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CLB Minutes 10/20/2006 R October 20, 2006 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE CONTRACTOR LICENSING BOARD Naples, Florida October 20, 2006 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Contractor Licensing Board in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION at Collier County Development Service Center, 2800 North Horseshoe Drive, Room 610, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Les Dickson Sid Blum Michael Boyd William Lewis Eric Guite' Lee Horn (absent) Richard Joslin ( absent) Ann Keller ( absent) ALSO PRESENT: Patrick Neale, Attorney for the Board Robert Zachary, Assistant County Attorney Torn Bartoe, Licensing Compliance Officer Michael Ossorio, Contractor Licensing Supervisor Page 1 AGENDA COLLIER COUNTY CONTRACTORS' LICENSING BOARD DATE: FRIDAY - OCTOBER 20,2006 TIME: 9:00 A.M. COLLIER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT SERVICE CENTER 2800 N. HORSESHOE DRIVE, ROOM 610 NAPLES. FL 34104 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: III. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: DATE: September 2006 V. DISCUSSION: VI. NEW BUSINESS: Sean Mahoney - Request to qualify a 2nd entity. James Krzykowski - Request to qualify a 2nd entity. VII. OLD BUSINESS: Paul Bowersox D/B/A Trojan Pools, Inc. - Update final order of Board on sanctions of May 17, 2006. Grimaldo Bravo D/B/A Bravo Design/Build, Inc. - Update of Board actions of January 18, 2006. VIII PUBLIC HEARINGS: IX. REPORTS: X. NEXT MEETING DATE: Thursday, November 16, 2006 Development Services Center 2800 N. Horseshoe Dr., Room 610 Naples, FL, 34104 October 20,2006 CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Collier County Contractor Licensing Board for August 20th -- August -- October 20th, 2006. If you would like to make an appeal of a decision of this board, you'll need a verbatim record, which is being taken today. I'd like to start with roll call on my right. MR. LEWIS: William Lewis. MR. BLUM: Sid Blum. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Les Dickson. MR. BOYD: Mike Boyd. MR. GUITE': Eric Guite'. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Mr. Bartoe, additions or deletions to the minutes? I think you can do it there. You don't need to go to that little podium. MR. BARTOE: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, board members. For the record, I'm Torn Bartoe, Collier County Licensing Compliance Officer. At this time staff has no additions or deletions. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: What? That's a first. That's the first time I've heard that in a couple of years. MR. BARTOE: Unless Mr. Bronton shows up. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Unless, okay. So I need a motion to approve the agenda as written. MR. LEWIS: So moved, Lewis. MR. BLUM: Second, Blum. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. If you would, look at the minutes. Anybody find an error? If Page 2 October 20, 2006 not, I need a motion to approve those. MR. BLUM: So moved, Blum. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: A second, please? MR. GUITE': Second, Guite'. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: So approved. No discussion. New business. We're ready to go. Sean Mahoney? MR. MAHONEY: Right here. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: What should I do? Corne over here to this podium. We'll have you stand there. And what I need for you to do is just state your name; she'll have you sworn in. MR. MAHONEY: Okay, my name is Sean Mahoney. (Speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Good morning to you. Tell us what you're doing. MR. MAHONEY: I have a company called Mahoney Electric, Incorporated. Since about 2000. I do new construction, remodeling. And I bought a franchise called Mr. Sparky, which is a service franchise. Now, I could have -- I need a whole separate entity for that. It doesn't compete with Mahoney Electric, Inc. I could have done a -- taken by Mahoney Electric and done a d/b/a under a fictitious name, Mr. Sparky, but I have existing contracts right now that are probably going to extend over another year or so. Some big housing developments that I'm wiring new construction. Page 3 October 20, 2006 That's mainly what I do. But the service -- this Mr. Sparky is nothing but a service, a service division, I guess, or a service business. We run service calls. No new construction. No remodeling. Basic residential service, minor commercial service. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Is Mr. Sparky one of these nationwide franchises? MR. MAHONEY: Yes, it is. It's under the same clockwork home services that does Benjamin Franklin Plumbing and One-Hour Air Conditioning, that's correct. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Gotcha. MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Chairman, for the record, Michael Ossorio, Collier County Contractor Licensing Supervisor. I just want to give you the update on this front page dated September 19th, 2006. You're going to see more of these. Hopefully we're going to have more of a format, and it's going to explain what the applicant wants in detail, what company he qualifies and what -- why he wants to qualify a second company. So this is a detailed explanation of what you discussed last month. I know there's been issues pertaining to why you want to do it or what license do you hold now. And these forms could be a big risk, at best. So we're going to be trying to do a summary up front first. So you can read it at your leisure, and then you're a little more informed when you go into the applicant's questions. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: That would be wonderful. I just appreciate the cover letter. He answered all of our questions in the cover letter. MR.OSSORIO: Well, that's what we're going to be doing more of. We're going to have a cover sheet. I don't know if this is going to be the format. We're going to sit down and talk to Bartoe and myself, and we're going to go over it and maybe have a little more of a mainstream so that we can corne to -- you know, a little easier reading Page 4 October 20, 2006 on the eyes. And I think that's going to help in the future. