MINUTES OF THE

SENATE Committee on Commerce and Labor

 

Seventy-First Session

March 28, 2001

 

 

The Senate Committee on Commerce and Laborwas called to order by Chairman Randolph J. Townsend, at 7:00 a.m., on Wednesday, March 28, 2001, in Room 2135 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada.  The meeting was video conferenced to the Grant Sawyer Office Building, Room 4401, Las Vegas, Nevada.  Exhibit A is the Agenda.  Exhibit B is the Attendance Roster.  All exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

Senator Randolph J. Townsend, Chairman

Senator Ann O’Connell, Vice Chairman

Senator Dean A. Rhoads

Senator Mark Amodei

Senator Raymond C. Shaffer

Senator Michael A. (Mike) Schneider

Senator Maggie Carlton

 

STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

Scott Young, Committee Policy Analyst

John Meder, Committee Policy Analyst

Gayle Nadeau, Committee Secretary

 

OTHERS PRESENT:

 

Ron Lynn, Assistant Director, Building Department, Clark County

Mark H. Fiorentino, Lobbyist, American Consulting Engineers Council of Nevada

Robert C. Maddox, Lobbyist, Citizens for Justice

Dennis Haney, Legal Counsel, State Contractors’ Board

Greg DeSart, Geotechnical and Environmental Services, and American Consulting Engineers Council

James E. McNutt, Lobbyist, Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, Terracon Consultants Western, and American Consulting Engineers Council

Jim L. Werbeckes, Lobbyist, Farmers Insurance Group

Laurie Nelson, Concern Citizen

Scott K. Canepa, Lobbyist, Nevada Trial Lawyers’ Association

Felix M. Martin, Structural Engineer, Marcon Forensics

Fred L. Hillerby, Lobbyist, American Institute of Architects

James L. Wadhams, Lobbyist, Nevada State Board of Architecture, Interior Design and Architectural Design

Margi A. Grein, Lobbyist, Nevada State Contractors’ Board

Leonard V. Nevin, Interstate Plumbing and Air Conditioning, and Nevada Subcontractors Association

John Wilson, Consultant, PP Industries

Dick Peck, Lobbyist, Secretary, Nevada Subcontractors’ Association

Jess S. Traver, P.E., Director, Department of Building and Safety, Washoe County

Norm Denny, Building Official, Douglas County Community Development, Douglas County

Phil M. Herrington, Chief Building Official, Building Department, Carson City

 

Chairman Townsend:

As you are well aware, we have in front of us our continuing efforts to get to the heart of the issues of our building problems.  Starting with codes, which we worked on last time, we are going to try to bring that to fruition today, and get into building inspectors and licensing requirements and bonding.

 

Mr. Lynn, if we could get back to our discussion, particularly with regard to the county problem of dueling “geotechs” (geotechnical person), where the county feels they have to issue a permit if an applicant provides a minimum standard that there may be an adverse condemnation problem for the county if they do not issue the permit.  I think that is where we left off.  So, if you would like to reinforce that and give us some kind of minimum standards for soils exploration and analysis, if there are any minimum standards in the community or any nation-wide that are acceptable, and what role either the county and/or the state can play to get to the heart of this soils issue.

 

Ron Lynn, Assistant Director, Building Department, Clark County:

That is a pretty broad scope.  I did have a brief presentation on soil hazards that you requested.  (Mr. Lynn reviewed his slide presentation with the committee at this time.  He discussed each slide accordingly.)

 

Soil hazards are in existence throughout the state.  To say they are in just Las Vegas or Clark County or in the Reno or Carson City area, that is probably an understatement.  Generally, soil hazards are undesirable soil conditions that exist as a result of natural geology or man-made problems.  This is an example of a fissure.  They may go undetected, and that is a critical element despite a thorough geotechnical investigation due to the special variability of soil conditions.  When you are dropping a 4-inch or a 6-inch boring over acres of land, obviously the more borings you do, and the greater depth, the better idea you will have of the underlying strata.  But, the fact is, you are just not going to hit everything.

 

An example of an extremely poor condition that has occurred, obviously that structure is uninhabitable.  Now, man-made problems are of specific interest due to their preventable nature.  We talked a little about it last time.  Now, this one is not specifically a soil problem.  This is actually an absence foundation system, as well as cavecation underneath the slab.

 

Developers often do not fully appreciate the fact that the foundation soil is the most expensive and important construction material of any land-development venture.  The real estate and marketing people will often govern purchase decisions overriding the increased risk and additional expense of developing sites with poor soils.

