honor our two-hour
business and law exam. So they look at us, say, okay, sign me
up for the three-hour general specialty. That will cover him for
Collier and Lee, because it's equivalent to the business and law
exam~ just an hour longer, same exact test, same exact book,
just one hour longer.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: There's still not anything to do with
cabinet installation?
Page 77
October t 1, 2000
MS. PUIG: Nothing to do with cabinet installation.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: However, if I, today, wanted that
cabinet installer's license and can produce 24 months'
experience --
MS. PUIG: And took the business and law, you can get this.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I've got the business and law. I've got a
state certified exam. I can get it, but if we change it to what
you're talking about, I can't get it. I've got to go take another
exam now.
MS, PUIG: Well -- no, because we still honor -- if they took
the three-hour general specialty in Lee County, it's the same
test, it's just an hour longer. It's actually more harder (sic), the
general specialty. So if they went to Lee County and took the
three-hour general specialty, came to Collier, wanted to get that
same license, we will honor those grade scores, the three-hour
general specialty.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct. But what I'm saying is
that today, as we speak, myself, I can qualify if I can show 24
months' experience and show you my state certification, which
says that I in fact took two business -- two hours of business and
law, you can give me a contractor -- a cabinet contractor's
license.
MS. PUIG: Sure.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: But if we change it to what you just
said, I can't apply. I've got to go take the full blown exam now.
MR. NEALE: Right.
MS. PUIG: No, there is no technical exam for cabinets. You
take the business exam, we'll give you the license.
MR. NEALE: What Mr. Hayes is saying -- I see where he's
coming from. I know exactly where he's coming from on this
one. Earlier this morning, without this proposed change, he
could have become a cabinetry contractor. Make this change
and he can't become a cabinetry contractor anymore because he
did never pass a three-hour general specialty exam. He only
passed a two-hour business and law exam. Doesn't matter if he
passed a six-hour plumbing exam.
MS. PUIG: Right. So are you saying if a contractor comes
from Lee County and took the three-hour general specialty, we
can't honor that score?
MR. NEALE: We can still honor it because it covers -- it has
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October 11, 2000
a two-hour business and law component. MS. PUIG: Right.
MR. NEALE: But if anybody else has taken a two-hour
business and law component --
MS. PUIG: Not equivalent to the three-hour test.
MR. NEALE: -- it's not equivalent to the three-hour general
specialty, so they could not -- MS. PUIG: Okay.
MR. NEALE: -- do what Mr. Bullard did this morning and
cross over and become a cabinetry contractor.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Exactly, you hit it on the head.
MR. GONZALEZ: I think you need to have a section on your
application that says, do you want to work in Lee and Collier or
do you just want to work in Collier, and you check the box and
you keep that in the file. And if they ever come back, you say,
you had a choice --
MS. PUIG: Right. And if they come back with a -- hey, you
checked that off.
MR. GONZALEZ: Yeah. You had a choice and you made it
and now you've got to live with it.
MS. PUIG: Okay. That's a good idea.
MR. ZACHARY: Is there a difference in price on the exams?
Does the three-hour specialty exam cost more?
MS. PUIG: Oh, yes. Fifty dollar fee to Experior versus 30
dollars for the business and law.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, at this point, like we're saying,
too, my -- I was exactly headed where Mr. Neale knew where it
was. Mr. Bullard this morning, today as the ordinance is written,
could get a cabinetry license in Collier County. If we'd made this
change, he could not have gotten it.
MR. NEALE: Exactly. We would have had no solution for
him.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yeah. It's not to with the complications
or the problems of the exam. It's, in fact, he, today, under our
license, our ordinance, qualifies for that license. He won't if we
change that. That's what I was looking at.
Okay. I'm going to wonder, do we -- we've got a good bit to
finish up with Mr. Neale. I'm sure you've got a few issues and
items we need to go over, and I'm sure that investigators,
perhaps, have a couple questions as well. We need to probably
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October t 1, 2000
take a break and come back after lunch. As much as I hate to,
Mr. Keyes, I appreciate you coming in here, but if you want to
chat with us, you might want to wait till after lunch. And I
apologize for your inconvenience, but we've been hard at it this
morning.
MR. NEALE: And knowing -- I think I know what Mr. Keyes is
here to talk about. That's going to be a topic that will last --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It's going to be a nice little topic. Can
we, perhaps, take a lunch break, return at 1:307 My only concern
with this is I've had two board members suggest that they've got
to leave at 2:30 or something. Just as long as we have -- can
maintain a quorum then I'm a happy camper, otherwise we've got
another problem to deal with. I'm going to poll the board.
Ms. White, can you be here?
MS. WHITE: Yes, I can.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Schoenfuss?
MR. SCHOENFUSS: Okay.
MS. PAHL: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mrs. Pahl?
MR. JOSLIN: I can stay till two. That's probably it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I can. Can you, Mr. Dickson?
MR. DICKSON: Yep, 2:30 or 3:00~ but not 5:00.
MR. CRAWFORD: 2:30 is my limit.
MR. GONZALEZ: I have to leave as soon as possible, so --
MR. DICKSON: Do we really have that much more? How
much more have you got, Judy? I don't know if we'll finish it
today anyway.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I understand, and I appreciate it, and
I'm not going to make any points here, but everyone on this
board was warned about the length of the possibility of today.
For us to have to reschedule another meeting is just really tough
on a lot of us. I guess if that's what we have to do to maintain a
quorum, that's what we're going to have to do, but we were all
warned at what today was going to possibly render.
MR. NONNENMACHER: I have a question for Mr. Neale, Mr.
Hayes. Do we have to maintain a quorum since the board is not
making any decisions and this is just a workshop?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Good point.
MR. NEALE: Not really.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We have conducted all our business.
Page 80
October t 1, 2000
MR. NEALE: I don't think so. I mean, as long as we've got --
you know, what would we have left, at least four board
members?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We just won't be able to make any
motions if we wanted to for anything.
MR. NEALE: Well, all we're doing is getting the general
sense of the board's direction on anything at this point. What
will probably end up happening is a packet will come back to this
board, strike through, underline, and that will then require a
motion to go in front of the county commission.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Well, if that's -- Mr. Bartoe.
MR. BARTOE: Just a suggestions, and you'd better entertain
a motion to adjourn while you have a quorum.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, if most everyone can come back,
I'm suggesting leaving out of here and coming back at 1:30. And
if we can have another hour or so there before we start to lose
our quorum, if there's any actual board business we need to
conduct, perhaps we can do that --
MR. NEALE: How many board members will we actually
have up until three o'clock?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Up until three o'clock, let's raise our
hands.
MR. NEALE: Well, I'm just thinking -- okay.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: After three o'clock, how many will we
have?
MR. ZACHARY: We've got a quorum till three.
MR. NEALE: We've got a quorum till three at least, because
at least -- then we've got five members that can stay quite a
while. Five members is a quorum for this board. It's just a
majority of the members, so --
MS. WHITE: Why don't we just take a shorter lunch?
MR. NEALE: Get back in and -- get back by one?
MS. WHITE: At one?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MS. WHITE: Can we do that? And so -- because we don't
want to lose the input of these other board members rather than
just the quorum.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. A 45-minute lunch. We return at
one o'clock? Let's try it that way. Then we're adjourned till one
o'clock.
Page 81
October t 1, 2000
(Recess was taken.)
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I'm going to call this meeting back to
order. I think we left off -- Ms. Puig, you were -- you had your
issues?
MS. PUIG: Yes, I did. You want to discuss the thing about
handymen, what to do about a handyman? Everybody cringes,
but we get phone calls daily on how to be a handyman. People
want to do just minor work, owner/builder needs minor work.
GC's not going to come out and do just minor work, minor
repairs, so we need to discuss what we want to do with
handyman.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I understand that the state has no
regulation whatsoever in the handyman realm. Is that -- MS. PUIG: I believe that's correct.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I believe that's correct. But since they
don't, they're saying it doesn't require regulation, and I think that
every single individual municipality in the State of Florida
probably disagrees with that. A handyman can be just as
expensive and dangerous and consumer fraud as any
construction trade there is.
I'd personally like to see some kind of a legislation to govern
handymen. ! don't know that we need to go overboard with it
and get radical with all kind of exams, however, a handyman, by
its definition, will work on electric, work on plumbing, work on
carpentry, work on paint, work on aluminum, work on steel, work
on masonry.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Mr. Hayes, I believe Mr. Neale said
the state had an exemption for a certain value that they could do
work that was -- I don't know the exact word he used, but that
really doesn't mean anything with a value of less than 2S00 or
something like that, and we could not go against that.
MR. NEALE: The statute in 49.103 which is the exemptions
section, reads, exempt is any work or operation of a casual,
minor or inconsequential nature in which the aggregate contract
price for labor, materials and all other items is less than a
thousand dollars, but this exemption does not apply if the
construction, repair, remodeling or improvement is a part of a
larger and major operation, whether undertaken by a same or
different contract or in which a division of the operation is made
in contracts of less than -- in contracts of amounts of less than a
Page 82
October 11, 2000
thousand dollars for the purpose of evading this part or
otherwise, or B, to a person who advertises that he or she is a
contractor or otherwise represents that he or she is qualified to
engage in contracting.
MR. NONNENMACHER: Mr. Neale, does that mean that we
cannot regulate handymen whatsoever and have to go along with
that, or can we license a handyman or --
MR. NEALE: Well, I would want to do more research, but
owing to the fact that it's in the same section and appears to be
in the same manner as the owner/builder exemption, I think if it's
exempt from state licensure, I don't think we can create a
license for it. I don't believe so.
I'd want to do some more research on it, but, you know,
based on the earlier opinion that we had gotten on that, it states
-- and this was from the opinion of Florida's attorney general, that
a statutory exemption contained in 49.103 cannot be restricted
by a county ordinance.
The only out that I see there is casual, minor or
inconsequential, which, you know, certainly if somebody's going
to do electrical wiring --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Wiring a ceiling fan.
MR. NEALE: -- potentially that's not inconsequential. You
know, those are the issues. And I'm not sure what --
MR. ZACHARY: Could we create an ordinance -- and I'd need
to do some more research too. Could we create an ordinance
that exempted things like, cannot do things that affect health,
safety and welfare, electrical, you know, whatever categories
that we want to create that don't apply to the handyman. I'm
just -- I'm throwing that out there because I don't know the
answer, but--
MS. PUIG: Lee County has a category. It says, alteration
and repair, nonstructural. Scope, nonstructural renovation to
residential property, and they have a category for that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Do they define or restrict, like he's
talking about, electric or plumbing?
