The URL can be used to link to this page

CLB Minutes 04/18/2007 R April 18, 2007 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE CONTRACTORS' LICENSING BOARD Naples, Florida April 18, 2007 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 REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" ofthe Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Les Dickson William Lewis Sydney Blum Ann Keller Richard Joslin Lee Horn Michael Boyd (absent) Eric Guite' ALSO PRESENT: Thomas Bartoe, Licensing Compliance Officer Michael Ossorio, Contractor Licensing Supervisor Robert Zachary, Assistant County Attorney Patrick Neale, Counsel to the CLB Page 1 AGENDA COLLIER COUNTY CONTRACTORS' LICENSING BOARD DATE: WEDNESDAY - APRIL 18, 2007 TIME: 9:00 AM. W. HARMON TURNER BUILDING (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 III APPROVAL OF AGENDA IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: DATE: March 21, 2007 V. DISCUSSION: Updating fees for Contractor Licensing. VI NEW BUSINESS Brian Ortkiese-Comer - Review of credit report. Edward Wieder - Request reinstatement of Painting license without retaking exams. Mark S. Bauer - Request to qualify a 2"' entity. Robert P. Harris - Review of credit report. Lance. Schoch - Review of experience affidavits. VII OLD BUSINESS VIII PUBLIC HEARINGS IX. REPORTS X. NEXT MEETING DATE May 16, 2007 3101 E. Tamiami Trail Naples, FL, 34104 April 18, 2007 CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. Let's go ahead and get going. Good morning. I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Collier County Contractor Licensing Board on April 18, 2007. We'd like to begin with roll call, to my skinny guy on my right. MR. LEWIS: You mean Syd, right? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: My right. No, you. MR. LEWIS: William Lewis. MR. BLUM: Syd Blum. MS. KELLER: Ann Keller. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Les Dickson. MR. JOSLIN: Richard Joslin. MR. HORN: Lee Horn. MR. GUITE': Eric Guite'. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Good morning. And now, any changes or additions to the minutes, Mr. Bartoe? MR. BARTOE: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, board members. For the record, I'm Tom Bartow, Collier County licensing compliance officer. Staff has no additions or deletions, but you might want to move the discussion until after new business. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay, I agree. I'll just do that automatically. So do I have an approval of the agenda? MR. JOSLIN: So moved, Joslin. MR. BLUM: Second, Blum. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MS. KELLER: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. JOSLIN: Aye. MR. HORN: Aye. Page 2 April 18, 2007 MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Any deletions or additions to the minutes? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Ifnot, could I get a motion to accept them? MR. JOSLIN: Move to accept the minutes from the March 21st meeting. MR. LEWIS: Second, Lewis. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MS. KELLER: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. JOSLIN: Aye. MR. HORN: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Discussion we'll do last. New business. Oh, Brian, this is tough. Brian Ortkiese? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Ortkiese. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Ortkiese-Comer. You're here. If you would, come up here to the podium. I need for you to state your name and the court reporter will swear you in, sir. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Brian Ortkiese-Comer. (The speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Brian, we've got a contract report, right? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. As we're looking at it, why don't you tell us what happened. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: I had went through a divorce. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Pull that mike closer to you. There Page 3 April 18, 2007 you go. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: I had went through a divorce with my first wife, and in the divorce decree she had been awarded the house and the vehicle. There's a quitclaim deed in the paper selling that and-- , MR. JOSLIN: I can hardly hear you. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Talk up a little bit. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: In the quitclaim deed there it shows that she was awarded the house. If you look in the divorce papers, she was also awarded a Ford Mustang. She failed to make the payments on the house, and when I was notified about it -- this was after we were divorced -- the house was in such a bad state of being repossessed that I couldn't settle out with them, and that's why that one's there. And on the car, I -- after the divorce, she didn't make any payments on it, and I found out about it a few months after the divorce and went and got the car myself from her and returned the car to Ford and settled up with them the best that I could at the time. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. Anybody have any questions of him? I haven't gotten to the credit report. MR. BLUM: Other than those two anomalies, as it were, is there anything else? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: No, not that I can think of. MR. JOSLIN: I'll ask a question ofMr. Neale, and maybe you could help on this. MR. NEALE: Sure. MR. JOSLIN: If -- in this quitclaim deed for the property and the vehicle that you're speaking of, in the dissolution of marriage from the judge, wouldn't this -- these items have been listed in there as part of her possession now rather than his? MR. NEALE: They are in the decree. The Mustang is not referenced specifically, I don't believe, but it says they received the Page 4 April 18, 2007 personal property in their respective possessions and shall hold other party harmless. And then the wife is awarded the home in paragraph three of the divorce decree, and it does state that she shall be responsible for any liability and she holds him harmless, while it appears that she didn't live up to that piece of the decree, at least according to the testimony given here. MR. JOSLIN: So in reality, it would be -- would the Court be allowed to come back and prosecute him for not paying the house payment if it was awarded to her? MR. NEALE: Well, no, because she is the one that has to pay the house payments. MR. JOSLIN: Right. MR. NEALE: Specifically she had liability for all the payments. MR. JOSLIN: Okay. MR. NEALE: So I mean, he could probably go back and re-open the divorce decree and try and get the money from her, but, you know -- MR. JOSLIN: That's not going to happen. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: It wouldn't help. MR. NEALE: Those of us who have been through those kind of situations -- MR. JOSLIN: Okay. I've been there. MR. BLUM: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I just have to look at these and know I don't want to follow you guys. MR. BLUM: No, no, you don't. MR. LEWIS: Mr. Neale? MR. NEALE: Yes. MR. LEWIS: Maybe you can clarify something from a legal standpoint. I'm just looking at some of the dates here that -- the decree by the judge was dated, done and ordered the 10th of Page 5 April 18, 2007 September, 2002, and the quitclaim was not filed until the 24th day of 2003, which was some five, six months later. Is that common? MR. NEALE: It's not terrible unusual. I mean, he was supposed to file it within 10 days. It obviously took a bit longer. Yeah, I mean, from September to March. You know, there could be all kinds of reasons why that would happen. Just one note for the record, in that the standard for financial responsibility is set out in the Florida Administrative Code, and financial responsibility is defined as the ability to safeguard, that the public will not sustain economic loss resulting from the contractor's ability to pay it, inability to pay his lawful contractual obligations, and is specifically to his responsibilities as a contractor. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: That brings up two questions I've got for you. One, why are you coming to Naples; and, two, how are you going to finance your company? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: I've been in business now for eight months. There's an -- in one paper there it said I was trying to reactivate my license. It's a typo or something. I just want my license reciprocated in this county. I do a lot of work with one of your contractors up in my county. He's doing some work in Immokalee, and we have a good working relationship together, and he would like me to come down here and do the job for him. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. So you are active in Sebring, correct? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Yes, sir. Sebring, Charlotte County, Polk County, a couple counties. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: County's feelings? Any comment? Michael? MR. OSSORIO: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Michael Ossorio, Collier County contractor licensing supervisor. I have no objection. He's state registered in multiple counties. He's filled the application out. And I think -- I have no objections to Page 6 April 18, 2007 issuing a registration to his license today. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Mr. Ossorio? MR. OSSORIO: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Does staff have any knowledge of any complaints in other counties? MR. OSSORIO: None. MR. LEWIS: None registered. MR. JOSLIN: How long has Comber Electric been in business then? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: About eight months. MR. JOSLIN: Eight months? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Yes, sir. MR. JOSLIN: Was there any type of review board that you had to go through in -- MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Yes, sir. MR. JOSLIN: -- Charlotte County and Sebring? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: There was. Mainly in Highlands County, my home county, because I had to get sponsored to take the test, I had to have many affidavits and many hours of proving a lot of things. It was a very lengthy process. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Mr. Ossorio, would you have any objection to a probationary period? MR. OSSORIO: I have no problem, sure. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: In other words, we approve it with a one-year probation. Any problems during that year, the license is revoked or comes back before this -- comes back to the board? MR. OSSORIO: Sure, I have no problem with that. MS. KELLER: Six months probation for credit report issues or other? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Credit report. I'm concerned, one, he's only eight months old; two, I don't know anything about him, and I really don't see how he's going to finance his business. Page 7 April 18, 2007 MR. JOSLIN: In Sebring. Your main office is out of Sebring; is that correct? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. Ifhe's stays -- keeps clean for one year, he's cool. If there's any problems, he comes -- immediately comes right back in here. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: That's fine. MR. OSSORIO: That goes for building permit violations, any kind of code issues from the building director. You'll be under his supervision as well. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Okay. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I make a motion. I move to approve under the restrictions that the license be under probation for one year. Any violations of any Collier County statutes or problems in paying his bills or his employees during that period of time, he would immediately come back before this board. No problems within one year, the probation would be lifted. MR. JOSLIN: Joslin, second that. MS. KELLER: Can I just ask a question? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Sure. MS. KELLER: How is it monitored? How do you know they're paying the bills? Do you get credit reports on a regular basis? MR. OSSORIO: No. We probably wouldn't get credit reports, but we would probably get the -- either the inspector would come see us about any kind of code issues, or a general contractor might stop in to talk about his subcontractors or a concerned citizen, so those are the -- those are the options. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: How many calls do you get in a week's time with people giving you information; what would you guess? MR. OSSORIO: Well, the term is contacts-- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. Page 8 April 18, 2007 MR. OSSORIO: -- what we use. And we do about a thousand a month. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah? MR. OSSORIO: I think the investigators do about 2- to 300 per month, and that's either receiving phone calls or communicating on the job site. Those are considered contacts. Not necessarily cases or citations. Those are just contacts. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: What I've found over the years, I mean, and on the street, all of the contractors in this county know each other, and the words we get on the street are pretty reliable. I know I've called Mike countless times with information for him to check out, so it isn't going to be any secret. You agree, Bill? MR. LEWIS: I do. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. Any other questions, discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: There's a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MS. KELLER: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. JOSLIN: Aye. MR. HORN: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You're in business. (Mr. Boyd entered the hearing room.) MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Just stay clean and you're in great shape. We wish you well. Page 9 April 18, 2007 MR. BARTOE: Excuse me, please. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. MR. BARTOE: I have everybody's packet here. Normally you would be -- not be able to go into our office and get licensed today. In your case, living in Sebring, when -- as soon as this meeting's over, I'll try to get the packets back to the office. I would say, in two, three hours you'd be able to come into the office and get your licenses. I can get your packet back. Save you another trip from Sebring. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: While I've got you, let me bring something up. I notice that you are registered as exempt; is that correct? MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. Mr. Ossorio, are you aware -- and this is -- and what I specifically looked for was the date of that exemption because they estimate that there's over 200,000 LLCs out there right now that think they're exempt and they've been dissolved. Are you all aware of that? MR. OSSORIO: Yes. We have -- as a matter of fact, we have a workshop in West Palm Beach in June to go over that. I know that the Department of Labor, which is the workers' comp., has cracked down on LLCs. But we check that before they ever -- we issue a certificate, we check their incorporation, make sure they're active and current, and we also check to make sure that they're on the data base of the workers' compo exemption as well. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: For the board's enlightenment, as-- the date was September 15, 2006, Florida Division of Corporations administratively dissolved 200,000 corporations and LLCs in a response from the Division of Workers' Compensation. So what we're looking for -- now here's the kicker here to check on this one. The first phase of the project consists of mailing the Page 10 April 18, 2007 exemption folders, a prenotification postcard indicating they had until April 1 st of 2007, which just passed by two weeks, to reactivate their corporation or LLC. The postcard also includes contact information. If the corporation or LLC is not reactivated by that deadline, which was April 1st, the Division of Workers' Compo will initiate proceedings to revoke the workers' compensation exemptions pursuant to State Statute 120.60. Remember, if your exemption is revoked -- here's the kicker -- if your exemption is revoked, you will be required to carry a workers' compensation on yourself and all other officers that were previously exempt. So ifpeople didn't renew April 1st, syanara, okay. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Okay. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Thank you very much. Wish you well. MR. ORTKIESE-COMER: Thank you. MR. BARTOE: Mr. Chairman, I forgot to advise you that Mr. Boyd advised staff he might be a little bit late, and I see he has arrived. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yes, sir. Thank you. Full board today. Ed Wieder, are you here? MR. WIEDER: Yes, I am. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: If you'd come up, sir. If you would, state your name, and I'll have the court reporter swear you in. MR. WIEDER: Edward Wieder. (The speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Why'd you let your license lapse? MR. WIEDER: Truthfully, it was a clerical error. We had several secretaries in and out during that period, and I guess they failed to renew the license. We had no problem from 1997 till 2005. But, you know, if I renew the license, the error will be corrected. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Were you active in the business? . Page 11 April 18, 2007 MR. WIEDER: Yes. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Because that's kind of a weak excuse. MR. WIEDER: I know. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: That's not one that I buy either. MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Chairman, just -- I want to shed some light on a couple things. When you do -- when a contractor does not renew within 13 months, he automatically -- the license is null and void. If he has not taken the exam within three years of that null and void, then he needs to retest. The board has made a practice, if you are a state-registered contractor, then you keep -- if you've kept up your state registration with Tallahassee, you've empowered us to issue a license on that basis. This particular case is a little bit different due to the fact that this gentleman is a county license holder, not state registered, and he has failed to renew his license within 13 months and he has not taken an exam within three years. But with that said, he is currently licensed in Lee County as a painting contractor. You see on the packet there, you'll see an occupational license for Lee County. It says it's good till 2007. I did -- unfortunately I did not review these packages in depth. What we really wanted was a certificate for Lee County for their competency. I don't see that in that packet. Maybe he can provide that to us today, if he has it in his wallet. MR. WIEDER: No, I don't. MR. BLUM: What's the time period that his license has lapsed up till now, just 13 months, or how long has it been? MR. OSSORIO: It's been a couple years. MR. WIEDER: 2005, I think it was. MR. OSSORIO: Yeah. Page 12 April 18, 2007 MR. BLUM: 2005. So you missed two anniversary dates. MS. KELLER: How did you realize that you didn't have your license, that it had lapsed? MR. WIEDER: Maggie Right called us and let us know. She's the one who informed us. MS. KELLER: And how long after it had lapsed did she call you? MR. WIEDER: This was last month, March. MR. BLUM: Is -- Lee County's in here, Mr. Ossorio. MR. OSSORIO: Is that the occupational license or is that the certificate? MR. BLUM: The occupational. MR. OSSORIO: That's a funny thing. You can -- people have the misnomer that you can update your occupational license and not update your certificate. Unfortunately one is a business tax, and I think they changed it now -- the law has changed. It's not called an occupational license. It's called a business tax receipt. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. MR. OSSORIO: So it is a little bit of a difference in requirements. But one is just a business tax, to be able to conduct business in the county you're working in, and one is actually a competency card under the code. MR. BLUM: Having been in business for a very long time in this county and been concerned to keep my license and licenses of my partners updated, I mean, it comes two months before they're due and you're getting -- scrambling like crazy to make sure that there's no lapse. I mean, Anybody in business, I can't imagine. I'm surprised. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, the whole kicker here -- there's something else going on. And you don't get a new federal ID number from the internal revenue unless you do something. And now you're operating under RM & R T Developers, Incorporated, and your Page 13 April 18, 2007 license was RM & R T Painting, Incorporated, and your license with Lee County is RM & RT Developers, Incorporated. So what you did is you changed the organization or something. MR. WIEDER: We just changed the name. It was RM & RT Developers. We changed it with the state. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You can't just change a name and -- a corporation's a living, breathing entity. MR. WIEDER: No. We amended our articles to change the name with the state. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: What happened to RM & RT Painting, Incorporated? MR. WIEDER: No. RM & RT Developers was the original corporation. We then sent in articles -- we amended the articles to the corporation and renamed it RM & RT Painting. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, your Collier County license is RM & -- you say you amended it to be R -- MR. WIEDER: Articles of incorporation, yes. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: To be painting? MR. WIEDER: Yes. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You were originally developers? MR. WIEDER: Yes. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Then why would you have gotten a new federal ID number? MR. WIEDER: We didn't. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, you did. MR. WIEDER: No. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, you did, on -- I've got it right -- the letter right here in front of me -- in 1991. MR. WIEDER: That was the original corporation. MR. NEALE: That's under the original RM & RT Developers. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, I know. It says, notice of new employer. Page 14 April 18, 2007 MR. NEALE: Yeah, but that's from '91. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. MR. NEALE: That was -- that's the way they always put it is when you form a new corporation, which is obviously what you did in '91. They send you the, quote-unquote, new ID employer ID number, so that was the predecessor corporation as far as I can tell to RM & RT-- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: So they have a new -- they should have a new one that says painting. MR. NEALE: No. All they did was -- according to the testimony, all they did was file amended articles of incorporation. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Gotcha. MR. NEALE: -- to change the name on that same corporation. Is that -- MR. WIEDER: That's correct. MR. NEALE: Okay. MR. JOSLIN: I have one other question, too. The same secretary apparently -- or maybe it's yourself -- was able to file your annual reports for your corporate returns in 2005 and 2006. Those were done on time. Why wasn't your license done on time? MR. WIEDER: The annual reports, I think, come to me. At the time the license was coming to the business address. Annual reports were coming to my address over in Homestead. And what I should have done, I should done it in the past, was I should have sent the license to my address over in Homestead. That's what I should have done. MR. JOSLIN: You are aware that the license is you? MR. WIEDER: Yes. MR. JOSLIN: The license that you carry is you. It's not the corporation or it's not the company. You qualify. MR. WIEDER: I am aware of that, yes. MR. JOSLIN: I don't know. Page 15 April 18, 2007 MR. HORN: Question. On your credit report, we've got two different federal liens that I see were released. One was by the IRS. Who was the other one by, the one that was released on 2/28/06? MR. WIEDER: 2/28/06. The only one I know is by the IRS. MR. HORN: Okay. Just curious, because it says federal, versus the other one said IRS. MR. WIEDER: IRS liens are the only ones we had. MR. HORN: Okay. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Talk to me. MR. BLUM: I'm not comfortable with it. MR. LEWIS: Frankly, I'm confused. I'm really confused. I don't know -- Mr. Wieder, who is Ray Sobel? MR. WIEDER: He is my partner. MR. LEWIS: And he resides here in Collier County? MR. WIEDER: Yes. MR. LEWIS: And he's been here since at least '94; is that correct? MR. WIEDER: Yes. MR. LEWIS: December of'94, it says here. MR. WIEDER: Yes, approximately. MR. LEWIS: Okay. And as the registered agent of the corporation, was he not responsible at that time to take care of your business dealings with the county? MR. WIEDER: In '94? MR. LEWIS: From '94 forward. MR. WIEDER: Yes, he was. MR. LEWIS: Okay. He is still with your corporation? MR. WIEDER: Yes. MR. LEWIS: Frankly, I'm at a loss as to, you know, how you can do some and not all. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: My gut reaction is, to the board, I've never seen a -- more of a candidate that needed retesting. Page 16 April 18, 2007 MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Chairman, when you say retesting, do you mean the trades exam or the business procedure or both? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Both. MS. KELLER: Both. MR. BLUM: Both. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: What's the feelings of the board? MR. BLUM: I'm very reluctant to grant this. MR. JOSLIN: I agree. I'll make a motion if we're ready. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. MR. JOSLIN: I'll make a motion to deny the packet, to reinstate the license without taking the exam. I think he should have to take the exam again. Too many things in here that are questionable that I don't feel comfortable. MR. BLUM: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MS. KELLER: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. JOSLIN: Aye. MR. HORN: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Uh-uh. You're going to have to retest, so. MR. WIEDER: Okay. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: And for your information, we do also offer Gainesville testing, not just Experior, and they give the test, Page 17 April 18, 2007 what, is it every two weeks or every week? MR. OSSORIO: You can get in there once a month. It depends. I mean, obviously you're not going to drive over to Ocala. But there's a misnomer about Gainesville Independent. A lot of counties still do not recognize that company yet. They are getting more well known. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: But we do? MR. OSSORIO: But we do. Lee County does not. MR. WIEDER: Okay. MR. OSSORIO: Whoever -- if you're going to work in Lee County, which I believe you already have a Lee County license through Thompson Quometric (phonetic), so I think that's pretty well mute. I think if you just take a business test through Gainesville Independent and the trades test, you'll be fine. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Would be the perfect time for Mr. Sobel to get your license, since you're running the company. MR. SOBEL: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Thank you. MR. WIEDER: Thank you. MR. BARTOE: Sir, that was retake both exams? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yes. Mark Bauer, are you present? If you would come up here, sir. I'll have you state your name, and the court reporter will swear you m. MR. BAUER: Mark Bauer. (The speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Pool enclosures, huh? You guys are about -- got about as much negative press as my trade did, roofing. MR. BAUER: Great. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, it was fun, wasn't it? MR. BAUER: Yeah. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: We got accused of everything in the Page 18 April 18, 2007 world so-- , MR. JOSLIN: Guilty. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, guilty. MR. BLUM: Yeah, absolutely. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: So now you survived that hurricane and you want to do a second entity. Tell us why. MR. BAUER: For multiple reasons. As everyone in this room knows, the entire building industry has slowed down. I'm in Southwest Florida, so I'm diversifying, getting into storm protection so that I can offer multiple product lines. I have come through the ranks through the construction industry and seen lots of things done wrong, just like you said. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Pull that mike down. There you go. Thanks. MR. BAUER: I've seen a lot of storm protection companies go out for the big bucks right after the storms and sell pool cages. I never thought that was right. So when I decided to diversify, I wanted to create a complete separate entity to separate myself from all the other companies that think that they can do storm protection and pool enclosures. I have a very successful pool enclosure company building for almost all the major builders in Southwest Florida. Polte, Centex, Ryland, Parst Homes, U.S. Homes, Lennar. And with that amount of contacts, I feel that I can get in and get a lot more diversified through the slow times for the next several years, and -- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: What kind of storm protection are we talking about? MR. BAUER: We're talking about shutters, windows, doors. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: We have a separate license for that here. MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Chairman, yeah. I don't know ifMr. Bauer understands that he is -- you want to qualify two companies -- Page 19 April 18, 2007 MR. BAUER: That's correct. MR. OSSORIO: -- under your aluminum license? MR. BAUER: Right. I've retested for the hurricane protection license and passed it already for Collier County. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. MR. OSSORIO: Well, then you would not need a second company. You want to qualify two companies under your aluminum license. That's why you're here today. MR. BAUER: That's not what I want. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: No. MR. OSSORIO: No. Since you've already passed the exam, it's a matter of just filling out the application, showing experience and getting reviewed by the contractor licensing supervisor. MR. BAUER: Okay. MR. OSSORIO: If you want the storm protection to be qualified as an aluminum contractor under your primary license, that's what you're here today for. MR. BAUER: Okay. I didn't know it was that easy. But, you know, like I said before, I don't want to be like those other companies though. I don't want my aluminum specialty license to just carry over and let us do shutters. I wanted to be separated. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I think you're already there. MR. BAUER: Okay. MR. OSSORIO: Yeah. If you've already taken the exam-- MR. BAUER: Yes. MR. OSSORIO: -- then you just come see us and we'll review the packet. MR. JOSLIN: The only question I think that would come before you would be your experience as far as your other business. MR. BAUER: Right. MR. JOSLIN: You've got to show experience. MR. BAUER: Yeah. One of the companies I ran after Page 20 April 18, 2007 Hurricane Charley was a storm protection company that had two separate divisions in it. One was storm protection. And, you know, we've done well over a thousand jobs in the storm protection industry after Hurricane Charley for the -- you know, for the past two and a half years now. I'm talking about accordions, roll-downs, panels, all types of different applications, from North Port to Marco. So we've been -- recently been awarded the Ave Maria development, which is the biggest project in the entire United States as far as construction goes, so we're certainly very qualified to take care of storm protection as well as the pool enclosure entity. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. Now, we'd like to have you. MR. BAUER: Super. MR. BARTOE: I might add, Mr. Bauer, first Defense Storm Protection, if you come in and get licensed for the shutters, that does not allow you to do aluminum under that company's name. MR. BAUER: Correct. MR. BARTOE: Okay. MR. OSSORIO: Just one more question. Mr. Bauer, who actually prepared this -- not to say -- I just want to find out. Is there any particular person you dealt with in the office that told you you had to go in front of the board with this? MR. BAUER: In Collier? MR. OSSORIO: Yeah. I mean, obviously you showed up on the agenda, you had to make some -- 20 copies. MR. BAUER: Yeah. MR. OSSORIO: Was it one of our staff members who said you had to go in front of the board or you just thought you had to? MR. BAUER: When I dealt with -- going through Lee County, it was different than here. And Lee County actually said almost the same exact thing you guys have, but they said they're changing that. So it was someone -- it was someone in the licensing board. I don't Page 21 April 18, 2007 know -- or not the board, the licensing office. I'm not sure exactly who it was. I'd have to look through my notes. Maybe Maggie. Maggie would have said, yeah, you've got to take the test and that's what I did. MR. OSSORIO: Yeah, taking the exam, but why would you want to be placed on the agenda for a second company? So that's what -- MR. BAUER: I got -- I got a phone -- I actually got a letter. MR. OSSORIO: Because I think that -- MR. BAUER: -- that said I had to come, so that's why I came. MR. OSSORIO: If you wanted to have your Premier Pool Enclosures qualify this First Defense Storm Protection, Inc., as an aluminum contractor, you can do that. You can at least petition the board. I think that's what Maggie was trying to tell you, that if you want to have both companies with two licenses, one for hurricane and one for aluminum, you can qualify the second company under First Defense as an aluminum contractor as well. But you don't want to do that? MR. BAUER: No. I would like to keep them separated. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You bet you do. You don't want them together. MR. BAUER: No. MR. NEALE: One point that this gentleman ought to realize is that on the First Defense literature, you have to have your storm protection license number on that, and then on the literature for your pool enclosure, you have the other license there. MR. BAUER: Right, absolutely. MR. NEALE: You will have to have two separate licenses. MR. BAUER: Absolutely. And my workmans' compo policy with AIG has already been established and set up and things are all in full effect, so -- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: It's nice to be -- you named some Page 22 April 18, 2007 builders that -- it's nice to see survivors. Some of those builders eat subs for breakfast. MR. BAUER: Some of them are tough. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: It's nice to see you came out of it. MR. BAUER: We've got an excellent reputation as far as taking care of our business, that's what we've done. The margins are definitely shrinking. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Wish you well. MR. BAUER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: We've had trouble with some shudder installations in Collier. MR. BAUER: I've dealt with Michael Ossorio on a couple things for some people that have subbed me in to clear out the garbage. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. Just go back and take care of the problems, or do it right the first time. MR. BAUER: Yeah. Typically they're shudder companies that hire us to go in and clear our their pool cages that they never intended on building, which is a big problem, and I don't want that reputation. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Welcome. MR. BARTOE: Mr. Bauer, I think if you come back in the office this afternoon, Mr. Ossorio will be able to help you with that. MR. BAUER: Super, thank you. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Paul Harris, are you here? MR. HARRIS : Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Come on up. Come on down, whatever you want to call it. State your name, and I'll have you sworn in here. MR. HARRIS: Robert Paul Harris. (The speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. You got in trouble. I see who it's with. Ouch. Yeah, we know some of these names. So tell us Page 23 April 18, 2007 what happened, why we're looking at your credit report. MR. HARRIS: Back -- I got real sick, was in the hospital for a long period of time off and on with bilateral pneumonia. Told them this before -- and finally was able to get everything cleaned up. I had to sell my house because I was in the hospital so long, couldn't work. So we wound up selling the home, but then I got behind on everything. So we just started getting everything back together and started paying on it in September when I came in front of the board a month ago, I think it was. I don't think everybody quite understood how long I'd been paying on it because the paperwork was so jumbled up. But the payments are going to this company since September. The debt to my -- for my schooling back in 1987 has been cleared up totally as of now. They just took the last tax return of this year and put it towards there to finish that payment off for them, which I think is 2,000 or 4,000. I can't remember exactly how much that one was. That one's paid off. The Chase one, not Chase. The Capital One one, we're in court with. We've been paying them $100 a month. You can see that on the statement, but they still put a judgment on us even though we still had been paying it, that's why we went through the company in September because we wanted that documented through a company also. So right now we're going to court because they never actually served me any documentation saying that we were going. My wife and I had been paying it on a monthly basis with them. We showed them the receipts, the checks, the cancelled checks, and they still gave us a problem about it. And so we're just trying to take care of that right now as far as that goes. The rest of it, as you see, is getting paid monthly, every month, and getting taken care of. MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Harris? Page 24 April 18, 2007 MR. HARRIS: Yes, sir. MR. OSSORIO: Just for the record, you might want to clarify to the board that you are actually -- you petitioned the board a couple months ago. MR. HARRIS : Yes, sir. MR. OSSORIO: And the board asked you to go back to Lee County to talk to their licensing board -- MR. HARRIS: Correct. MR. OSSORIO: -- for a particular license. MR. HARRIS: What I had to do was -- when I came here Mr. Joslin -- and actually I can remember -- told me to come back after Lee County did what they were going to do because they had me on a probationary license for the six months, because he wanted to see that I still had been making payments, see what Lee County was going to do. So once Lee County granted the full license and the probationary period was taken off, that's when I, you know, resubmitted paperwork here. MR. JOSLIN: Yeah. So this has been the six-month period where you've completed it now. MR. HARRIS: Well, September to -- I just finished. I think it was March that they gave me the full license. MR. JOSLIN: I agree with you now. MR. OSSORIO: And that's in the packet? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, it-- MR. HARRIS: I put the license, the new license in here, yes, SIr. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I've got it here. March 6th it was taken off. MR. HARRIS: Correct, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Permanence. You have to go to a competency for finish carpentry, no probation. MR. HARRIS: Correct. Page 25 April 18, 2007 MR. JOSLIN: Under those circumstances, I would --I think I would consider granting a temporary license or restricted license for a period of time and let's test him out here in Collier County now, since he has -- did what I asked six months ago and cleared it up with Lee County. I'm still not ready to really feel confident about giving him a full-blown license, but maybe something in a restricted state. MR. BLUM: I would suggest something similar to what we just did with the previous gentleman. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. MR. BLUM: Mr. Dickson's suggestion. I think I would -- I'd go along with that. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Just one comment. MR. HARRIS : Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You've done everything, and I admire you for trying to clear this up. But what bothers me is you're a cabinet installer. And I don't know about Lee County, but Collier County has had countless cabinet installers go take their 70 and 75 percent deposits and then they go bankrupt and there's a laundry list of people that are out. MR. HARRIS: I don't mess with cabinets at all. Everything I do is interior trim, period. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You're not doing cabinets? MR. HARRIS: No cabinets. Don't want to mess with it. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I feel a whole lot better. MR. HARRIS: No, I don't want to mess with cabinets. Right now I don't supply any material. The builders supply all the material. Until I get all of that mess cleared up, taken care of, I don't want to mess with it. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: If you ever get into cabinets, it's against state law to take more than 10 percent deposit. MR. HARRIS: Oh, don't worry about that. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: It's a felony. Page 26 April 18, 2007 MR. HARRIS: My wife knows all of that stuff, so that's not going to happen. MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Chairman, if that's the way you're going to go, I would like to have a motion restricting -- restrict his license only to trim, crown molding, minus cabinets. MR. JOSLIN: Anything -- anything in the license category other than kitchen cabinet installation. MR. OSSORIO: Cabinets. MR. JOSLIN: Cabinet installation. MR. LEWIS: Mr. Ossorio, what license is he actually applying for; do we know? MR. OSSORIO: The cabinet license, cabinet and millwork. MR. BARTOE: That let's you do millwork. MR. LEWIS: Cabinet millwork. I don't want-- MR. GUITE': Probationary period. MR. LEWIS: I don't want to do that. MS. KELLER: Yeah, I don't either. MR. BLUM: I don't feel good about that at all. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Let's just watch him for a year. MR. HARRIS: Yeah. MR. JOSLIN: I mean, he may come up with a -- I mean, he's done this so far, so I have no problem with that. MR. BLUM: I don't want to restrict the license. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: He's too big. I don't want to make him mad. MR. BLUM: He's been in the hospital. He might be weak. MR. JOSLIN: He swings hammers, too. MR. OSSORIO: Well, Mr. Chairman, if you actually look on the -- his affidavits, it doesn't mention anything about cabinets or installing cabinets, so the contracting licensing supervisor, or his designee, could restrict that portion without the licensing board's approval. If he does not have affidavits showing that he has aspects Page 27 April 18, 2007 of cabinets, then we will restrict it to millwork. I have not reviewed his application. MR. JOSLIN: The license that he has-- MR. BLUM: IfMr. Ossorio wants to do that, it's beyond our purvIew, so -- MR. JOSLIN: That's fine. If you find that in the license application, that's not a problem. I'll make the motion that we grant him a temporary license for one year, restricted license, monitored by staff. MR. BLUM: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Any discussion? MR. NEALE: That's a one-year probationary license like the prevIOUS one. MR. JOSLIN: And after the probationary period, we'll have this -- if everything -- no complaints, everything seems to be running well and you've lived up to the statutes of Collier County, then it will be a full license. MR. HARRIS: Thank you. MR. JOSLIN : You're welcome. MR. GUITE': Will this restrict him from doing cabinets? MR. JOSLIN: No. We'll let staff take care of that if that's the case when he actually comes in. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: More discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Call for the vote. All those in favor. MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MS. KELLER: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. JOSLIN: Aye. MR. HORN: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. Page 28 April 18, 2007 MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You're good to go. MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Dickson. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Thank you. We wish you well. MR. JOSLIN: He's done what I've asked and come back and actually did it. MR. HARRIS: Thank you very much, sir. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Wish you well. Lance, are you here? MR. SCHOCH: I'm here. You've got to be Lance. You're the only one left. Come on up. MR. SCHOCH: Good morning. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Good morning. State your name and I'll have you sworn in. MR. SCHOCH: Lance Raymond Schoch. (The speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: So your experience is the only thing we're looking at. Did you do the one on that card? MR. SCHOCH: The cards, sir? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, the screen enclosure. MR. SCHOCH: No, I did not. I worked on that. I did not do it. We did work on that. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: That cost a couple of dollars. MR. SCHOCH: That was a big one. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. Tell us about your experience, Lance. MR. SCHOCH: I'm in the pool business for 30 years. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You've got to talk into the mike. MR. SCHOCH: In and out of the enclosure business since probably '98. My experience mainly in swimming pools was, as you Page 29 April 18, 2007 can see in there, mosaic tile, custom work for all the big builders and architects in Florida. I helped in pool enclosures starting in about '98, eventually became, in my opinion, very well qualified doing both the pools and the enclosures from the ground up, saw many what I would call do-it-yourself cages in the field, a lot of failures, and basically learned from the ground up what to do right and what not to do wrong. MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Chairman, I'll let you direct yourself to the first page -- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Uh-huh. MR. OSSORIO: -- on my comments dated 3/16/07. It's probably hard to read. It's my handwriting. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: First page? MR. OSSORIO: Page 1. Right here, Mr. -- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Oh, that one. See, that's not page 1 tome. MR. OSSORIO: It says page 1. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: This is what I got. MR. NEALE: No. It's page 1 of the county packet. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. I got you. Now I'm with you. MR. JOSLIN: Do you want to elaborate on that, Mr. Ossorio? MR. LEWIS: It's says LLB. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: CLB. MR. LEWIS: Oh, CCB (sic). MR. OSSORIO: Thanks, Mr. Lewis. Appreciate it. Yeah, unfortunately one of the things as a licensing officer, and especially supervisor, we expect all applicants to be candor and be truthful when they fill these applications out. We've taken a stem approach in verifying experience, calling. It's our best interest and vested interest of Collier County to check these references to make sure that we don't have any problems in the future. Page 30 April 18, 2007 Unfortunately, in this particular case, I did notify -- I did check one of his references, and you can turn to page number 10. I marked it for you. This gentleman is called Anthony Stewart. He's a present owner of LLLCS Services, which I did communicate with Mr. Stewart and he said he's only a handyman. And Mr. Stewart told me that Lance filled this out, faxed it to him, he signed it, and he has no knowledge of him doing layout design, fabrication, shop and field engineering, code verification, and that's the reason why I denied the issuance of a license. Falsifying any information provided herein may subject your license to be -- revocation. MR. JOSLIN: Mr. Schoch, you want to elaborate on this a bit? MR. SCHOCH: Well, ifI was licensed, I would take serious offense at what Mr. -- Mike calls a handyman. Mr. Anthony Stewart -- I've given this picture to everybody's packet there -- built, from ground up, this cage in Lee County. It was passed by code, permitted and passed. That's pretty good work for a handyman. MR. OSSORIO: I have no question -- I'm not going to question his ability as a handyman or aluminum. I'm only taking -- taking what facts he has given me. MR. SCHOCH: Regarding the facts that he stated to you, unfortunately, I had fired Mr. Stewart, also noted in my cover letter, for stealing and fabricating invoices back to me. The information he gave you, in my opinion, was simply to back stab being caught. He's under investigation now for over $3,500 in theft to my company. MR. OSSORIO: My only to question to you is, is that, that very well may -- what kind of license does he have? When you -- MR. SCHOCH: The license number that he gave me -- he indicated to me that he was licensed. MR. OSSORIO: But he worked for you though. MR. SCHOCH: As a subcontractor. He has his own workers' Page 31 April 18, 2007 compo exemption. MR. OSSORIO: And so what kind of work did you do without a license that you hired this unlicensed contractor? MR. SCHOCH: I designed this cage. MR. OSSORIO: And did you get paid for installing? MR. SCHOCH: I -- the permit was pulled by Accurate Aluminum out of Lee County. We worked for Accurate Aluminum. I designed and pulled the engineering for Accurate Aluminum and hired Anthony, who had worked for Accurate before as a designer/coordinator to build that cage. MR. LEWIS: What year did you build that cage, sir? MR. SCHOCH: That was last year, '06. MR. LEWIS: Are you a registered engineer in the State of Florida, or an architect? MR. SCHOCH: I'm not a registered engineer. That was all done by AL Engineering, which I am a member of AL Engineering. MR. JOSLIN: So you contacted them to engineer the -- MR. SCHOCH: They engineered it, correct. I put the paperwork together. I did not engineer that on my own, no. MR. JOSLIN: Mr. Lewis, does it sound like we have a general contractor procedure going on? Is that what we're looking at? MR. LEWIS: I'm confused again. It must be my day to be confused, I don't know. But this is so messed up, I don't know what's MR. BLUM: You're not alone. MR. LEWIS: -- I don't know what's -- MR. BLUM: You're not alone. MS. KELLER: You're not alone. MR. LEWIS: I mean, we're getting, you know, I hired this guy and he worked for me and this guy was a handyman for me, and I just -- I don't -- MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Lewis, one of the things that we actually Page 32 April 18, 2007 look at -- and this is -- I'll just go ahead and put it in a nutshell for you. MR. LEWIS: Thank you. MR. OSSORIO: When -- say, if you want to be a licensed electrical contractor, you get -- obviously we want to see affidavits from who you work for under their direction, supervision, as an electrical contractor. We're not going to take an aluminum contractor, which is -- I would consider a very specialized avenue. Not many people can actually do it. We're not going to take an affidavit or verified construction experience from a handyman who has -- we want to see that he's worked under the direction of an aluminum contractor or a general contractor or building. That's what it's all about. That's why we want to verify your construction experience. Let alone that -- if Mr. Stewart gave me misinformation or whatever his -- this gentleman's integrity, this wouldn't make a difference anyway. He would -- he would have been rejected in the first place, no matter what. But he -- we have a policy in our office, if any particular person wants to petition the licensing board, he or she may, and that's their-- that's their right. It's my right as a contractor licensing supervisor to let you know that we did our homework. We verified his experience. We were not able to verify his experience. His affidavits are either misleading or somewhat ambiguous. And my suggestion to you is, look at it and make a decision on it. MR. BLUM: In my limited time here, this is the first time you've presented with us somebody that you've actually gone to the trouble to investigate and then found it to be in error. This is the first here for me. MR. OSSORIO: Well, it's not the first. MR. BLUM: You're showing us this. Not the first time you've Page 33 April 18, 2007 done it, but the first time you've brought this kind of information to us. MR. OSSORIO: Well, unfortunately, probably nine times out of 10 it doesn't get to the board. We reject -- to be honest with you, probably 75 percent of the people who take the exams fail. I probably reject probably seven out of 10 licenses per month. I mean, if you -- it's not automatic. Either you didn't fill the information out properly or it was insufficient information for me to give you a license under the code. This is the first time this has happened that it got to the board's attention, but it has happened that I felt under the verification when I did check with the individual that it was misleading. This is just one time that it just happened to be in front of the board. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I've been real quiet. If you guys go through this file -- first of all, we look at the experience. That's one Issue. MR. JOSLIN: That's a problem. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Then we look at credit. MR. JOSLIN: Problem. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: It's terrible. Then we look at his business card, and I'm really kind of offended that you put someone's picture on your business card and you didn't do the job; you just worked on it. But you also had a fight with that owner -- or who is Mr. Lundy? MR. SCHOCH: That has nothing to do with Mr. Lindy. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Lindy, okay. Lundy. The police were called on that one. Then I'm seeing a letter in here, medical bill sent to collection. Contractors that did not carry workers' compo or health insurance. I would have to say the way you've done business is an absolute mess. MR. LEWIS: Frankly, I'm wondering how he's doing business. He's putting himself out there as a registered contractor, according to Page 34 April 18, 2007 his deal here. It says quality constructed pool and patio, which means he's acting as a contractor. He's not even licensed yet. MR. JOSLIN: Exactly. MR. LEWIS: So, again, it adds to my confusion, so -- MR. OSSORIO: If you call his house, his answering machine says his business, too, as well. That itself is a violation of the law. It's advertising, promoting yourself to be a contractor. That is a minimum fine of$300. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the 200,000 corporations that were probably dissolved April 1st. MR. BLUM: Is this gentleman in Lee County? Is he licensed in Lee County? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. MR. BLUM: He is licensed in Lee County? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, I don't know. MR. BLUM: He's not. MR. OSSORIO: Maybe for some screening, but not-- MR. BLUM: Screening license-- MR. OSSORIO: There's a big difference between screening and aluminum. MR. BLUM: Big difference, yeah. MR. OSSORIO: I would say that -- no pun intended, but I would say the aluminum business contracting is the most difficult one to do right from the very start when you measure it and you cut it and you order the supplies. There's no room for error in engineering. We're seeing a lot of that. We're seeing a lot of cages out there that have been put up with no permits. We've seen a lot of cages go up with code issues. We're seeing a lot of aluminum contractors leave town. We're seeing a lot of building contractors, general contractors, leaving town without calling their inspections in due to the fact that they know it's not going to meet code. That's our battle. MR. JOSLIN: One other thing that I've noticed is -- Page 35 April 18, 2007 CHAIRMAN DICKSON: No way. MR. JOSLIN: -- on the certificate of insurance that he has for his liability, on the insurance -- looks like certificate of insurance -- it shows his description of operation as screen repair. It doesn't show his installation -- computed operation of installation. MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Joslin, to his defense, the very first thing you look at in the office, they submit the information, but the information is in the packet. Our staff provides it to me. The very first thing I do is verify his experience. If I cannot verify his experience, I don't even look at the packet anymore. It's denied. MR. JOSLIN: I see. MR. OSSORIO: There's no reason why -- for me to go forward and waste my time and his time and the county's time. IfI can't get past the experience, then I'm wasting my time. MR. JOSLIN: I'm just looking at all the negatives that are on this packet. Just like Bill Lewis, I'm confused, and I -- I just have some reservations about it. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Anybody else; any comments? MR. LEWIS: Yeah. I saw in here somewhere -- I've lost it now. Looks like he took a business and law test; he passed that. What exactly -- we're here today to review his experience records and affidavits. Is that what -- MR. BARTOE: And anything else you might see in that packet. MR. LEWIS: And anything else in this packet. Where did I see that at? I did see that, didn't I? MR. BARTOE: I believe I saw in there he had passed both tests. MR. JOSLIN: Both tests were passed, 7 and 8. MR. OSSORIO: If you look at page 7 and 8, it clearly says that he has passed the aluminum contracting and also passed the business and procedure. That wasn't an issue. If he never passed it, it would never have got on my desk. Page 36 April 18, 2007 MR. NEALE: Just so the board's clear is when -- under section 22-184 of the code, when an application is referred to this board for review, the board then reviews it for a decision regarding approval or denial of the application, essentially. In my interpretation that means that the whole application is laid open for the board at this point. MR. JOSLIN: So we could rule or act on anything in the packet. MR. BLUM: Mr. Chairman, I'm ready to make a motion. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Go ahead. MR. BLUM: I move that we deny the application. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: We've got a motion. Do I hear a second? MR. JOSLIN: I'll second. MR. GUITE': I'll second it. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Anything you want to say before we do anything? MR. SCHOCH: Well, I was hoping for at least possibly a probationary period. The credit issues that you bring up are there. I'm not hiding anything. I've done my best to pay some of those issues off. Mr. Lindy was a situation I had no control over. Mediation was attempted. It's still there. Unfortunately it's on my record. It was not my company. I was merely a salesman for a sauna. He got a free sauna, paid half price; I got stuck in the middle. Both parties sued each other, and they sued me because I was the salesman on this project. Yes, it's on my record, unfortunately. Medical bills? Emergency rooms are very expensive. Contractors that said, yes, they'll take care of it, go to the hospital and don't -- they -- it's in my name and I'm stuck with that, and I'm doing my best to make that right. Unfortunately I don't have a wheelbarrow Page 37 April 18, 2007 full of cash or I'd take care of all that. My issue here today, from what Mike told me, was simply that Anthony, in my opinion, lied to him when he made a phone call. Mike said everything else checked out. And if it wasn't for that one phone call from Anthony, he would have passed this, is what Mike told me. And I know why Anthony lied to Mike and told him the story that he did. We did not fill out Anthony's information. He filled it out. My -- Carol filled it out driving him to the bank to get it notarized. Handyman or not, I have other work experience verification that I can turn in. When I asked Mike if I needed extra documentation, he said, no, we'll go in front of the board. MR. JOSLIN: I think you can see the board's reservation. MR. SCHOCH: I can see the board's reservation, absolutely. And my only question to you is, try me out. Give me a three- or a six-month probationary license and see, and see if I improve, see if I can come up to your level. MR. GUITE': You said you have other verifications? MR. SCHOCH: Yes, sir. MR. GUITE': Could you turn those in? Maybe we could -- MR. SCHOCH: I could do that, certainly. MR. GUITE': See what he says, and-- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I'll be honest with you, that's not the Issue. MR. JOSLIN: No. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: That's one of about four. Credit. The credit is really bad. The issues on these -- MR. SCHOCH: There's only -- excuse me. The only thing that -- and I don't have the credit in front of me. I'll find it. The only thing on there -- the child support issue has been back to zero. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I read the child support dismissal. MR. SCHOCH: Okay. Medical bills, I just explained. This Page 38 April 18, 2007 Lindy thing -- I mean, ifI had $2,000, wrongly, I could pay him off and take that off. Would that be the right thing to do? In my opinion, no, but it would get him off my credit list, yes. It make you happy? Yes. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: But there's not -- MR. SCHOCH: There's not very much else on there. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You say medical bills are expensive, so's insurance. And those -- MR. SCHOCH: We pay insurance. The contractors that I was working for didn't. When I got hurt working for them, I'm the one hurt. They say, go to the doctor, they'll take care of it. Don't turn me in; I don't have workmans' compo Go to the emergency room. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, you don't have workers' compo either. MR. SCHOCH: But I don't -- I don't have a payroll. They won't give me workers' compo because I don't have a payroll. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: And I would have to verify that you really are exempt. MR. SCHOCH: Well, that's your choice. I mean, you -- that was information to me. I have my exemption form right here. MR. JOSLIN: I just have some other issues -- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: There's others issue. MR. JOSLIN: -- that I -- yeah, are over and above that. I've got advertising going on and a piece of literature here that says you do kitchens and grill areas. Enhancement lighting, speaker systems. And you're -- MR. SCHOCH: We don't send -- that brochure has been produced. It is not being sent out. I was waiting hopefully for the passing of my license before we mailed those out. MR. BLUM: He's using it. MR. JOSLIN: But this still would not give you the capability of building an outdoor kitchen -- Page 39 April 18, 2007 MR. SCHOCH: I don't build them. I design them. I can design anything I want. I can design flower gardens. What's in my head is creativity, and I can draw that on a piece of paper. MR. LEWIS: But what you advertise in Collier County to do is you're advertising as a contractor. It doesn't say I design only and let you go somewhere else to a licensed contractor. It says that you build. We construct. Quality constructed pool and patio enclosures. And it's just -- it's just -- it might be a technicality at this point, sir, but it is one that we stand very readily against in this county. Basically, you know, we have enough problems in this county with licensed activity. MR. GUITE': Do you hold any other licenses? MR. SCHOCH: Not in this county. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. I've-- MR. GUITE': Michael Angelo or-- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I'm sorry. MR. SCHOCH: No. MR. GUITE': No swimming pool license? MR. JOSLIN : Well, on your -- well, this is another -- just another point. On these brochures that you handed us, just for clarification here. I've got a couple of pool enclosures that look pretty awesome. I'm a pool contractor, by the way. The one on the back page of this, the customer says they're thrilled with it. Did you do this one, where they're just putting on basically a roof, it looks like? On the back, very back page, I guess it is. MR. SCHOCH: Yes, sir. We worked on that one. MR. JOSLIN: You worked on that one. Without a license? MR. SCHOCH: It was licensed. MR. OSSORIO: Mr. Chairman, I don't think he understands the whole thing about contracting. This is probably why he's trying to get through this. He doesn't understand just because there's a building permit and there's somebody that has a contract, there's -- he Page 40 April 18, 2007 doesn't understand that there's a possibility he was the subcontractor getting paid with a 1099 being unlicensed. He doesn't understand that concept. And if he wants to, he can sit in my office and I can give him construction 101, but obviously this is probably not the time and date. MR. JOSLIN: Right. MR. OSSORIO: You're not going to change his mind. He doesn't understand the concept. MR. JOSLIN: I understand. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I've got a motion on the floor and a second. Any more discussion? MR. LEWIS: Yeah, discussion on the motion. What -- can the maker of the motion -- I forgot who it was at this point. Can you clarify some of the reasons that you're denying the license application? MR. BLUM: For all the reasons that we've mentioned. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Go back to the guy that made the motion. MR. BLUM: That would be me. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Oh, it was you. I'm sorry. You were the second. Okay. MR. BLUM: Yeah. Anyone of these issues I could see potentially doing a probationary license, but when you compound what, to me, is false advertising, what, to me, is a person that was attesting to experience, now denies it, and there's no other corroboration, a multitude of problems with the credit report that I think shouldn't be there, at least in that much of an unresolved state when you're coming before a board looking to get a license. I mean, there's at least four or five items that just jump out at you. There's too many things for me to feel comfortable granting this license, and my motion stands. I would move to deny it. MR. JOSLIN: My second stands. I agree with you. Page 41 April 18, 2007 CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. MR. LEWIS: One more question for Mr. Ossorio. When you were checking the verifications for experience, did you check all of them or just that one and stop? MR. OSSORIO: Just that one and stopped. MR. LEWIS: Okay. So we don't know if the other ones that are in here are valid or not? MR. OSSORIO: Well, there's only one other, and I don't think that looks too promising anyway. There's no -- he's local in town. There's no license number on it and -- it's on page 11. L. Scott Kenny, rescreen and repairing, license number 060488. I have no idea what license number that would be unless it's -- MR. LEWIS: I've got another one on page 9 also. CFCS is the name of the business. No license number though. MR. OSSORIO: Yeah. And you can see here on page 12, it's kind of ironic that Anthony Stewart signed this gentleman's integrity and good character letter and said that he was in good graces back in November, but now he's not. MR. BLUM: If this gentleman has issue with the packet which he presented and he wants to amend his packet and do it again, that's fine. But the way it stands with what I'm seeing now, I don't see any way around it, to approve it. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. MR. LEWIS: That's all I have. Thank you. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Any more discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Call for the vote. The vote is to -- MR. BLUM: Deny. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay -- or the motion is. All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. Page 42 April 18, 2007 MS. KELLER: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. JOSLIN: Aye. MR. HORN: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Not today. MR. SCHOCH: Thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Thank you. Going back up to discussion, updating fees for contractor licensing. Michael, you going to do this? MR. OSSORIO: You have in front of you a letter dated March 23,2007. It's not signed by Mr. Dickson. I think Mr. Joslin did sign it. MR. JOSLIN: Yes. MR. OSSORIO: Did you get a chance to read it? Do you need some time? MR. JOSLIN: The very last sentence of the report, I think, is actually what came out between Mr. Lewis and I, I believe, when we talked about doing this. Due to the economic structure of Collier right now, we felt that the fees were not going to be in line, to raise these fee; however, if you deemed or staff deemed that to provide the -- Collier County with a level of service and maintain that level of service with the current fees that you have, that was fine. If you needed more dollars to increase your budget to provide that same service or better, that you had the ability to do that. You didn't have to come back before the board. I believe that's the way it came out. Mr. Lewis? MR. LEWIS: Correct. Page 43 April 18, 2007 CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I think the letter's well written. MR. JOSLIN: So I have no problem with it. MR. BLUM: I like it. MR. JOSLIN: Was this a new letter or was it something that-- this is part of the letter? MR. OSSORIO: No. It's the same one. It's the same letter. MR. JOSLIN: Did you have a question on it? MR. OSSORIO: Yeah, I do, unfortunately, you know, and here we are one against nine, but that's fine. I was -- the letter is well written, obviously, by Mr. Neale. He did a great job. I do -- we do appreciate it, but that's actually not what we're actually looking for. We're actually looking for a consensus, a finding of fact so we can attach to the executive summary, if need be, to raise the fees, not so much to go to Commissioner Halas. I'm sure he gets a lot of letters. It's a nice informative letter, but he's going to read this and probably not understand it. So I was hoping that maybe we can come together again with a few minutes and maybe have a -- just a quick nod or finding of fact saying that we did discuss this thing, and then if we need to go in front of the board for a fee increase, we could do so. I'll be honest with you, I did look over the numbers last week with Bill Hammond, and we are about $150,000 short. I thought we were a lot worse off. But we're down 150,000 -- no overtime for our staff -- with 6,000 contractors coming in in September. We have some issues we need to address. MR. JOSLIN: Okay. MR. OSSORIO: And that's just -- and that's just the top of the head. I mean, that's just something that's coming through this week. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: The better way to sell this is review real quick the disparagy between Collier County and other counties in Southern Florida. Page 44 April 18, 2007 MR. OSSORIO: As in what, fees? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah. MR. OSSORIO: Those -- the fee schedule you looked at last week was right in the -- now, that fee schedule was done by Paul Balzono. I remember I talked to you a little bit about that last month. And those fees were right in the middle. They weren't the cheapest and they weren't the most expensive. That was a consensus. And I think Paul did his homework and called many counties. We have a close -- we have an association. I know that he called a whole gamut of these and found out where we need to be. We haven't raised fees since 1992. I know it's a bad time, but we were going to be here regardless of what the outcome of -- what the building department has issues with. Remember there's a building department issue and there's a contractor licensing issue. We would have been -- I would have been before you no matter what the economic state would have been or has been. This has been going on for a year. Paul worked on it for a year, and it so happens that -- it's come to light that they only raise fees once a year -- maybe Robert Zachary can elaborate on that. And they go in front of the board in October. Whatever it might be, these are fees that they go in front of the board, and that's what we're trying to do. Nothing for two months or three months, but I think it's going to be like four or five months. But this fee -- we're going to look at it. I don't think it's going to be as high as what you looked at last month. In other words, I think our fees were $87 for a license and a proposal fee was 150. It might not be 150, but it might be $10 more, whatever we can make that difference up to be self-sufficient. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: And these are new companies or-- MR. JOSLIN: Reinstatements or any company. MR. OSSORIO: Anyone. MR. BARTOE: No, there were renewal fee increases in there Page 45 April 18, 2007 also. MR. OSSORIO: There were pictures, letters of reciprocity. You know, you think in terms of, if you were a contractor and you're from Miami. You can call Maggie and say, Maggie, can you please send my score to Martin County? Maggie would stop what she's doing, write a letter, send it through the mail, for $3. It wouldn't make a difference what the economics would be. Those fees -- we need to be more self-sufficient. That's what Bill Hammond wants. He want us to be more in par with doing the budget, which I agree with him. And we've been working on this for quite a long time. It just so happened to be a time of, you know, disparaging with the building boom. But it's going to come back. MR. JOSLIN: After that meeting that we had that day regarding this issue, and the comments were made regarding -- we put that in your hands to be able to increase the fees, and we talked about -- being the construction crunch here, we're hoping in six months it's probably going to go away. Well, here we are in April, and it's going to take probably another two months or thereabouts to get this through the commissioners. So you're talking about a fee increase that's going to begin in the September time or August 31 st time? MR. OSSORIO: No, no. MR. JOSLIN: Or immediately? MR. OSSORIO: No. We're not going to make the September deadline, so the fees will stay the same for any new contractor coming in. This is long-term. We're not talking about a short-term fix. This is something for years to come. And I was hoping that if we can build in -- we're going to have more meetings about this -- but somehow we can build in a safeguard that lets us raise fees on a yearly basis, 1 percent, 2 percent, whatever the index would be. Most counties do that. MR. JOSLIN: Okay. Page 46 April 18, 2007 MS. KELLER: How about, tie it to inflation? MR. OSSORIO: Exactly, and most counties do. I'm not saying that -- MS. KELLER: Official number. MR. OSSORIO: That's going to be up to the Board of County Commissioners, but that's something that other counties are looking into. MR. JOSLIN: I'm lost again then. MR. OSSORIO: This fee schedule is not going to be anytime soon. MR. JOSLIN: It's not? MR. OSSORIO: No. It's -- we're going to be sending out 6,000, 7,000 renewals, and the fees are going to stay the same. This is long-term, and I was looking for a finding of fact. Pat Neale's letter's nice, but a letter I can't attach to the executive summary for October for our budget. I was hoping to get more of the language in there that the licensing board, you know, agrees with the fees, and we've taken testimony. And if we need to raise fees to have the same level of service, then it's okay with us. Not so much of a letter, but maybe direct Pat Neale to say a finding of fact. MR. JOSLIN: Okay. So just something, the format. MR. OSSORIO: Yeah, just a little bit -- yeah, just a format, a form and-- , MR. LEWIS: So in other words, Mike, the content of the letter is okay with you. You just want it on a more normal format? MR. OSSORIO: Yeah, something that -- a finding of fact that I keep in my office, and then when we go through a budgeting progress in October -- or September/October, then we can have that, attach it to the executive summary so that the BCC or the DSAC can look at it and say, okay, well, here we are. We're not going to provide the level of service. It's not going to happen. Weare going Page 47 April 18, 2007 to shift from overtime. There's going to be lines around the comer, which is fine. We will deal with that and address that as our concern, but the level of service has -- will be going down. I just want to let you know. MR. JOSLIN: Okay. That's actually what I thought was going to happen. I mean, when we did this, but that -- apparently it's not enough, so -- MR. NEALE: Yeah, I mean. What we can do is -- to sort of shortcut things a little bit, what the board could do is adopt the letter as being the position of the board subject to my redrafting it as a resolution in resolution form, and then I could, you know -- just as an informational piece or -- we can put it in the next month's -- next month's agenda so that it would be done by then, because I'll -- that way the board adopts this position, I can take that position and then redraft it into a resolution format. MR. JOSLIN: Okay, sure. MR. NEALE: Mr. Ossorio, would that be acceptable to you? MR. OSSORIO: That's what we're looking for. MR. NEALE: Okay. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Question to the contracting board members. Minus -- take away the national builders, get them out of your mind, are you guys bleeding, or are you staying busy? MR. GUITE': I'm busier now than I have been. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I am too. And what I'm seeing is, we read all the articles on these national contractors -- which a lot of them created the problem -- but all the local guys I talk to are swamped. MR. GUITE': I've talked to quite a few that aren't, that are really slow. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: They're slow but they're staying in business. MR. GUITE': Yeah, but it's-- Page 48 April 18, 2007 CHAIRMAN DICKSON: And I'm seeing a lot of contractors that came in to fill that surge of work. They've already left the area. MR. GUITE': That's right. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: And then I think of, what would our -- as we're getting to be a major metropolitan area, which we are, with Ave Maria and the new city that the Colliers want to build. And when they say they're going to build a new city, you know it will happen. There's nothing worse than a board -- contractor licensing department that's not properly staffed that has the time to go out and catch some of the things we were talking about here in the last case. And I think the legitimate contractors of this county, every one of us want that to happen and we want to stop this nonsense. So my attitude is, I'm kind of changed. I'm going, I'll pay whatever I've got pay to pay to make sure that this county is properly policed in the contractor industry. MR. JOSLIN: I agree totally. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: So I don't know that you have to word it so carefully. MR. LEWIS: I think the wording on the letter that was drafted is fine. I think that expressed our sentiments that we all agreed upon on the board to be expressed to the commissioners. And I think, like what Mr. Neale said, if you can just -- you know, if we can take a -- direct him to go ahead and make it a resolution for the agenda next month, that it will create everything that staff needs. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Are we looking for a vote? MS. KELLER: I think there's two separate issues. I mean, one is, how is Mike running -- how is Mike running his business? And the other question is, how -- what's the market environment? And I don't think that we can make judgments about the market environment. I mean, it is what it is. And his job, as he says, is becoming more burdensome because of the market environment. Page 49 April 18, 2007 So that's why I've always been supporting him in increasing the price, or increasing the licensing fees. MR. LEWIS: And ultimately she speaks for the consumers at this point on the board to the fact that they ultimately end up paying the price anyway. MR. JOSLIN: Exactly. MR. LEWIS: So with that said and done, I'd call it a done deal. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: You've got an endorsement from the consumers and the contractors. In fact, I think you need another -- I think you need another investigator. I don't think you do. I know you do. MR. OSSORIO: Well, I did put in -- to be honest with you, I did write a letter to the appropriate people. I did ask for two more staff members and two more investigators, and that's something in the works. Just to shed some light. It's not so much the licensing. I have the renewal process. It's the day-to-day operations. In other words, you saw this gentleman, Lance. Comes to see you today. He's spent a lot of time, we've spent a lot of -- court reporter, your time, my time, staffs time. It was $25. That was it. That's it. MR. LEWIS: Right. MR. OSSORIO: That's it. MR. LEWIS: A lot of people don't understand that the court reporting, the attorney's fees, all these things except for our pay, obviously, comes right out of your budget. MR. OSSORIO: Right out. So he spent -- and rightfully so. I have no problem going to the board, because he's a vested interest to work in Collier County as a citizen, taxpayer, and he should make a living. But realize something, Maggie's time, my time, making copies, providing the information to him, it's $25. And that's something that, no matter what the marketplace -- Ann Keller's absolutely correct, whatever the market does is really of no bearing Page 50 April 18, 2007 of how we conduct business in the office. Marketplace is, in the building department, people walking in doing building permits, but we need to be at zero. MR. JOSLIN: One last comment. MR. OSSORIO: Then there's those citations you talked about. You know, maybe if I was out in the field a little more, we would be -- I don't know. We might be -- CHAIRMAN DICKSON: But that's not -- MR. OSSORIO: Who knows? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: That's how we hired you, Michael. When we hired Michael Ossorio, his one job was to write citations, and he more than paid for his own salary and a couple of others, and he ends up being a cheap investigator. MR. JOSLIN: Send you out with a full ticket book; you come back empty. MR. OSSORIO: I was out there last week. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I'd like to have another -- a Michael, Jr. MR. OSSORIO: We do. MR. JOSLIN: One last -- one last comment though. When-- Mr. Neale, when you make this letter up, you might was to check the chairman of the Board of Commission office. I think it's Mr. Coletta. MR. NEALE: Yeah, I think that's -- this was addressed to Mr. Halas. MR. JOSLIN: Just so we get the right person. MR. NEALE: This will just be a resolution, and it will be for the signature of the then chairman. MR. JOSLIN: Okay. MR. LEWIS: Do you anything else from us to proceed with that? MR. NEALE: What I'd like is a motion approving the content of the letter to be redrafted as a resolution for final adoption at the Page 51 April 18, 2007 next meeting. MR. LEWIS: So moved. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: So moved. MR. JOSLIN: Second. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: And second. All those in favor? MR. LEWIS: Aye. MR. BLUM: Aye. MS. KELLER: Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Aye. MR. JOSLIN: Aye. MR. HORN: Aye. MR. BOYD: Aye. MR. GUITE': Aye. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Vote was unanimous. We okay, Mike? MR. OSSORIO: I do like that, but if you could -- just one more. On paragraph number two, do we actually need that in there? I'm sorry. I meant to bring that up before. MR. JOSLIN: Do you need what? MR. OSSORIO: Paragraph number two. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: No, no, no, no, no, no. Scratch paragraph two. We don't need a public forum on this. MR. LEWIS: No. We already discussed it in a public forum. MR. JOSLIN: Yes. MR. LEWIS: What do you -- MR. BOYD: And the last paragraph? MR. NEALE: No, we'll you're-- MR. BOYD: I'm talking about-- MR. NEALE: He's talking about paragraph number two. MR. LEWIS: Yeah. MR. JOSLIN: Extremely important. State of economic -- MR. LEWIS: Yeah, I don't see a problem with that myself. Page 52 April 18, 2007 MS. KELLER: The one where it says, takes no action? MR. LEWIS: No. The number two. MS. KELLER: But also, we support the increases, right? MR. JOSLIN: I don't know that we can dictate that. MS. KELLER: And monitor the situation closely. MR. JOSLIN: We don't know what the economic situation is. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I'll make sure Pat -- Pat's a good letter writer. I'll make sure before I sign it. MR. OSSORIO: Excellent. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: It's just that sometimes he gets the wrong year. MR. NEALE: Sometimes. I've done that before. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: One question in kind of new business, is we've passed this April 1 st deadline on these exempt contractors. What's the possibility in the future packets that come in before us that you check to see if they really are exempt or if they've been dissolved? MR. OSSORIO: When you have new business, you won't have an exemption. You shouldn't have an exemption. You should have a form to fill out and the form to submit. The workers' compo agent that's in Fort Myers won't issue you a certificate without you first having a license, so that's where we give a period of time to go up there and get it. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Okay. But what about the second entities? We had them today. MR. OSSORIO: We will do that, no problem. MR. NEALE: But it's relatively simple actually, because you can just go online to the state division of corporations and put in the corporation and it shows you whether they're active or inactive, and then you can go into the history screen on there and discover whether they've been dissolved or not and how they were dissolved. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: And there's no more new ones being Page 53 April 18, 2007 issued, correct? MR. OSSORIO: I tell you, I don't know for a fact. I know that you've mentioned that to us, and I'm going to have a meeting with the -- Andrew Sobolic. He's the director or coordinator in Tallahassee for the workers' compo program, and he's going to be -- we'll have a meeting with him in June, and a CLOAF meeting, which is a licensing official association meeting. And we'll get some more information. I have not heard that. I have heard that if you renewed your corporation, you can get the exemption back, but that's the first I've heard about it. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: If you renew, yes, you can keep it, but there won't be any new ones. And if it's dissolved and negated, you can't get it back, and they're not issuing new ones. Also, they've got workers' compo rates well under control in this state. MR. OSSORIO: I've heard they've gone down in premium. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I went from $68 per 100 down to 31 in two years. Tell me that reform that dear old Tom Gallagher pushed through -- his trial attorney said it would be the end of his political career, and it was, but it worked. MR. OSSORIO: So you can afford to pay your $10 state registration fee again? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Yeah, move it up -- you're going to move it to 25 though. MR. OSSORIO: Gotcha. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I remember that one. MR. LEWIS: One other thing, while we're talking about some back business, I think I mentioned months ago about second entity applications, if there was a possibility of adding on the second entity application cover page. We get a license number, but we have no idea if it's effective, what it's for, and it doesn't tell us, you know -- like sometimes we can -- on state licenses, we have CGCs and CCCAs. And if staff could somehow try to add to that -- what that Page 54 April 18, 2007 license qualifies the second entity applicant for, that would be very helpful sometime. MR. NEALE: Just put another -- a line saying license type? MR. LEWIS: License type, that would be great. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I commend the county on catching that one application and kicking it back with the first referral. MR. LEWIS: Amen. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I've never had referrals checked before. MR. BLUM: You just didn't know it. MR. JOSLIN: This guys does everything. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Well, they weren't checked before. MR. BLUM: They weren't? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: No. They haven't been checking-- since Michael took over his -- they have never been checked until Michael took over. MS. KELLER: And that costs money, right, Mike? MR. OSSORIO: Costs money. MS. KELLER: Time. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: That's why we never looked at those recommendations because they were absolutely worthless. MR. BLUM: We just accepted them. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: We didn't have any choice. No one ever called on them. MR. LEWIS: Next meeting? CHAIRMAN DICKSON: Anybody? May 16th; is that right? Yeah. MR. LEWIS: Move to adjourn. MR. JOSLIN: Adjourn. CHAIRMAN DICKSON: I got a motion to adjourn. I do. Let's go. Page 55 April 18, 2007 ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 10:29 a.m. CONTRACTORS' LICENSING BOARD LES DICKSON, Chairman These minutes were approved by the Special Master on 2007, as presented , or as amended TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICES, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS. Page 56