 

Now, you have heard the adage before.  And, it is from a general point of view, true, that you can almost design or engineer around anything.  Unfortunately, the costs go up, which make specific properties unsuitable, say for what you will do for a high-rise, you are not going to do for a home.  When hazards are properly identified or remediated, obviously the risk is lowered.  But, the market value of a particular location may justify increased costs, and see the critical point there:  increase risk.

 

Mr. Lynn:

OK, what are the soil hazards?  Characterized, generally as a relative movement of soil in any of three dimensions.  Typically, vertical; i.e., up and down, or there is lateral, or the combined movements.

 

That abbreviation is in the 1997 Southern Nevada Building Code amendments. These are amendments we put into the model code, which requires, in this case, a geotechnical report “shall” specifically address clay swell, chemical heave, corrosion, solubility, and groundwater issues.  This is why we have all these problems in southern Nevada.  And, I would hazard, and I do have a number of geotechs behind me, a number of these do exist up in northern Nevada, except I think they are very short on hydro-collapsible soils.  But, obviously, the last one, uncontrolled fill or artificial fill can be anywhere.

 

Faulting fissuring exists down in southern Nevada, and is very heavy in northern Nevada:  expanding soil, collapsing soil, and some of our special cases.  Faults are simply fractures, discontinuity in soil or rock strata.  A fissure is a crack or discontinuity resulting from either internal or applied stresses and soil masses, and they are forever.  They can destroy, not only a home, but also a whole development, if not properly identified and addressed.

 

These are some of the examples of the type of discovery we have.  Again, in the Southern Nevada Building Code amendments, no portion of the foundation system of any habitable space shall be located less than 5 feet to a fault.  Other than the state of California, this is the only regulation I am aware of that is adopted which even mentions faults and requires a minimum setback.  In addition, in code 1806.12, total settlement shall not exceed the tolerance for the materials and type of construction used.  Now, this addresses to some degree, what Mr. Maddox (Robert C. Maddox, Lobbyist, Citizens for Justice) may be talking about later, and that is the edge curl.  That should be calculated in, although there are environmental conditions, which exacerbate their problems.

 

Again, expanding soils, a change in volume, can be clay heave, chemical heave, even frost heave, obviously, frost heave is more prevalent in northern Nevada, but we do, and must design for it up in the Mount Charleston area.

 

Now, this is an exaggeration, but you can see how planting next to a structure can compound any of the problems, seasonal levels sucking up moisture, in other words taking withdrawal, or when you add additional irrigation water.  Clay heave, not to go into the science of clay mineralogy, but basically it entraps water in the molecular structure and increases the volume.  It simply expands.  If the clay is laterally confined and, typically, by other strata, it just pushes up.  It is under tremendous pressure, and, of course, is determined by the chemical configuration of the clay, as well as how much water is available.

Mr. Lynn:

Chemical heave is naturally occurring chemical salts.  You hear sulfates.  You hear all kinds of problems, incredible problems that we have in southern Nevada.  It is the white stuff you see around there.  It requires sufficient water and salt content and temperature fluctuations.  You will see it when the temperature drops here; you will see that white fluffy stuff on top of soil.

 

Frost heave is formation of subsurface ice lands as resulting in vertical heave of upper layers.  It requires, obviously, water and low temperatures.  Now, we talked about a lot of the water issues in northern Nevada last time.  Two individuals came up with, I believe, the rising groundwater.  Obviously, if you get freezing temperatures, you are going to have, potentially, tremendous heave problems.  The swell pressure or the heave force depends upon the amount of water frozen.

 

Collapsing soil has been one of our most impactful problems, partly because it is discovered only at certain depths, and may be below common investigative techniques.  It is the failure of the soil structure, which has high voids and partial cementation of soil grains when hit by water.  As soon as water hits, it completely weakens the cemented bonding in the grains.  It is a little bit different than solubility, which puts things in the solution.  As you can see, irrigation hits the soil underneath and it caused it to just slump down.  Solubility is when the salts can go into solutions.  Soil contains particles that are soluble in water.  The initial density, in other words, the tested densities may be high, but water dissolves these salts.  Just like putting salt in the water, and it dissolves it.  The soil structure collapses as grains realign to fill the voids.

 

Consolidation can be both a shallow and a deep-seated condition.  It is a change in grain-to-grain friction.  It allows individual grains to realign and reduce voids.