MS. PUIG: Apparently if it's any major trades, they have to
be licensed by those major contractors.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: But it doesn't exempt that or doesn't
say not or doesn't uninclude (sic} -- MS. PUIG: No, it does not.
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October 11, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So if I read what you're saying correctly
and actually what Mr. Neale's saying from the state, they're not
specifically saying in that handyman ordinance, you -- or statute,
that you cannot do electric or plumbing? MS. PUIG: Right, does not specify.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: They're not specifically saying that?
MS. PUIG: Right.
MR. DICKSON: I don't think you want to take it that far.
MS. PUIG: But we don't want them to do that. We don't
want them to be able to go in and do electrical or plumbing or AC
or anything that's --
MR. DICKSON: What about changing a trap on a sink or
changing a light switch? I mean, there's people -- there's elderly
-- I mean, I would do it myself in my house, but --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Once again, a thousand dollars.
MR. DICKSON: Well, yeah. It's way under a thousand
dollars, it's very insignificant.
MS. PUIG: You can't get a master plumber to come out and
change toilet parts.
MR. DICKSON: Exactly, and they're not going to create
anything that's going to be hazardous to the public. You do the
switch wrong, it throws the breaker. MS. PUIG: That's true.
MR. DICKSON: I don't see any problem with that.
MR. SCHOENFUSS: Could we say then that anybody can do
an electrical installation costing nine hundred dollars without
having an electrical contractor's license?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's where I'm coming from.
MR. SCHOENFUSS: That's not right at all.
MR. NEAL. E: Well, the question is, is it casual, minor or
inconsequential.
MR. PERICO: Our ordinance is pretty explicit. Any new
work over two hundred dollars requires a -- CHAIRMAN HAYES: Permit.
MR. PERICO: -- permit for electrical, so -- which has to be
inspected anyway, whether it be under the handyman guides or
whatever. They would still have to pull a permit.
MR. NEALE: And I would think that if -- the argument can
certainly be made, if it requires a permit, it's electrical work that
is no longer casual, minor or inconsequential.
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October 11, 2000
MR. DICKSON: And we're not seeing ~- you're not seeing
complaints with handymen, are you?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Are you getting complaints with the
handymen?
MR. BARTOE: Quite a few when season gets here, they
come back down from up north, and they're a jack-of-all-trades.
MR. DICKSON: Yeah, but see, I see it as the necessary evil,
because every company that's out there is too busy and won't
mess with this little stuff.
MR. BARTOE: I agree with you.
MS. PUIG: We don't license them. If anyone calls the office
and wants to be a handyman, say o- we tell them, either you have
to get licensed in a specific trade you want to choose or you
have to be a general building or residential contractor to do it all.
That's the only choices they have right now.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That or do it without a license, which
there is no violation of county ordinance if you do it without a
license.
MR. DICKSON: As long as it's under a thousand dollars.
MR. SCHOENFUSS: But a permit may still be required.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: If a permit is required. In a case where
they're changing out all their ceiling fans, changing out all their
switches from regular to toggle switches, changing out all their
bath fixtures, I believe they don't need a permit.
MR. DICKSON: If it's under a thousand dollars.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct.
MR. SCHOENFUSS: And then there's no inspection.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct again.
So if we don't have any regulation at all on those people,
which what I see now is we don't have any regulation at all,
there's nothing we can do for a homeowner that gets hurt by a
handyman. Collier County has no recourse. The only place they
can go is to civil court, and that's, I think, Ms. Puig's question is,
is there anything we can do or should we to try to help that?
MR. DICKSON: I say we move on. $tate's already defined it.
We can't exceed state, plus I don't want handyman cases in
here.
MS. PUIG: Well, that's what I'm afraid of. If we do create a
handyman category and let them be limited to what they can do
or nonstructural, they're going to go out and they're going to do
Page 85
October 11, 2000
above and beyond what they're allowed to do once they have
that license in hand. So I think it will get out of control~ but we
do get calls every day, people wanting to do handyman work.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Perhaps, should this be a question left
to the board of county commissioners? Do they think that Collier
County should expend resources to govern and maintain
handyman activities as a protection to the county public?
MR. NONNENMACHER: I believe Mr. Neale already answered
that. We couldn't govern it if we wanted to.
MR. CRAWFORD: See, I think what we're talking about, the
people that are calling you, Judy, I would suspect, are looking to
do projects in excess of a thousand dollars, I would assume, and
in that case, we should probably redirect them towards the
residential builder's license --
MS. PUIG: Yeah, that's what we do now.
MR. CRAWFORD: -- and then leave the ordinance as it is. but
we certainly don't want to try to enforce all the handymen in the
county. That would be a rat's nest.
MR. DICKSON: I think what I would do is cite what the state
statute is.
MR. CRAWFORD: Right.
MR. DICKSON: So that they understand.
MS. PUIG: That sounds good.
MR. DICKSON: And leave it alone.
MR. CRAWFORD: The danger is, the people you turn away
are going to say, okay, I'll go be a handyman and I'm going to do
-- they're going to end up doing larger projects. That's the
danger.
MS. PUIG: Yeah, we have that now.
MR. NEALE: Because what's one person's handyman is
another person's contractor.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, there is another downside to it.
Some of us in business that are licensed are extremely busy in
the construction industry, and you're right, we can't go and
change that commode seat. We just don't have the time, so it's
going to cost that poor homeowner a lot of money; however,
there are a lot of people in the trades that are service oriented.
They're licensed and they're legally bound by the rules of their
license, and their way of doing business is more expensive than
the individual that has no license and no regulation whatsoever.
Page 86
October 11, 2000
That means that we are also saying that if you want it done
inexpensively, you need to hire a handyman. There's no license
or regulation on that fellow and he can take care of you. I don't
know if that's saying very much to the license holder public that
we have out there. You can't afford to do that as a license
holder.
So it's something to think about. There's a double edge to
that. I agree, I don't want to get up to my neck in regulation of
every individual that hangs a door in this county, but by the same
token, I don't want to open up a Pandora's box on the other side.
MR. PERICO: On the same token, Gary, what the public's got
to realize, if they hire these people, they have no recourse to
come to anybody, you know, buyer beware, that's all I can say.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Well, that's a good point, Mr. Perico.
MS. WHITE: What about the thousand dollar limitation? Is
that per visit to the homeowner or is that per the homeowner per
year?
MR. CRAWFORD: Per project I would assume.
MR. DICKSON: Per project.
MS. WHITE: Per project, per year or --
MR. NEALE: Per project. But there's the specific language
that, you know, we can't be part of a larger or major operation,
so if the -- and be divided up to amounts less than a thousand.
So, you know, it can't be a homeowner or can't be a guy being
hired out and, you know, he does the destruction for $950, then
he does the drywall for $975, then he does the electric for $850.
I mean, doing that would be a clear violation of the ordinance
and would be a clear violation of the statute, so that would
cause them to be practicing unlicensed contracting. MS. WHITE: Under what period of time though?
MR. NEALE: It's really not a matter -- there's not really a
time period set out. It's -- the language is for the purpose of
evading this part or otherwise. So basically if the staff saw that
a guy was doing what we were talking about before, effectively,
what Mr. Perico was talking about is the guy trying to break it up
into a bunch of under $25,000 (sic} jobs, it still would be a
violation. In this case, a bunch of under a thousand -- one
thousand dollars jobs, would be a violation, so --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. So the way I see it at this point,
you're still paddling your boat by yourself.
Page 87
October 11, 2000
MS. PUIG: No problem. We'll just keep it residential
building, general contractor. They can do it all, except plumbing,
AC and electric.
MR. NEALE: And I would say the other thing is, if someone
advertises that they're a contractor, they're also not exempt. So
it's not residential, general, you know. That's anything that's
defined as a contractor under 489. If they say that they are a
contractor, that they are qualified to do any of those things under
489 --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Is there --
MR. NEALE: -- or, in fact, under our ordinance -- if the person
says on their card, I do minor electrical, plumbing, drywall,
carpentry, he's in violation of the statute, because all of those
things are licensable trades. If he says, I'm Joe the handyman,
that's okay.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: What if he called himself--
MR. NEALE: But if he says, you know, I can do minor this,
that and the other thing, to my mind, reading the statute, he's
practicing unlicensed contracting.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: If he calls himself Handyman
Contracting, is he in violation?
MR. NEALE: He's in violation, because he's saying he's a
contractor.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: There is wording in there that says if
you use the word contracting --
MR. NEALE: It says, to a person who advertises that he or
she is a contractor or otherwise represents that he or she is
qualified to engage in contracting. And contracting is defined in
489 as being anything that's covered by 489.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. So a legitimate handyman goes
to a homeowner and -- the homeowner calls him up and says,
hey, Joe Handyman, I'd like for you to rehang my doors. He
starts to rehang the doors or starts to give an estimate on
rehanging the doors for $850. Does he give her an estimate or a
contract? If he gives her a contract, then he's in violation of the
statute?
MR. NEALE: No, because, you know, this is that --just
writing a contract in those terms, a contract, does not make one
a contractor, because a contractor is specifically defined in the
statute as being one who engages in the practice of contracting.
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October 1 t, 2000
It's -- unfortunately, the statute in our ordinance defines a lot of
things by repeating themselves, so it doesn't make it real easy to
get through to the definition, but --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: All right. So at this point we revert to
489 and leave it alone?
MR. NEALE: But specifically -- and I would say to the
enforcement staff, if they see a guy handing out a card that says,
I do minor electrical, et cetera, et cetera, he's dead, or if he
hands out fliers that say that.
MR, BARTOE: We see a lot of those cards.
MR. NEALE: And I mean, if you see those, to my mind,
they're citable as practicing unlawful contracting, unlicensed
contracting, because they -- I don't think they could argue the
489 exemption.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So that would be your authority, should
you see that card and you have to act on it~ the authority is 489
at that point?
MR. BARTOE: We have been acting on that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Oh, you have been?
MR. BARTOE: Oh, yes.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Great.
MR. NEALE: Or as Mr. Zachary brings up, unless the card
specifically says that I do casual, minor or inconsequential
electrical.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Have to do that on the card.
MR. NEALE: Has to say it right on the card.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay, Ms. Puig, you want to continue?
MR. DICKSON: Stenographer change.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Your replacement's not here?
MS. PUIG: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Oh, is she? Oh, okay. All right. Then
let's give them five minutes. (Recess was taken.)
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Call the meeting back to order then.
Okay, you want to move along?