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: This doesn't affect you. Its -- yours is so cut and dry. It's probably the cleanest one we've seen in two years. Sometimes we're trying to figure out what they're doing and why they're doing it. Any questions of the board? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Credit report looks good. Everything looks good. It's all in order. MR. LEWIS: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yes. MR. LEWIS: Question for staff. Staff, are there any recent reports or complaints against Mahoney Electric? MR. OSSORIO: None. MR. LEWIS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Make a motion to approve the request? MR. BLUM: This is going to be the quickest approval recommendation motion we've ever made. I'll recommend that we approve Mr. Mahoney's request. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Do I hear a second? MR. LEWIS: I second it, Lewis. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I wasn't kind of leading you, but this one is so clean. All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. It's done. Page 5 October 20, 2006 Now, you cannot walk across the hall and see Maggie, unfortunately. I know you're here. Because your file is setting in this room. So once this -- MR. BARTOE: As soon as I get out of this meeting, you would be able to go see Maggie. MR. MAHONEY: Yeah, I can corne back Monday or Tuesday. That's fine. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. We wish you well. MR. MAHONEY: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I'll do this wrong, but I'll always attempt. James Krzykowski. MR. KRZYKOWSKI: Krzykowski. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Krzykowski. I got close. MR. KRZYKOWSKI: You were very close. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: If you'd corne up, state your name and spell your last name for her, then she'll swear you in. MR. KRZYKOWSKI: James Krzykowski. K-R-Z-Y-K-O-W-S-K-I. (Speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Kind of give us -- another electrician. MR. KRZYKOWSKI: Yes. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Kind of give us the same scenario as we're looking through this. MR. KRZYKOWSKI: Basically I'm the owner and the -- from Sunshine Electric. Used to have seven guys working for me, and now I'm just a one-man shop. Do small things. Fish an outlet, install fixtures, fans and, you know, different small things. I don't do any new construction. Little remodels and stuff. And the purpose of this is to qualify a second business. It's Adams Sales or Factory Firsts for the purpose of just installing fans and light fixtures as a service to their customers. And the qualifying agent that they have, Richard Brooks, has Page 6 October 20, 2006 moved out of the state and is no longer interested in qualifying the company. I've known Vince Adams for years and years, and all the work where there's a question of is the box properly secured or anything like that, doing some of his work for the -- a couple of years now, they've always called me whenever their installers felt that there was a question on it. And they weren't -- they didn't feel comfortable installing it, so he called me and I went out there and did that install for them or changed something or crawled into the attic, whatever it was. But when their qualifying agent moved out of the state, he asked me if I would qualify the company. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I would comment to staff, these packets are getting so good. We even got certificates for all three people involved. Nice insurance, too. It's clean. You pay your bills, too. MR. LEWIS: Mr. Chairman, if it pleases the board, I would like to make a motion. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Go ahead. MR. LEWIS: Motion to approve the packet for the second entity license. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Hear a second? MR. BOYD: Second, Boyd. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You've got it. MR. KRZYKOWSKI: Thank you. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You two electricians were the Page 7 October 20, 2006 quickest we've ever had. Sometimes we will spend as much as an hour, 30 minutes to an hour on each one. The packets were perfect, your insurance was in order, you said all the right things, your credit reports for both of you were good. We wish you very well. MR. CHRZANOWSKI: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You bet. Okay, this is the one new addition. Chris Bronton? MR. BRONTON: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Would you corne up there to that stand. I need to have you state your name and I'll have you sworn in and then I'll introduce this into -- MR. BRONTON: My name is Chris Bronton. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay, she'll swear you in. (Speaker was duly sworn.) THE COURT REPORTER: May I have the spelling of your last name, please. MR. BRONTON: Bronton. B-R-O-N-T-O-N. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Mr. Neale, do I need to have this entered? MR. NEALE: It will be part of the record. MR. BRONTON: I apologize. There was a -- I had everything written out and I typed it on a computer, and then I was asked to redo it. And I was at another place, so I had to fax it down, so I had to handwrite it, so it's a little -- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Do you play basketball? MR. BRONTON: I used to. Larry Byrd, when he graduated, that was my freshman year. He tried to get me on the team, but my background is aviation. I said no thanks. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Good to have you. MR. BRONTON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, tell us in a nutshell. You heard from the other gentleman. Tell us what you're doing and why. Page 8 October 20, 2006 MR. BRONTON: Well, I've been in ceramic tile, I've been licensed for I believe around 12, 13, 14 years. I was working at Abbey Carpets. I plan to go back to Abbey Carpets. The reason why I'm asking to have a second entity is because of the fact that I'm qualifying Surface to Surface, which is the installation company for Abbey Carpets. So at the time I -- the summertime's been very slow for them so we were -- they laid off a couple -- furloughed a couple of people and then asking them to corne back when season starts. But I would like to -- I'm the owner of the license. Instead of me going out setting tile under my name, I'd rather have it under my company name, so at least I can go out and make additional income for setting on the weekends or until I get back into Abbey Carpets. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I gotcha. MR. BRONTON: I like to do everything in a legal way, if you will. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: We appreciate that. All of us up here do as well. So you qualify what company right now? MR. BRONTON: It's called Surface to Surface. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. MR. BRONTON: It's owned by Phil Gutierrez, who is the owner of Abbey Carpets. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Is your family Russian or are you Russian? MR. BRONTON: Danish. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Danish? MR. BRONTON: Danish, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Because you have no accent at all. MR. BRONTON: No, sir. My father does. Very strong. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Credit reports are good. Page 9 October 20, 2006 MR. BRONTON: I was in Russia two years ago, though, now that you've mentioned it. Interesting place, I'll tell you. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Oh, yeah. Well, our attorney goes there every month. MR. BRONTON: Really? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yes. MR. BRONTON: Wow. MR.OSSORIO: Mr. Chairman, we did have one complaint on Mr. Bronton, but he took care of it. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. That's not a big deal. They've had a complaint on me, too, and I'm chairman. MR.OSSORIO: Well, the complaint took two years, though. Am I correct? MR. BRONTON: Yes, sir. You were my expert witness. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, my complaint I didn't even do the work, so -- MR. BRONTON: Did you get paid? MR. BLUM: I like him already. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Anybody got a motion? MR. GUITE': I'll make a motion to approve. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Got a second? MR. BOYD: Second, Boyd. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: This is a record meeting, October of '06. Three of you, boom, boom, boom. You're done. MR. BRONTON: Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Page 10 October 20, 2006 CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You got it. Once this meeting is over, you can go see Maggie. MR. BRONTON: Okay, very good. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: But tell them your files are in here. MR. BARTOE: I'll have it over to her shortly. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Wish you well. MR. BRONTON: Thank you. MR. ZACHARY: Mr. Dickson, maybe we could have all our meetings in this room. MR. NEALE: Must be the atmosphere. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You guys would be surprised. We turn down a lot. Because they're for all the wrong reasons. MR. BRONTON: Well, I was up in Lee County last week for Surface to Surface to get licensed up in Lee County, and it was very unusual, very different, because the room was full. And then if they read off your company name, you can leave, you've been approved. You know. And then for the people that did get held back, I stayed to listen to what was the situations. Well, a lot of them were bad credit, you know, IRS taxes and all that staff. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, if I keep getting applications like the three of you, we might start doing that. That's what they call what, a consent agenda? But we don't get that many. We look at them pretty close down here. We also look at your partners, when people bring in partners. Sometimes we have a good license holder that has a partner that we don't want out in the public, and we'll stop that. There's a lot of different reasons. But you three were exceptional. MR. OSSORIO: Now, Mr. Dickson, just to give you the difference between Lee County and Collier County, we issue probably 20 to 30 licenses per month. And we actually call -- look at their credit, we call the affidavits up and we call to make sure they have Page 11 October 20, 2006 experience. So if we went to Lee County, this place would be packed out the door, there's no doubt about it. We reject licenses on a daily basis, because either their credit doesn't match or their affidavits don't match or their work history don't match. And that's something -- there's no more rubber stamping in our office, so we actually take the time and look at the application and we deny it under the direction of the code under my office, and Bartoe does the same thing. So no, you're not going to get it. So we do things almost the same as Lee County, but we just do it in-house. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, and-- MR. BLUM: We appreciate that. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, and his office also receives over 500 calls a week for people with complaints. And the only ones that corne in here are the ones that they can't resolve. We have none today that haven't been resolved. So staff works overtime. You guys can leave if you want, or you can stay and listen. We're doing some old business now. Bringing up Paul Bowersox, Trojan Pools, Inc. Update on the order of sanctions from our May 17th meeting. Of course we also dealt with him last month. What happened in that 30-day period? MR. BARTOE: He -- the board gave him 14 more days to comply, or if not complied by that time automatic revocation of his license. And I can advise you, his license has now been revoked. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: He didn't do it. MR. BARTOE: He did not comply. MR.OSSORIO: After the 14 days, I did send a personal letter to every single building permit that was opened by -- and still opened under his certificate number, and we have gotten calls. And we have some good response back. Page 12 October 20, 2006 And we are working with the homeowners to either get new contractors in there or get a courtesy inspection to get them all completed. So we are doing that as we speak. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, we not only gave him one chance, he was one of the few that got a second chance. So we can never say that this county didn't try to help him out of his problem. MR. BARTOE: Another one of our investigators had a case ready to go against him next month. So it's probably a good thing he's revoked. Actually, it's a brother of the case I had. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: It's unfortunate. He did it to himself. So that's -- we don't want him working in Collier County. MR.OSSORIO: It's kind of unusual, because we have not communicated with Mr. Bowersox. We did send him a certified letter of the board and I also wrote him a letter as the contractor licensing supervisor, because you did give me direction to do so. And he has not responded. And the City of Marco has been notified and they're doing their letters, and the City of Naples is doing theirs. And we're going to be communicating with DPR up in Fort Myers. And so this is not done yet. This is just the first step of many. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: And ifhe's watching this program, I hope he's aware that working without a license is a felony, and Collier County will prosecute him. And those are criminal charges at this point and not civil matter. The other one, Grimaldo Bravo, what's the status on that one? MR.OSSORIO: He was a -- he went in front of the board last year, and he's a registered residential contractor, and he -- you gave him direction to make restitution. He did not. We revoked his license. He has since communicated to me -- he was on the board a couple of months ago, if you remember him, and he has paid back some money to the homeowner. And the homeowner has no problem communicating to the board that he is satisfied when he is paid in full. Page 13 October 20, 2006 And I just want to keep you informed on it. And you might see his name on the agenda, and I will communicate with you in the future with that. But he is trying to make restitution, so obviously the board did what they needed to do. He is revoked. And ifhe does pay his money back, you're going to see a full application, full credit report, and he'll be back in front of you. So I just want to keep that in the forefront, because you might see him next month or in December. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: When did you revoke the license? MR.OSSORIO: Yes, we did. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yesterday. And he's still-- MR. OSSORIO: No, we haven't -- he's been revoked for a couple of months now. But obviously he wants to get back in the business, and he has cleaned up his issues, personal issues, and he has made some monetary money back to the homeowner. And the homeowner has communicated with me by letter, reflecting that he's in communication and signed a promissory note to pay back the money. And he has really no objection to getting the license back. But I'm a firm believer that he's not going to get any license with our office unless he makes full restitution. So if he does, he'll be here in front of the board. But I just wanted to keep you informed of what's going on in our office, particularly since you revoked his license under my direction, so -- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, everyone on this board owns their own business, so we understand hard times. And we all have them. But I've always thought the worth of an individual or his character is shown in bad times. And if he can get this guy paid off, he would be welcome back in here to talk to us. Good times, anybody can do that. Bad times is how you want to Page 14 October 20, 2006 see how they operate. Any other old business? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Any other discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: This is record. MR. BARTOE: I think Mr. Zachary said our new ordinance should be back from Tallahassee shortly. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Good. MR. ZACHARY: Should be. It's on its way. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Mr. Neale, do you have anything? MR. NEALE: Not at all. This -- in 10 years of representing this board, this is an all-time record. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. And we had three second entities. MR. NEALE: Three second entities in under 15 minutes. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: And two items in old business. MR.OSSORIO: Mr. Chairman, just on the bottom of the agenda, just make note of it, November 16th, 2006 is our next scheduled meeting. It's going to be in our office, same place. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Oh, it will be? MR.OSSORIO: Yes. MR. BLUM: Friday also? MR. OSSORIO: No, I believe that's going to be a Thursday. MR. BLUM: Thursday. MR. BARTOE: It's down at the bottom of your agenda sheet. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: It's still 9:00? MR. OSSORIO: It's still going to be 9:00. And I don't think it's going to be a short meeting. It's going to be longer than this one. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You've got cases, don't you? MR.OSSORIO: Yeah, we have a couple. MR. GUITE': I won't be able to make that meeting. Page 15 October 20, 2006 CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, on that meeting we get our overtime. But anybody have a motion? MR. BLUM: So moved, Blum. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Motion to adjourn. Second? MR. BOYD: Second, Boyd. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. We're done. Thank you. ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 9:22 a.m. CONTRACTOR'S LICENSING BOARD LES DICKSON, CHAIRMAN Page 16