MS. PUIG: Next category. Tennis courts. Where should we
put these people who want to do tennis courts? We used to have
a category, I believe, a long time ago, but we took it out.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I believe so.
MR. NEALE: There was a tennis court contractor category
Page 89
October t t, 2000
many, many years ago. It was -- I think it was taken out at one of
the first ordinance revisions I sat through.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I wonder what the reason was for
deleting it.
MR. NEALE: It got put in somewhere else.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It got added to something else?
MR. NONNENMACHER: I don't think it's necessary to put it
back in. You need a fence contractor to fence it in, an electrical
contractor to wire any lights to it, and all it is, so to speak, is
slab.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: How about a paving contractor or
masonry contractor to put --
MR. NONNENMACHER: My question is: Why would we ever
want to license them?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Ms. Puig?
MS. PUIG: Right now, we stick them in masonry if they have
to do the court part of it, and then fence and then electrician.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Do they also go under concrete, form
and place or concrete, place and finish, if they are doing hard
surface?
MS. PUIG: Is it really concrete material they're using?
MR. NONNENMACHER: What if they are doing hard court?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Isn't that asphalt?
MR. NEALE: No. Could be paving contractors.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Could be grass.
MR. DICKSON: I suggest we move on.
MS. PUIG: Okay, let's move on. Page 28. Under F, where it
says "Prior to taking the test required by this ordinance, an
applicant must provide verification that he or she has complied
with the experience requirements," we don't do that until after
they have taken the exam. Can we just wipe that out?
Page 28, number F -- letter F, we get the experience
requirements after they have taken their exams, and they submit
their application that's when we verify their experience.
MR. DICKSON: That's exactly what the state does, too.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We are opposite of the state and have
been forever. I don't have any problem complying with the state.
We're moving more and more in that direction.
MS. PUIG: So that last sentence we can just basically
scratch?
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October 1t, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Delete section F?
MS. PUIG: Just the last sentence "Prior to taking the test,"
that whole sentence.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That makes sense to me. Once again,
Mr. Neale, we're following closer in track with the state.
MR. NEALE: What I would suggest is that we just -- this is
just
for master and journeyman applications, so we need to have it
everywhere. Because that's just under master and journeyman.
MS. PUIG: Right. So everywhere that it states that we need
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Everywhere that it appears?
MS. PUIG: Right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Do you have any objections to that?
MR. NEALE: I would have to look. This may have come out,
because I remember several years ago, there was a lot of
discussion about the new standards for master and journeyman
plumbers and electricians and things like that. I don't know
whether -- because this is just in that master and journeyman
section. Whether it was just for those trades that have master
and journeyman categories.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It may also have been deleted already
in the rest of them and overlooked in this one. MR. NEALE: It's possible.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Why don't we just suggest that we
delete it unless you can come up with a valid reason later on that
we need to revisit it?
MR. NEALE: Yes, because as I say, this appears to be just
for the master and journeyman section. CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MS. PUIG: Did we decide on the reciprocity that we will not
-- say someone is taking the exam from Lee County or whatever
county, those counties send us their grade scores, they're brand
new to Collier County. Right now, we make them do a whole
complete application, experience letters, insurance, the whole
nine yards.
Since they are currently licensed and proved their
experience in these other counties, can we just short form it,
make one form and say reciprocity through another county,
instead of having them to do work experience letters again?
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October 1t, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: You're asking we reciprocate with
licenses, not just with test scores, is what you're basically
asking here? That's the same subject that came up earlier when
we talked about not having any reciprocity.
I don't personally have a problem with it. I authored words
to that effect two years ago, but it didn't seem to fly, for
whatever the reason was.
MR. DICKSON: I have a problem with it. Having operated in
probably 15 other counties in the state, out of Orlando and
having an office in Miami, I have a real problem with it because --
I wish this wasn't on TV.
Well, just to give you an idea -- Dade County licensing board,
right now, is behind by 1,500 cases. Does that scare you? That's
why I have a problem with it. And you don't see the Collier
County -- having worked all over the state -- I don't get anything
for this, but the finest quality of construction I have seen all over
the state is Collier County.
I can show you the same size homes and buildings in
Orlando and Miami and everywhere else and you really start
looking, and they do not hold a candle to the quality that's in this
county.
And personally, I take great pride in that. And when I've got
counties that are 1,500 cases behind that are coming before the
licensing board, and I'm not exaggerating, I don't want
reciprocity.
MS. PUIG: I like it the way it is now, but I get a lot of
complaints from contractors because they have to do the whole
application process all over, and they just did it for these other
counties. I just tell them, I'm sorry that's the requirement, you
have to do it.
MR. DICKSON: To get state certified, you don't have to do
that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Once again, our neighbor to the north
has the same situation.
MS. PUIG: Right. We'll keep it as is. I just wanted to bring
that up.
MR, DICKSON: I don't want mine to be the final say, but
that's why I would vote against it. MS. PUIG: I'm done.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Any other input on that issue?
Page 92
October t t, 2000
MS. PUIG: If the licensing guys have anything from their
section of the ordinance?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Basically, what I see is your office, the
investigator's office and Mr. Neale's office and Mr. Zachary, if
you have compiled items. So what we'll do, if you want to, we'll
go on to licensing investigation and see if you gentlemen have
anything to suggest or recommend.
MR. NEALE: Couple of other minor points and these are
ones that are just based on notes I made over the past year or
SO,
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Neale, wait just a second. Have you
got anything?
MR. BARTOE: Bob mentioned a minor one this morning, and
yes, we've discussed all these other ones with Judy and she took
the notes and that's why she brought them here to you. Tile,
marble, granite should be added to that, also. There's a lot of
granite being installed.
MR, NEALE: I would agree.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Do you, offhand, know what license it
is?
MR. BARTOE: Page 20, section 1.6.3.45.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So tile and marble, and you're
suggesting we add the word granite?
MR. BARTOE: Tile, marble and granite.
MR. NEALE: Tile, marble and terrazzo.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Right. That was my next question.
MR. BARTOE: Yes, why not?
MR DICKSON: Typically, marble go hand in hand; wherever
you can buy marble, you can buy granite.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Ms. Puig, you got any concerns over
that?
MR. NEALE: The only comment I have, I've seen a lot of -- do
we just want to make it "and stone," because I've seen a lot of
slate and a lot of other kinds of stone products that are out there
that people are putting down as flooring.
MR. BARTOE: I agree with you, Mr. Neale.
MR. NEALE: The pleasure of the board is just instead of
putting in granite, just say, "tile, marble and stone."
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Ms. Puig?
MS. PUIG: That sounds good.
Page 93
October I t, 2000
MR. ZACHARY: Maybe it would be better to say something
as "naturals."
MR. NEALE: But that's what I was just going to come up
with. I always manage to say something intelligent and then
follow it up with sticking my foot in my mouth, so I'm proceeding
to do that right now. Just to keep consistent.
Do we want to put "natural and synthetic stone"? Because
there's a lot of synthetic stone products out there.
MR. BALZANO: Mr. Neale, do you want me to turn this off?
MR. DICKSON: Why don't we leave it at stone, it covers both
of them.
MS. PUIG: Stone covers it all. Why is there a separate one
for tile, marble, and then tile, marble, terrazzo?
MR. DICKSON: Terrazzo is a whole different ballgame.
MR. NEALE: Two different skills.
MS. PUIG: Same requirement. Why wouldn't they all be
thrown together?
MR. NEALE: Different tasks.
MS. PUIG: Different tasks, okay.
MR. DICKSON: Terrazzo is much more difficult.
MR. NEALE: And all of a sudden, you're starting to see a lot
of new terrazzo around.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's a form of masonry.
MR. NEALE: A lot of the new restaurants, you see terrazzo.
MS. PUIG: So the tile, marble is thrown in with terrazzo. Do
you want to throw stone in that one, too?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: And stone would go in that section, as
well.
Mr. Bartoe, anything else?
MR. BARTOE: No, not from Bob or I.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Neale?
MR. NEALE: There was an issue brought up and I've got the
note and I -- for the life of me -- I can't remember why I've got the
note. But there was an issue of exterior metal studs to be put
into the carpentry category.
MR. CRAWFORD: I think that's my item. That's section
1.6.3.6.
MR. NEALE: Right.
MR. CRAWFORD: It references structural wood framing and
it references nonstructural wood framing, but the way I read
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October t t, 2000
that, we don't have a category for structural metal framing which
should be in this category.
We had a gentleman here two meetings back that was doing
metal framed houses, exterior walls, trusses, the whole nine
yards and this is where his category would fall, I believe. In
other words, the carpentry contractor would cover woods and
metal and all aspects.
MS. PUIG: Under drywall, it says "including the placing of
metal studs and runners."
MR. CRAWFORD: Drywall would be considered interior,
nonstructural metal framing. This would be an exterior wall
supporting a roof truss.
MR. BARTOE: As far as the metal stud versus the wood
studs, is there anything more a person would have to know to
install it?
MR. CRAWFORD: Yes. And that would go back to the
testing requirements.
MR. NEALE: We do say we allow them to do metal framing
but --
MR, CRAWFORD: It says "Wood, structural wood."
MR. NEALE: Which is obviously a --
MR. CRAWFORD: It should say, "Wood and metal structural,"
or "Structural and metal wood."
MR. BARTOE: I read that to say "Wood, structural wood and
metal." Doesn't that mean structural, both?
MR. NEALE: If you put a comma after the first wood and
metal nonstructural trusses," that would probably solve the
problem just with a little punctuation.
MR. CRAWFORD: That would clarify that line, but we still
need to add in structural metal framing somewhere in that
sentence.
MR. NEALE: Okay, uh-huh. Maybe "Wood, structural metal,
and wood" and "Metal, nonstructural" does that language work?
MR. CRAWFORD: Say that again.
MR. NEALE: "Structural wood and metal" and "metal,"
comma, "nonstructural trusses."
MR. CRAWFORD: Yes, and metal.
MR. NEALE: We still, I guess, have the great paving blocks
debate? Has that been resolved?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think there was a paving contractor
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October I t, 2000
that was here right before lunch that said he'd like to come back
right after lunch. We can just star that one and come back to it
when he gets here.
MR. DICKSON: The only question I have with that, I thought
the debate was over with. Why are we revisiting this?
MR. NEALE: I think it was Mr. Crawford who expressed
earlier that under the landscape license -- and we have to make
changes in the ordinance, obviously, to clarify it -- but the
landscaper can do sidewalks, decorative pavers. To be able to
lay paving blocks, you have to be a masonry contractor or paving
blocks contractor, is that still the --
MR. DICKSON: Yes. We spent hours on that, so I don't see
why we are going to do that again.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It may not be that was the only topic of
discussion with this gentlemen. I talked to him in the hall
earlier, and he said he's got some manufacturer's
recommendations and test analysis on some paving products
that are new in the industry, and he wanted to discuss that, like
it might need to be added to the ordinance or something. So it
may not even have a whole lot to do with that direct issue.
MR. CRAWFORD: I want to bring up one point that came up
earlier. On page 14, 1.6.3.8, it does define the exhaust hood
question, and it
does reference Class A, B, or sheet metal contractor as an
exhaust hood contractor.
MS. PAHL: So it's already covered in that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So we're covered with that anyway.
MS. PUIG: Yes.
MR. DICKSON: Glad we didn't do anything to it.
MR. NEALE: The only real statutory thing that exists that I
think would affect us is the change in definition of commercial
pool spa contractor; swimming pool, spa servicing contractor
and residential pool spa contractor. There's been some changes
in the definitions there.
In comparison, they are not -- to some extent, they are just
simplifications where a lot of things were very extensive, in
terms of describing what a commercial pool spa contractor can
do. We got rid of a lot of that where it said, you know, it used to
specify they could do steel work, they could do installation of
light niches, they could do floor installation. Now, it just says
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October t t, 2000
you can put in the pool, and all the things that are attendant to
putting in a pool.
So it takes a lot of language out that appeared to be sort of
redundant in the old one. Same thing with residential pool spa
and swimming pool spa servicing.
But, if it's the pleasure of the board, I can make sure
everybody gets copies of these before we say they can be put in
the ordinance. Maybe we can do that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I would think we would need to look at
it a little bit before we make a recommendation.
MR. NEALE: The other issue we had talked about before
was the expansion of the types of examinations that are
permitted and that adds Experior Professional Testing or
Assessment Systems, Inc. as being permitted testers. So if
that's okay with the board and the staff, we can make that
change.
MR. BARTOE: Who do we have now? I thought it was
Experior.
MS. PUIG: It is. We are using Experior.
MR. NEALE: This adds a whole list, plus it also talks about --
just defines them as being substantially similar. MR. DICKSON: Block is now Experior?
MS. PUIG: Yes. They changed their name from Block and
Associates to Experior.
MR. DICKSON: Okay.
MR, NEALE: This also adds Professional Testing and
Assessment Systems, Inc. which are two other testing
companies.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I don't have a problem with that.
MR. DICKSON: Do we need to mention the state? The state
prepares certain exams.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think we have the words "or
equivalent," don't we? MR. NEALE: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That covers that.
MR. CRAWFORD: We should be consistent with the state.
MR. NEALE: This is the language in 489.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Once again, for that ever illusive
consistency.
MR, NEALE: Never going to happen. Those are the only
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issues that I had, other than the ones we've already discussed.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Zachary.
MR. ZACHARY: Looking through my notes of things that I
don't think we've talked about today, but one that keeps coming
up is the financially responsible officer. And that issue, whether
we wanted to eliminate that from our ordinance or that's the one
thing I see we keep bringing up over and over.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I was under the impression -- I don't
know if we have to do it by policy or by ordinance -- I was under
the impression when we adopted the policy that we would adopt
the state's format and form on quizzing a second entity, and not
eliminate it. But just go ahead and continue to do what we're
doing, but adopt that format and form so that once we are
finished doing our paperwork with it, we forward it on to the
state and the state's work is done. Is that not what we left with
last time?
MS. PUIG: I'm looking at a resolution 99-0t, is that it? Tom
Palmer signed it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I think we've already done that then.
MS. PUIG: October of '99. Was it that long ago?
MR. NEALE: Then in July of this year~ at our July meeting,
the board voted to remove the financially responsible -- to get rid
of the financially responsible officer and not make it something
that this board would even address.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I'm sorry. I'm in la-la land. I apologize.
I was thinking more of the second entity qualifying procedure
and program. I apologize to everyone.
You're absolutely right, it was the financially qualifying
officer. We don't really want to get into that. The state's the
only one that has the authority to do that.
MR. NEALE: However, the board had voted to adopt the
state second entity qualification application format with local
modifications to make it not say "State of Florida," make it say
"Collier County," so forth, so that part was adopted by the board.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Right, okay. Anything else?
MR. ZACHARY: I don't think so.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. I'm going to open it up to the --
yes, Mr. Bartoe.
MR. BARTOE: I have a question, Mr. Neale. We are adopting
the state form for second entity?
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MR. NEALE: Uh-huh. Yes, we did that six months ago.
MR. BARTOE: Okay. We don't have the forms, you didn't see
any in these two packets today.
MR. NONNENMACHER: That's correct.
MR. NEALE: I know they were generated, I think, Mr.
Palmer's office -- Mr. Palmer generated them a long time ago and
they were up for review, but that can --
MR. BARTOE: I don't believe anybody in staff has ever seen
anything.
MS. PUIG: Never seen anything.
MR. DICKSON: Never saw a checklist either?
MS. PUIG: No.
MR. NEALE: Because I know this form was distributed at
least a year ago. The State Additional Business Organization
Guidelines Form.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We had the form here at this meeting
when we reviewed it. Now, whether we got it from Mr. Neale's
office, Mr. Zachary's office, or your office, I don't know where
we got it. But we originally had it.
MR. BARTOE: I know what form you're talking about. It was
supposed to get converted to Collier County, who was supposed
to do that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Touche. Good point.
MR. DICKSON: Mr. Palmer.
MS. PUIG: We have the state form, but not the county form.
MR. ZACHARY: Why don't we redistribute this form and staff
and my office, Mr. Neale will work on it and make what revisions
will work for all of us. Get together and then bring that back just
to get --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Will you follow up on that then, Mr.
Zachary?
MR. ZACHARY: Yes, we will.
MR. NEALE: Yes, we'll both take care of it.
MR. DICKSON: The other thing we did, if I'm not mistaken,
is we came up with a checklist for qualifying a second entity.
MR. NEALE: That's what we're talking about here.
MR. DICKSON: Okay. Then we got perfect packets and we
don't have to do what we did on the first case today and have
people walk out of here saying they think they are God. We're
not a rule making board.
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October 11, 2000
MR. NEALE: That's why we discussed it before and
reviewed it.
MR. CRAWFORD: For the checklist, we went to the state
form.
MR. NEALE: The state form has a pretty extensive
questionnaire that they have to answer so that's why we
suggested we go to it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So is there a checklist incorporated
with the state form?
MR. NEALE: Yes. The form has a questionnaire, a checklist,
a place for credit reports, what they have to get, you know,
qualified business organizations. They've even got a form in here
that says, "At a meeting of blank name of business organization,
held on the blank day of blank so and so, the name of the
qualifter was legally appointed as a qualifter to act as the
business organization's in all matters connected with the
contracting business, was given authority to supervise all
construction work performed by the business," signed by the
secretary, partner, or owner.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Excellent.
MR. NEALE: So once that's signed, there is no more need to
ask the question, "Are you qualified?" He's put his name on an
application, as you correctly stated, Mr. Hayes, if he
misrepresented that fact his license is in jeopardy.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Thank you. I'm going to suggest, I'm
sure we don't have the authority, Ms. Puig, on this board, but I'm
going to suggest then that on your application -- is she the one
that makes up
the application, Mr. Bartoe, of second entity qualifters, they
come to her or they go to you guys?
MR. BARTOE: No, they go to office staff.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That you don't submit anymore second
entity requests to this board until we have that form? Okay.
MS. PUIG: (Nodding.)
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Neale or Mr. Zachary, do either one
of you have anymore of those forms with you today? MR. NEALE: I may.
MR. ZACHARY: I have one.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: The one you're going to review.
MS. PUIG: Is this the state form you're looking at?
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October t t, 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yes.
MS. PUIG: Okay. We have them back in the office. Are we
going to make them do financial statements? I think that's in
there.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Wasn't that just for the financially
responsible officer?
MS. PUIG: All the state applications have that financial
status, I thought. Registered, certified, change of status.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Which is something we don't ask on any
of our applications.
MS. PUIG: We do not.
MR. NEALE: That's only necessary because of the net
worth. That's one of the reasons they need to go through the
guidelines.
MS. PUIG: Are we going to eliminate that from our
application?
MR. NEALE: It certainly makes sense.
MS. PUIG: If you get a small company, a specialty trade,
he's not going to meet those requirements.
MR. NEALE: That's the reason the form needs to be
reviewed to make it consist. Because most of the things that are
in there would be awfully good to have. It says that, you know,
"Notarized statement signed by an authorized agent of the entity,
presently qualified, as well as a notarized statement signed by
an authorized agent of the proposed entity attesting to the fact
that each is aware of what entity the licensee is presently
qualified, and what entity the licensee is requesting to qualify."
Which is a question I know this board asks you every single time,
which one are you qualifying, which one do you want to qualify.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: it's written up in that form. That's what
we're saying, everything is cut and dried.
MR. NEALE: Most of the things it says -- they want proof you
have been active in construction the last 12 months -- use
questionnaire. So they fill out the questionnaire, that one's
answered. Net worth is one that doesn't need to be in there.
Bank statements, I don't think this board would want. But then
the rest of them are questionnaires, you know, they all just fill
out the questionnaire.
Obviously, qualified business organization, license number
application is not applicable, and then properly completed
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October 1 t, 2000
application. So I think with some minor tweaking, it can be used.
MR. DICKSON: What time frame are we looking at?
MR. NEALE: By next month's meeting, I would think.
MR. BARTOE: Because Mr. Hayes made a request that no
more second entities be brought before the board until this form
is made.
MR. NEALE: That's by next month's meeting.
I think the form can be adopted at the same time as it's
submitted to the board with the new applicants. It's an
administrative kind of thing that can just be agreed between the
groups.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's a good point.
MR. ZACHARY: How many entities do you have out there
now that are presently filling out the old form that are going to
come back and say, well, now I have to do another one? Do you
have any idea?
MR. NEALE: Do you have some in process now?
MS. PUIG: It's really hard to say. I think I have one guy that
wanted to come before the board today, but he didn't have his
paperwork ready. So I told him next month.
MR. CRAWFORD: Can we have a time period where both
forms are acceptable?
MS. PUIG: Yes, for next month. And then after that, we can
start using the new form.
MR. NEALE: That's up to the board.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Not a bad idea.
MR. CRAWFORD: Can I make a motion that both forms are
acceptable through the end of this calendar year?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I have a motion, I need a second.
MS. PAHL: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: All in favor, aye. Opposed. Then we'll
take both forms until the end of the year. Good enough.
Anything else, Mr. Zachary? MR. ZACHARY: No.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Bartoe, you tight?
MR. BARTOE: I"m fine.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I was going to go onto the boards, but
our guest is here. Mr. Keyes, would you like to come up to the
podium? We had brought up the paver stones earlier and we
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October 11, 2000
were going to hold off until we talked with you. Your name for the record?
MR. KEYES: Kevin Joseph Keyes.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MR. KEYES: I'm here today to talk about interlocking brick
paving and the license that we currently have in Collier County.
It's kind of been a trade that's been kicked around from masonry
to concrete finishing, some say it should fall under landscaping.
The industry has evolved quite a bit over the last decade. I
think when I first came here in 1982, there might have been
300,000 square foot of brick pavers being laid in Florida.
Currently, we are going to exceed 30 million square feet.
So, I think we have noticed in our contractors who have
been applying for licensing, it's come into its own. It's a
specialized trade that should be treated as such, and have its
own licensing and, hopefully, some day its own state workman's
compensation
classification.
Currently, we are grouped in with the block masons who are
up on several stories of scaffolding, lifting 20-pound blocks, and
their accidents are reflective of that work. We're currently on
our hands and knees on the ground and sand laying interlocking
brick pavements, you know, a horizontal brick pavement
structure.
So it's something that needs to be looked at. And there is
an organization, that's an international organization, called the
Interlocking Concrete Paver Institute, that offers testing for
basic level contractor certification. Our thought, or our hopes,
as the Interlocking Concrete Paver Institute evolves, is that local
municipalities, cities, states, will offer licensing that will parallel
or take their existing exams into their county licensing codes.
So although I don't have all that information with me today, I
didn't know if that was a hot topic as I've been told it has been,
that a lot of people that want to do brick paving necessarily don't
need to be trained in masonry application, but yet, don't fall in
any other classification. There is testing out there we can,
hopefully, export into our county's codes.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Keyes, currently we have a section
of our ordinance, section 1.6.3.29 that is described as "paving
blocks contracting." How would what you're talking about differ
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October t 1, 2000
from that particular category?
MR. KEYES: Well, you know, what I think this was, correct
me, has this been superseded by you requiring a masonry license
now?
MR. NEALE: It was a masonry license.
MR. CRAWFORD: We just added this last year, I believe.
MR. KEYES: How was the testing evolved for this? What
type of tests are they taking?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It's a three-hour test for the specialty
and a two-hour business and law exam.
MR. KEYES: You know what, when I started in '82, we had a
specialty block license where you didn't have to do anything
except take the business and law, and the City had that and Lee
County required a masonry license. And then I was told that it
was adopted by Collier County and therefore was the licensing
you needed to operate in Collier County.
As far as this goes, you know what, the testing for that
business and law is great and every business should have that.
As far as what they're testing for in this three-hour field
experience test or whatever it may be, I don't know too much
about what's being taught there, but there is good information
that is being taught for interlocking brick paving, which I doubt is
included in this.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Ms. Puig, you had, at one time, a
description or an example of exams, what it was called for
different trades, do you have that?
MS. PUIG: We have it back at the office, it's called paving
blocks. If you want to stop by the office~ I'll give you a copy of
what the test consists of.
MR. KEYES: Yes. You know, in the past, paving blocks have
been thrown into different categories. MS. PUIG: Yes, they were.
MR. KEYES: But it definitely falls into more of a paving
category. If we were being taught road and bridge techniques or
soil composition or density testing or compaction capabilities,
that's in line with what we do.
MR. NEALE: Well, this is a test from Experior, which is a
national testing firm, specifically for paving blocks.
MR. KEYES: That sounds like I might have wasted my day.
MS. PUIG: I believe it was added after you were licensed.
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October 11 ~ 2000
MR. KEYES: I've been told there's a lot of people looking for
licensing that really aren't qualified and haven't been trained in
the right direction, and it sounds like it's on line. But, as an
international organization, we've been moving and working with
Block and Associates, with some of the other testing companies
used throughout the state.
I go to different counties, I've acquired all sort of different
licensing. Like in Miami, I had to be a marble layer to install
interlocking brick pavers, and in some other counties, there are
no requirements.
So hopefully, some day, we're all -- now that Block and
Associates or Experior have gotten together and, hopefully, put
together the right exam, it will bring some consolidation to the
industry. So I'd like to look at that.
MS. PUIG: Yes, just stop by the office.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: How easy it was to fix.
MR. KEYES: Yes, you guys are great.
MR. NEALE: Mr. Keyes, one other thing that may give you
some comfort, one of the directions of the board was that
landscaping people who have a landscaping license are not
going to be able to install paver driveways. They can install
sidewalks and things likes that, but a driveway or anything that
will cross a right-of-way will not be permitted under a
landscaping license. They would have to get this license or a
masonry license.
MR. KEYES: So under the current landscaping license, they
will be able to install pathways and patios and pool decks?
MR. NEALE: Right. Which was really in it all along, the
decorative stone, but they can't install driveways.
MS. PUIG: Not pool decks. I would say the sidewalks
incidental to landscaping the yard and they want the decorative
sidewalk, that's fine, but not the pool deck.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct.
MR. NEALE: Not a driveway.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: They can't do sidewalks in the
right-of-way down the street and they can't do driveways or pool
decks.
MR. KEYES: When you look at brick paving, it's the whole
system. It's the base work underneath that sand and the bricks,
the pretty part. But the real nuts and bolts of the industry is that
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October 11, 2000
base preparation. Whether it be on a walkway, whether it be on
a pool
deck, whether it be on a driveway, those things are really at the
base of the industry, and hopefully, they have the knowledge and
the expertise and the equipment to install and compact that stuff
properly.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I kind of liken it to decorative tile roofs.
You've got to have a roof that doesn't leak first, and then you
can decorate it any way you want to, and that's basically what
I'm seeing now. Leave me alone. Okay, Mr. Keyes, thanks again.
MR. KEYES: Yes, thank you, folks.
MR. DICKSON: Stick to plumbing.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Moving along, anybody on the board --
I'll start down here. Ms. White, do you have any particular
section that you want to look at?
MS. WHITE: I think they are all covered.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mrs. Pahl?
MS. PAHL: All covered.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Joslin?
MR. JOSLIN: Good for the moment until we cover the
marcite situation and, I guess, we get the actual loss --
MR. NEALE: We'll make copies of that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Dickson?
MR. DICKSON: Did we cover, in the last go-round, the guys
doing the fountains and the ponds?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I'm going to get to that, as well.
Mr. Crawford?
MR. CRAWFORD: I just had one topic. I don't know if we
want to license this category or not, but there's a lot of new
home automation in Naples where there are systems that tie
your air conditioning and your audio and your video and your
lighting all together and there are specialty contractors that do
that. Your computer systems and it's -- do we cover that at all?
MS. PUIG: That's low voltage, correct?
MR. CRAWFORD: Yes.
MS. PUIG: That's occupation only, audio, television, all that.
We don't do it.
MR. CRAWFORD: And that works?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So far we haven't had any problems.
MR. CRAWFORD: That's a big business now and didn't know
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October 1 t, 2000
if that needed to be --
MR. DICKSON: That's $200,000 to $300,000 a home now.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: As it evolves, we need to make sure
that that particular category covers it.
MR. BARTOE: The state has some of those categories under
the low voltage electrical category and other things.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's correct. As we have passed
through our times, I try to carry my ordinance with me at every
meeting and whether we use the ordinance in that meeting or
not, ! star on the side something we brought up on a question.
So I've got four, five, or six of them here and we may not have to
spend but five minutes or any minutes at all.
But, for example, as Mr. Dickson said, in page 10, section
t.6.2.8. t, nonrecreational pond, waterfall, fountain contractor.
We had some grappling fun with this thing over the past twelve
months, Mr. Neale, and I just wanted to review it and make sure
that we had clarified it now that we have the opportunity to do
so. Whether an individual could do a 25-acre fountain and
waterfall as opposed to a pond in his back yard waterfall.
MR. NEALE: Well, it was my memory of the genesis of this
because this actually came into -- not the '99 revision but the
previous revision whatever it was, '97 -- was added then because
of the concerns of this board that landscapers were doing these
things and building, as you say, 25-acre ponds and such.
I, like the members of the board, have sat through several
years of listening to this stuff. I'm not sure whether it's right,
wrong, or indifferent the way it's being approached and I hate to
be that noncommittal. But it's a difficult issue because I don't
know how we define -- how this board would define something by
size of pond or something like that unless it gets into something
that requires an excavation and they have to be an excavation
contractor.
But does it require -- we've already said that the electrical
hookups and the connections to the potable water lines have to
be done by plumbers and electricians. So the health and safety
issues, other than the thing busting open and flooding the house,
really have been addressed.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay, that's all I was concerned about.
Some of these things may be a little bit redundant, but I've
checked them out throughout the years, they rang a bell in my
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October t 1, 2000
head, and I want to make sure we put them to rest.
MR. NEALE: I agree it's a concern and maybe Mr. Perico can
give us a little commentary on where would these things get to
the threshold of having to be licensed to put one in, other than
electric and plumbing.
MR. DICKSON: Mr. Perico, can I preface what you're going
to say? We've had five or six of these cases in the last two years.
It all started with Waterside Shopping Center. A half million
gallon pond was put in by a landscaping contractor. Then we
came out with specialty licenses, did we not? MR. NEALE: Uh-huh.
MR. PERICO: Like you say, the plumbing and electrical is
the only thing we'll be inspecting on that. The way I think
everybody looks at it, it's more decorative than anything else.
It's not any life safety issues. In most cases, the water is only
six inches to a foot deep in these ponds so it doesn't fall under
the pool category. Like I say, I don't know where to go with this
one.
MR. DIGKSON: But it didn't fall under landscaping, either.
MR. PERICO: No. But again, with the decorative rock and
trees and all the vegetation they put around, there again, I guess
they felt it was incidental to the landscaping.
MR. DIGKSON: Is that where we're going to leave it or are
we going to add something to landscaping or just leave it alone?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's why we created the
nonrecreational pond, waterfall, fountain contractor category, so
that we wouldn't leave it carte blanche with the landscapers.
MR. PERICO: Okay.
MR. NEALE: Under landscaping, we permit them to install
prepackaged fountains or waterfalls.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Exactly. It's coming back now.
MR. NEALE: Whereas, the nonrecreational pond, waterfall,
fountain is the one that installs the ponds, waterfalls and/or
fountains. Now, the argument has been that we allow the
landscape contractor to install/remove trees, shrubs, sod,
decorative stone and rocks, timber and plant materials. Can
they dig a ditch to put in a pond, and I think the decision of the
board was no, that they would have to get the recreational --
nonrecreational pond, waterfall, fountain license.
I guess, does the board want to make that more clear in the
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landscaping license or what? Because I think that's been the
question.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: How would we clear it up?
MR. NEALE: I see two options, and I don't make a
recommendation on either one. Either to put the same language
that is in the nonrecreational pond, waterfall, fountain contractor
into the landscape contractor, which would say they can
construct nonrecreational ponds, waterfalls and/or fountains.
Or limit the landscaping contractor so that it's clear that it
is only prepackaged fountains or waterfalls, but specifically does
not include those that require construction of boulders and
digging of ditches and things like that.
That's really to the pleasure of the board. I can see one
thing that should be added to the nonrecreational pond,
waterfall, just for clarification, is at the end of it after "electrical
installation" it should have, comma, "which tasks must be
performed by tradesmen licensed in the relevant trade." I think
that just more -- makes it more clear that if they got water
hookups or electric hookups, they've got to hire a licensed
tradesman.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Both of those sections have that.
MR. NEALE: But the nonrecreational pond and waterfall
doesn't specifically say it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: "However, the scope of such work does
not include direct connections to a sanitary sewer system or
potable water system or any electrical installation."
MR. NEALE: Right. But the landscaping contractor goes on
to say "which tasks must be performed by tradesmen licensed in
the relevant trade."
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So you're suggesting to add that
wordage there? Yes, I agree with that. Any other comments on
that?
Moving right along.
MR. NEALE: I guess I'm still looking for direction on what do
you want to do with -- there's a couple of options that I threw out
there and I don't know which way the board wants to go on that,
as far as clarification of the two ordinances.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Of the two sections?
MS. WHITE: Are you suggesting combining them?
MR, NEALE: No. I'm just asking the question whether the
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board wants to make the landscape contractor's side broader or
define it as being as narrow as it is.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I don't know. When we were talking
earlier, I thought we had limited to prepackaged, but the
ordinance, as I read it, says "whether or not incidental to
landscaping, prepackaged fountains, or waterfalls."
MR. NEALE: I think that whether that incidental refers to
everything before. But, you know, it's not that well written.
Admittedly, we can do a little drafting to make it more clear.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Mr. Balzano.
MR. BALZANO: We just created the recreational waterfall
and ponds because the landscapers were doing them. And we
changed the landscaping to include the language of
prepackaged. We just did that a year or two ago.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: But the language I'm speaking of says,
"don't limit it to prepackaged." I mean, that's not what we
suggested to put in there. That's what I just read, "whether or
not incidental to landscaping, prepackaged fountains, or
waterfalls." Unless I'm taking that totally out of context.
MR. NEALE: As I say, it can be read either way. I perceive
the "whether or not incidental landscaping" applies to the
previous clause, but you can read it either way.
I would say that that can be redrafted to make it more clear,
that they can install prepackaged fountains or waterfalls only
and then provided it does not include connections.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I'm going tell you, we need to clarify it
then, because if I cut some words out of it and say "any person
who is qualified whether or not incidental to landscaping
prepackaged fountains to install." I don't even understand it.
MR. BALZANO: What it's saying is, I'm a landscaper, and
you want a waterfall. I don't have to come and landscape your
yard. I can show up and put in a prepackaged waterfall. That's
the way it reads for me.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Is that the way you read it? I don't read
it that way. I say it doesn't matter whether it's incidental to my
landscaping, I can put in prepackaged fountains or waterfalls.
Now, it does.
MR, NEALE: What I would suggest, since we've had four
people read it and come up with four different interpretations on
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October 11, 2000
four different readings, that Mr. Zachary and I do our lawyerly
best to make you even more confused.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay, that won't be difficult. Okay.
Can we move along now?
A few months ago we ended up with a discussion on a
citation to, I think it was an aluminum contractor, because he
was acting as he called it, a specialty contractor or structural
contractor. He was
building a room, not necessarily just putting aluminum enclosure
around it.
And he was invoking page 13, section 1.6.3. Section
1.6.3 only says, here we have some specialty contractors and the
sections following this are the specialty contractors of record.
I don't remember how he was trying to invoke section 1.6.3
as his legitimacy to build these rooms. Reading it now --
MR. NEALE: That was Mr. Dunn.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yes.
MR. NEALE: Bob, you want to --
MR. ZACHARY: I think what he wanted to have was a
special general contractor category.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That was correct, that's what he came
in for. But after a while he came back the next time with a letter
invoking 1.6.3 and said, here's what I am. I want to be a
specialty contractor which means that I can sub out whatever
specialized building trades and crafts that I need to do this job.
And we said, no, that's not the way we understand it.
MR. NEALE: No, and then at the following meeting, based on
research that Mr. Zachary and I did, yes, he is permitted to do it
as long as it's less than 51 percent -- less than 50 percent of the
cost of the job.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's not according to our ordinance,
that may be Florida Statute. I don't see it -- you show me that in
my ordinance.
MR. NEALE: Our ordinance adopts 489.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Where?
MR. NEALE: Everywhere.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Where specifically?
MR, NEALE: It's the only authority we have.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I want it for this specific issue. If this
gentleman wants to come in here and do it properly, invoke this
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October 11, 2000
section, what section is that?
MR. NEALE: Well, we had discussed it at a previous
meeting, but I'1! find it again here.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Well, I just want to be clear
because I was foggy when I left that issue, and I'm still not real
clear on it.
If you'll look at that a second, I'll move on. I think my next
item was aluminum contractors versus concrete. I think we've
already clarified all that.
The next one was aluminum contractors without the
concrete. We already fixed that.
Next one was we had an issue regarding a fence erector
that wanted to put a fence up on the 13th floor of a condo on the
back of their porch. And we said, no, that can't happen because
it has to be prefabricated walls on grade.
When we left that topic, were we satisfied that the
ordinance did not need any tweaking?
Then the next one was floor covering installation. I
remember a situation where we got into some ambiguities about
the different types
of floor installation that, should it fall under this category,
should it fall under tile and marble. In fact, I think, now that I
remember back, it wasn't just floor covering but there was some
new synthetic wall coverings, as well. Exterior wall coverings,
wasn't it, some kind of a masonry? What did we come up with on
a category for that?
MR. NEALE: EFIS has its own category.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: In this ordinance?
MR. NEALE: Yes.
MR. ZACHARY: Is that artificial stucco?
MR. NEALE: Yes.
MR. ZACHARY: That's 1.6.3.39
MS. PUIG: Page 19.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MS. PUIG: And we haven't licensed any. I think we maybe
have one contractor in that category.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. But we did, we fixed that section
for them.
The landscaping contractor we've already been over it.
The paving contractor. Now, this is a paving contractor, not
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October t 1, 2000
a paving blocks contractor. There is a distinct difference
between the two and are we to say that the paving block
contractors can do right-of-way sidewalks and driveways? The
paving contractor can also do right-of-way sidewalks, gutters,
and curbs. We don't need any separation or distinction there on
those.
In the administrative sections, contractor application
business organization and individuals. One of the questions that
I've had throughout the past is that when we go to review a
contractor, whether it be for a hearing or whether it be for a
qualifying of a second entity, we compile a packet, and one of
the parts of that packet is what we call our credit report, so that
we review that.
Every single time we get a credit report on an individual, and
every single time Mr. Neale tells me that we cannot review and
use that individual's credit report to deny our action. It has to be
adjudged on the business credibility, not the individual. Where
do we actually go with that?
Do you remember that, Mr. Neale?
A couple of times we've even been stopped in our tracks
with words on the board saying, wait a minute, we can't go by
this personal bankruptcy. This is a personal credit report, we got
to look at this business's credit worthiness.
MR. CRAWFORD: Bottom of page 25, 2.2.13 says, "A credit
report compiled by nationally recognized credit agency that
reflects the financial responsibility of the applicant."
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That is the individual and that's what
we get the credit report on. Haven't we been told, Mr. Neale~
that we can't deny an action based on an individual's credit
rating because he's got personal bankruptcy problems, so forth?
MR. NEALE: Well, only in cases of bankruptcy.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Only in cases of bankruptcy?
MR. NEALE: And you may consider bankruptcy. The opinion
of the
Attorney General in July 1982, was that "The construction
industry licensing board may not consider past or present
bankruptcy of applicant for certification as contractor in
determining whether to qualify applicant for certificate under
Florida Statutes 489.115. Such action is prohibited by the U.S.
Bankruptcy Code and the supremacy clause of the U.S.
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October 11, 2000
Constitution."
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. But other than that, I don't need
-- if I have an individual, an applicant, that I say this is a horrible
credit application, I don't have any concerns that he can say
look, you're not supposed to do me personally, you're supposed
to do this as a business entity.
MR. NEALE: Well, if he is qualifying a business entity, the
business entity has to be in business for over a year, so that we
have a report on that business.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's my question. Thank you very
much. Do we want a dual credit report, do we want an individual
and a business?
MR. NEALE: Well, if it's over a year, we don't have to have
an individual. If it's under a year you have to have both.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's my whole point of clarification
here.
MS. PUIG: I thought we said "always applicant, always" and
if the business is over a year, then the business. MR. NEALE: You may be right.
MS. PUIG: The state does the same thing. They require
credit reports on the applicant, all the officers, everybody who
has ownership in the corporation and the company. And if the
company is less than a year, three letters from suppliers stating
that an account will be opened for that business.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's what I'm saying. See, you know,
we had a couple of small individuals came in here and wanted to
qualify second entity. And they hand us their business credit
report and it had zero on it, nothing, no credit whatsoever.
Well, I couldn't judge good or bad or indifferent, but if I
wanted to crook somebody, best way I'd do is go incorporate a
new business get a credit report on that thing and I got zero
problems on it. Well, I just skirted right on past the critics like
myself.
MS. PUIG: Or the business is new, and there is no credit to
show.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Right. Then, we need credit on the
applicant himself. I just don't want to get caught invoking a
policy or procedure and him tell me, no, we can't do that,
because I'll be one to do it real quick. I don't want to unleash a
license holder on our community that I don't have a clue on his
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October 11, 2000
credibility.
MS. PUIG: I do tell them if they have filed a personal
bankruptcy, we do not hold that against them or if there is
hospital related items on their credit report, we do not hold that
against them. We try to look for contract related items. Now,
what you can have on a personal credit report, I have no idea.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's what I'm getting at. I'm trying to
use this time to clarify that, specifically, so we both know
exactly, you know, what to require in your packet and we know
what to criticize legitimately.
MR. NEALE: The rules that we operate under are Florida
Administrative Code, Rule 61G4-15.006, which I don't think has
been amended since I got this. It's a year old.
"The financial responsibility grounds on which the board
shall refuse to qualify an applicant shall include failure to submit
any of the items required in the application," and that's, you
know, an answer to the questions that are in the second entity
application, basically.
"The existence within the past five years preceding the
application of an unsatisfied court judgment rendered against
the applicant based upon the failure of the applicant to pay its
just obligations to parties with whom the applicant conducted
business as a contractor. An unfavorable credit report or history
indicated by in any of the documents submitted. A determination
by the board that the applicant lacks the financial stability
necessary to assure compliance with the standards set forth in
section I of the rule."
The standard in section I is, "Financial responsibility is
defined as the ability to safeguard, that the public will not
sustain economic loss resulting from the contractor's inability to
pay his lawful contractual obligations. As guidelines for the
determination of financial stability, the board shall consider the
applicant's responses set forth in Rule 61G4-15.0054," which are
the questions that are included in the state questionnaire.
"And the applicant's financial statement submitted pursuant
to rule 61G4," which we don't require. "The applicant's history of
bankruptcy is included in the statutory definition of financial
responsibility and shall be considered by the board. However,
the fact an applicant has been or is in debt or bankruptcy shall
not be the sole basis of the board's determination to deny the
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October 1 t, 2000
issuance of a license or request for change of status to the
applicant."
Now, the annotation to this says that that last paragraph
really doesn't mean much. But, nonetheless, those are the rules.
So you can hang it on unfavorable credit report or history, but it
is supposed to be -- the test is that the public will not sustain
economic loss resulting from the contractor's inability to pay
lawful contractual obligations.
MS. WHITE: According to what you told us, Mr. Neale, on
our application, number 8, I don't see how we can even ask this
question. "Have you or any firms you have been associated with
ever filed bankruptcy?"
MR, NEALE: It's a question that's permitted. It's in state
forms, it's in everybody's form. It's an absolute contradiction, I
will admit that.
MS. WHITE: So why do we have it on here? Wouldn't it
show up in the credit report?
MR. NEALE: It's something that still needs to be asked and
considered. The argument -- and it's something we could
probably get an Attorney General's opinion on -- the Attorney
General says it can't be considered, the state rule issued
subsequent to that report, says, yes, it can be considered, but
can't be the sole basis.
MS. WHITE: I don't see why we don't eliminate it on our
Collier County application and it would show up on a credit
report.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mrs. White, the reason that I would
suggest that it needs to be asked, and it's legitimate to ask, is if
you have a considerable amount of debt and you have filed
bankruptcy, then we can legally not act on bankruptcy
discharged debts and use that information to deny credit.
However, if they have a whole lot of debts and we see it~ but
we don't see anything on a report that says they have been
bankrupt or going into bankruptcy, then I think it's a pertinent
question to ask them, because if we act on those debts and he
is, in fact, into a bankruptcy process, then we could be in
violation of federal law. Is that right, Mr. Neale? MR. NEALE: Yes.
MS. WHITE: That would show up on the credit report,
though.
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October 11~ 2000
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, ma'am. Not if it's been filed
recently.
MS. PAHL: Not if it's in process.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: It hasn't been discharged yet. Maybe
the bankruptcy filing could show up, but not the discharging of
said debts.
MR. DICKSON: We've sat here and looked at credit reports
that didn't have federal tax liens, state tax liens. Don't put too
much on those credit reports. They are very inaccurate. MR. CRAWFORD: I have to excuse myself.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. Hopefully, we are not too far
from finishing up.
As pointed out earlier, section 2.2.13 on page 25 says,
"Credit report compiled by nationally recognized credit agency
that reflects the financial responsibility of the applicant." Now,
that's under contractor application, individual. Then on the next
page, under section 2.3.9, contractor application, business
organization.
Now I'm confused, because that says a whole different thing
here. It says, as Ms. Puig pointed out earlier, "If a business
organization has been in existence for less than one year, a
credit report on every business organization in which the
applicant was an agent is required. If neither of the above is
applicable, a personal credit report is required."
What is the difference between qualifying an individual and
qualifying a business? I thought the license holder is an
individual, period, and the business is the business he's
qualifying. I'm confused.
MS. PUIG: Well, the license belongs to you, not the
company, you qualify the company. We have a lot of contractors
who don't have a company, they are just licensed as John Doe,
doing business as John Doe.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. But he's still an individual as a
contractor's license holder. MS. PUIG: Right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Whether he's an individual representing
himself or an individual doing business as a business
organization, is not an
issue with me up here.
MR. NEALE: Well, it is. Because under 489 and under the
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October 11, 2000
Collier County ordinance, there are different tests and different
questions to be asked, whether a person's qualifying a business
entity or qualifying themselves as a contractor. If they are
qualifying a business entity, that contractor is not writing his
checks out of his personal checking account. That contractor is
not putting his personal assets up, that contractor is operating
as a business entity and any contracting debts will be debts of
the business entity, not his personal debts.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We are piercing that veil.
MR. NEALE: No.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We are when I tell this individual that if
he wants to qualify this company, that if there is some
shenanigans that goes on in that company, then I'm coming back
on him as the license holder.
MR. NEALE: For his license and for disciplinary sanctions as
permitted under the ordinance, period. You can't go back
against him for a lien filed against his company by a supplier.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: We have, not by supplier, but by a
homeowner.
MR. NEALE: We may be able to order restitution, but that is
a very different thing than creating a new personal responsibility
on this person for a business debt. We can't say that because he
didn't pay his lease on his truck that was leased to the company
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No. But we can say that if you have
caused a lien to be put on a homeowner--
MR. NEALE: We can impose disciplinary sanctions as set
out in the ordinance.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: But that, to me, is piercing that veil
between business and individual.
MR. NEALE: No, because those sanctions can only be as set
out in the ordinance.
MR. DICKSON: Those sanctions include revocation.
MR, NEALE: They include revocation of the license, but that
business will still continue to exist.
MR. DICKSON: Not unless they get a new qualifter.
MR. NEALE.' But they can.
MR. DICKSON: True.
MR. NEALE: The thing to remember is the business entity
stands as a separate entity from the license holder. The
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October 11, 2000
business entity conducts business in and of itself. The only
reason the license holder exists is to allow that business to
engage in the business of contracting. That business can do
anything else legal in the state of Florida, if so permitted by its
Articles of Incorporation, without that qualifying contractor. The
only thing that contractor's license adds to it, is its ability to be a
contractor.
MR. DICKSON: That's just basic --
MR. NEALE: Basic corporate law.
MR. DICKSON: Basic law 101, but that's also -- you might
take it a step further. The state now has a business entity
license, are you
aware of that?
MR. NEALE: Uh-huh.
MR. DICKSON: I forgot what it is, it's a way to get more
money. But every two years, and it does not coincide with my
license renewal, it's the year in between, I have to buy -- it's
$130 or something, like a business entity license, which plainly
states on there that this license does not authorize me to work in
the state of Florida because I have to have a qualifying license to
go with it.
MR. NEALE: But you have a qualified entity.
MR. DICKSON: Yes, I have a qualified entity license.
MR. NEALE: We don't have that in the Collier County
ordinance, but the debts -- frankly, the debts to be considered for
that organization are the organization's -- is how the organization
manages its money. The reason we don't see much of this is
because most of the larger organizations operate with state
certified contractors. And so we wouldn't see them coming in
with credit reports on U.S. Homes or DiVosta or something like
that.
MR. DICKSON: What we've done for the last several years, I
mean, what you said is exactly the way we have worked. We've
had bankruptcies, it has not been the sole reason for denying a
license. We've always required the personal and the business.
Case in point. Last year, we had an individual on Marco that
his business credit report showed absolutely zero. Not because
he was a new company, he had been in business 12 years, but he
did everything by cash or personal. But on his personal side
showed all the collections and the lawsuits from suppliers
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October 11, 2000
because it was never charged to the company.
So you've got to mingle the two and I don't see a problem
here. We've denied people licenses because of credit reports.
MR. NEALE.' An example of where I think it would be
inappropriate to deny a license to a license holder -- this is purely
a hypothetical -- is if a company came in that had an extremely
strong financial record, $50 million a year in sales, consistently
profitable, all that, and a guy that had a rotten credit rating
wanted to be the qualifter.
There would be no basis that I could see for this board to
deny him the ability to qualify that entity, simply because the
test that the board has to look at -- the test that the Board has to
look at is the ability to safeguard that the public will not sustain
economic loss resulting from the contractor's inability to pay his
lawful contractual obligations.
He's got a big company backing him up. He's not going to
be able to pay the debts of the $50 million company, no matter
what. So his credit report becomes irrelevant. The only real
credit report that's relevant, in that instance, is the one of the
business.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: All right. I'm just as perfectly clear as I
was 15 minutes ago. So if everyone is clear and understanding
all that, then I won't beleaguer the issue any longer simply
because I don't understand it.
Anybody have any other discussion on this?
MR. NEALE: Just to your earlier question, Mr. Hayes, took
me a little while, the reason a specialty contractor can
subcontract is contained in 489.113, subsection 9, where it says,
"Nothing in this part shall be construed to prevent any contractor
from acting as a prime contractor where the majority of the work
to be performed under the contract is within the scope of his or
her license, and from subcontracting to other licensed
contractors that remaining work which is part of the project
contracted."
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. I don't understand. Now, I'm a
plumbing contractor.
MR. NEALE: Right.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: And you call me to remodel your
bathroom. Included in that bathroom is plumbing, tile work,
cabinetry, countertops, electrical, and painting.
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October 11, 2000
MR. NEALE: Uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Can I go down there and contract with
this homeowner and sub all those other things out?
MR. DICKSON: Not under the scope of your license. That's
not what he read.
MR. NEALE: No. Where the major -- he could.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Yes.
MR. NEALE: As long as -- I think we went through this last
meeting. As long as the total of everything else was less than 50
percent of the total value of the job.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: See what I'm saying? Puts a different
perspective on it now, doesn't it?
MR. DICKSON: There's a lot of things I can do.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I can't tell you how many times I've
turned down a job from a homeowner because they want me to
tear their tub out and put a shower in. And I say I have to have
somebody that can do all the other cosmetic work, as well. Mrs.
Puig.
MS. PUIG: So you're saying as a plumbing contractor you
can also do the tile, the painting?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I can sub it out.
MS. PUIG.' You sub it out to a licensed --
CHAIRMAN HAYES: But I'm acting as a general contractor,
in my opinion, when I do that.
MR. NEALE-' Well, as I said, we had this discussion on Mr.
Dunn's situation, which is where it specifically came up, either
the last month or the month before. And Mr. Zachary and I did
quite a bit of research on it and that's specifically what the
statute says. I mean, it was in last month, September 20th,
starting on page 42 of the minutes. We had the same discussion.
MR. DICKSON: Can I throw one at you, see if it fits?
MR. NEALE: Sure.
MR. DICKSON: I reroofed an individual's house and in that
reroof they wanted a room addition, and the room addition is less
than 50 percent of the total job. I can sub out all those trades,
as long as they are licensed, and act as a general to do the room
addition and the total roof at the same time? CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mr. Perico?
MR. PERICO: I would find it hard to believe that the addition
would be less than 50 percent of the reroof.
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October 11, 2000
MR. DICKSON: You don't know some of the roofs I'm talking
about.
MR. PERICO: The perspective -- the same house that you've
got is not going to put a $5,000 addition on a house with a
$40,000 roof being put on.
MR. DICKSON: $60,000 reroof, and you put a $29,000
addition, that could be a nice addition. Figure $200 a square
foot.
MR. PERICO: That's why we agreed as long as it's less than
50 percent.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: As long as it's less than 50 percent of
the entire job or 50 percent of the specific trade?
MR. PERICO: Getting back to what you had said, Gary, you
had a job where you were going in, say, to replace a toilet. The
woman says, "While you're here could you rip out all the
shower?" I'm sure it would cost more to build a shower than it
would be to replace a toilet.
MR. NEAI. E: Not for the toilets he sells.
MR. PERICO: You got a point there.
MR. NEALE: You haven't seen his shop, have you?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: He calls me up and he says, "Look I'm
remodeling my bathroom." First thing they think of is a plumber.
So he's going to replace his vanity cabinet with a new one and a
new countertop and he wants me to put in a new bowl and
faucet. He's going to replace his commode, and while he's
pulling the commode, he might as well retile the floor. And he
wants to take that bathtub out and make it a shower.
At what point do I draw the line and say, well, the faucet's
$50, and I know you'll laugh, the bowl is $50, the commode is
$200, and the shower faucet is $50. The shower itself is a tile
shower. Is it a fixture? If so, then a $700 tile job has to be
included as part of my base. Now, my 50 percent over that is a
piece of cake.
MR. NEALE: It says, specifically, the majority of the work to
be performed is within the scope of his or her license. Unless
your license includes being able to do a tile shower, then you
can't include it.
MR. DICKSON: I could do a $60,000 reroof and a $59,000
room addition.
MR. BALZANO: Not within the scope of your license.
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October 1 t, 2000
MR. DICKSON: $119,000 job, $60,000 of which is the roof.
MR. NEAI. E: Dickson Roofing could pull the permit.
MS. PUIG'- Who's pulling the permit for the room addition?
MR. DICKSON: All the subs that are licensed~ and I act as
the general.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: You don't have a general contracting
permit, at this point.
MR. DICKSON: It falls within the scope of what he just
described. I think you're opening Pandora's box. CHAIRMAN HAYES: You might be right.
MR. NEALE: Unfortunately, it's the state that did it, and the
specific circumstance under which it arose was Mr. Dunn's
circumstance where he was building the room, and he
subcontracted the electric inside that room.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: That's the whole point of issue. That's
why I'm bringing it up because I don't want us, one more time,
being criticized of micromanaging or armchair attorneying, and
telling somebody, no, you can't do this or that and the other,
when by statute, by state statute, oh, yes, you can.
I mean, I felt not real happy about making comments, at that
point, when I was -- could possibly be corrected or reversed by
state statute. That's why I'm bringing it up, I just want to get it
clear.
MR. NEALE: The hard part of the definition, and I think the
way I viewed it and I think Mr. Zachary viewed it when we
reviewed it, was it says, "which is part of the project
contracted." Well, you know, the project contracted, as we saw
it in the Dunn circumstance certainly was the project, was this
room. The electrical to go inside of that room was certainly part
of completion of that room. It was less than 50 percent of the
value, so, therefore, it was something that was needed to
complete the contract.
I'm not sure whether building an addition would be
considered part of a roofing contract -- would be considered part
of a roofing project. That's one I'd want to scratch my head over
a little bit longer.
MR. DICKSON: The state needs to revisit this issue.
MR. PERICO: I think the whole deal behind it before was
when Dunn was coming in, he was pulling the contract for it, he
had his license to do it. Then what he was doing was, he was
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October t 1, 2000
circumventing the system by having the homeowners come in,
pull electric, pull what other permits were there.
Now, by allowing him to do this, what we have done -- it's
going to get done anyway, but he has now accepted the
responsibility for everything that is being done in there, not the
homeowner. He's getting paid because, basically, he was
contracting, so he now -- if it's a $50 electrical job being done in
there, he's accepting the responsibility for that, not the
homeowner.
That's the whole idea why the thing was put together,
because by statute it can be done. But at least we put the
burden back on Mr. Dunn who wanted to do this, but now he's
ultimately responsible for it at this point.
MR. NEAt. E: Part of the issue was, too, it was determined
that because he was doing it, at least in some cases in a
condominium, the exemption for owner-builder is one- or
two-family. So there was no way -- nobody could pull an
owner-builder anymore. It was not permitted for the owner of a
condominium in a multi-family dwelling to pull an owner-builder.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Aren't we going to change that in this
ordinance amendment?
MR. NEALE: No, that's going to stay. That's state statute,
one and two families, that's it for owner-builder.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I beg your pardon. Didn't we just go
over that first order of business today?
MR, NEALE.' One- or two-family or commercial.
MS. PUIG: There you go -- commercial at a value of what,
$1,000, $2,500?
MR. NEALE: $25,000 for commercial, but one- or two-family
-- condominiums are not commercial, they are residential unless
they are a commercial condominium.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Condominiums are multi-family, not
residential.
MR. NEALE: They are residential, but they are multi-family.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: So we got a third category here, we got
residential, we got multi-family residential, and we got
commercial?
MS. PUIG'- The understanding is residential single-family,
duplex, triplex, up to two-story. If it's more than a triplex, you're
commercial.
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October 11 ~ 2000
MR. NEALE: Except in the case of an exemption for -- you're
thinking of the residential contractor license. The exemption for
owner-builder is one-family, two-family, and commercial, up to
$25,000. One-family or two-family residences or commercial
modifications up to $25,000.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay. So it limits the description. If it's
not a single-family and it's not a commercial, then they can't do
owner-builder work?
MR. NEALE: Well, single-family or duplex. One-family,
two-family.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: And it's clear enough.
MR. NEALE: Yes. Now, the issue -- and I misstated before
and I wanted to clarify it so we got the record straight -- upon
further review as they say in the NFL, the exemption for
commercial owner-builder does not apply to corporations. It only
applies to individuals who own commercial property.
And the citation on that is an opinion of the Attorney
General dated January 11, 1991. And that is, "Corporations are
unable to qualify for owner-builder contractor's license
exemption, as they lack the ability to personally appear and sign
the building permit as required therein and would necessarily
have to rely upon an agent or employee to build or improve their
property."
So the owner-builder exemption is one- or two-family
residences on property for the occupancy or use of the owners
and not offered for sale or lease or building and improving
commercial buildings at a cost not to exceed $25,000 on
property of the owners not offered for sale or lease, not by
corporations.
We'll somehow try and make that clear in the ordinance.
Right, Bob?
MR. ZACHARY: We'll try.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Mrs. Puig, you got all that?
MS. PUIG: Whew!
MR. ZACHARY: And I think, too, there is maybe confusion as
to condominiums. I think we had decided that unless it was a
commercial condominium that housed offices, businesses,
whatever, that
condominiums were residential. So the residential contractor
could work on a condominium and we decided that Mr. Dunn, in
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October 11, 2000
his capacity, any specialty contractor would not be limited to a
residential -- work on residential, but if you were licensed in that
trade you could work on a residence or a commercial building.
I think that's one thing that we cleared up last time, we
decided that a condominium was residential.
MR. NEALE: Right. And unless it's a commercial
condominium, of course.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Residential being multi-family and
residential being single-family.
MR. NEALE: Residential is residential except for the
purposes of owner-builder or the type of contractor that can
work on them, other than a specialty contractor, okay?
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay.
MR. NEALE: So a general contractor can work on anything,
okay? A building contractor can only go up to three stories, but
can work on anything. A residential contractor can only work on
one-family, two-family or three-family and that's where we get
the triplex, from up to two stories in height. So if that makes it
any muddier.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No, that's fine there. But now an
owner-builder can only work on what?
MR. NEALE.' Single-family, two-family, commercial.
MR. ZACHARY: Or his own commercial under $25,000.
MR. DICKSON: In his name.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: His personal residential condominium
on the 13th floor --
MR. NEALE.' He can't work.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Understand that?
MR. BALZANO: We understand it.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Do you? Because I wasn't sure I even
understood it, but we do. All right.
Now, the specialty contractor, once again then, doesn't
matter whether it's commercial or residential?
MR. NEALE: No. He can work anywhere.
Gary, you can still do plumbing anywhere.
MR. DICKSON: But he cannot pull an owner-builder permit
on his building.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: With today's revision I can.
MR. NEALE.' Unless it's owned personally.
MS. PUIG: You can't if you're a corporation.
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October 11, 2000
MR. NEALE: If you owned your building personally, you
could.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: Okay, I understand now.
I think I've cleared up, pretty well, all the questions that I've
had on the ordinance. Anything else that we need at this
workshop?
MR. DICKSON: I move that we adjourn.
MR. NEALE: Adult beverages.
MS. PAHL: I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: I would like to suggest perhaps just
before that, is that this workshop is finished and we don't see a
need for a
further workshop. However, some of the recommendations,
suggestions and rewordings that we have recommended to staff
and to County Attorney and our attorney's office, will be
compiled and brought back to our regular contractors' licensing
meeting for our review and approval. MR. NEALE.' Uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN HAYES: No need for any other workshops. Does
that make sense? That's our conclusion? I have a motion to
adjourn and a second. All in favor.
(All respond in the affirmative.)
There being no further business for the good of the County,
the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3:00 p.m.
COLLIER COUNTY CONTRACTORS
LICENSING BOARD
GARY F. HAYES, CHAIRMAN
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT
REPORTING BY: Sherrie Radin, Terri Lewis and Kaye Gray
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