 

Now, again, the 1997 Southern Nevada Building Code amendments require a special inspector/engineer to verify requirements of the geotechnical report, and provide a final grading report; determine imported soils for their suitability and swell solubility; corrosivity, testing a completed work, because the corrosiveness can have tremendous problems.

 

Mr. Lynn:

Slope stability:  obviously, the critical elements of that are the proximity of the structure to the slope.  In other words, how close it is.  The slopes geometry; how steep it is.  The natural soil condition, what are the materials?  Is it bedrock, which can be very steep, or is it an expansive material?

 

And, the excess moisture content, how are we irrigating, how are we loading it, are we putting a parking lot on it?  The aquifer problems, both in southern and northern Nevada, obviously soils are fairly stable, particularly in southern Nevada if you do not add water.  Water becomes a problem.  We have groundwater recharge, which is both natural and artificial, like snowmelt, or the amount of rain.  But, the critical one down here, in many cases, is artificial recharge.  And, I do not mean the one done by the Las Vegas Valley Water District, but rather our constant irrigation here.

 

The presence of groundwater in the foundation influence zone causes reduced bearing capacity.  When you have water down there, the building does not hold up.  You also have the potential for buoyancy.  Obviously, seismic activity puts an induced lateral load on a structure.  Problems with liquefaction can result.  Foundations may not be designed to resist excessive levels of lateral loading caused by seismic events.

 

Mr. Lynn:

Foundation displacement is possible when we are talking about southern Nevada where you have slab-on grades.  They have historically ridden fairly well.  That does not mean the structure has survived, but people have survived well.  When you put them up on stem walls, which is more common in northern Nevada, it becomes more problematic, although, designs will accommodate that.

 

Liquefaction is when you have loose soil.  They are saturated near surface groundwater, and you get the effects of an earthquake.  It causes tremendous loss of grain-to-grain friction and significant collapses.  In other words, the soil acts as a liquid.  Relative position of a foundation changes radically during this quick condition.  A lot of the problems in Mexico City are as a result of liquefaction.

 

Now, the corrosive content of our soils, natural occurring chemicals salts, I mentioned before, they will attack the concrete and steel, anything embedded in the ground.  Obviously, you have to have salt, air, and the water present.

 

Also, we went ahead and had a working session, yesterday, on geotechnical considerations.  In attendance were representatives from five geotechnical firms in southern Nevada, as well as representatives from Clark County.  We came up with a “Geotechnical Considerations” sheet (Exhibit C), to go through, step by step, when an applicant wants to come up and build a project, any project; a housing subdivision, if you will.  He wants to get approval to build that subdivision.  Now, that whole area, whether to build it or not, is under land use, not building.  It is not a technical decision.  There maybe areas in southern Nevada where we feel is of higher risk, and do not wish it to be built or have distinct limitations as to what can be built there based on historical knowledge.  Our ability to restrain or restrict that is highly limited, because it has an economic impact upon the use of that land.  That is perceived as a taking away.  We have not been, generally, supported in that area.

 

Mr. Lynn:

What they say is it has to be designed appropriately, then the burden falls back on the geotechnical engineer, the structural or civil engineer, or both, and the architect or building department to come to some kind of meeting of minds.  There are instances where we feel the design simply, while it meets the minimum standards of the code, the code does not deal, generally, with durability or with structural safety, and, of course, with life-safety concerns.  While it meets those provisions of the code as a minimum standard, we still have grave concern about its long-term survivability as a functioning development.

 

We cannot, at this point, deny that project as long as it uses sound engineering judgment.  What has occurred, now, is not often, but it has occurred, and there are at least three cases where we did not wish it to be built.  And, two of those have resulted in some problems down the line, and we expect them to be continuing problems.  One was related to fissures, which as I mentioned before can be very long lasting.  And, the other problem was related to a fluctuating groundwater situation.  I am not referring to ones outside of the Clark County jurisdiction.

 

Senator Townsend:

What type of structures were these?

 

Mr. Lynn:

These were residential structures, in both cases.  Now, in both those cases, the homeowners and occupants were assisted through the county and the developer, and the problem was either financially or physically mitigated.  In the fissure case, stabilization did occur, there were some units exchanged or bought out.  In the fluctuating water table, we will see what happens because there was a subsurface drain system employed.  The maintenance of that in the long-term can be rather problematic.  So, we will be continuing to watch that.

 

Senator Townsend:

Would you describe the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino situation?

 

Mr. Lynn:

The Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino is a problem of deep-seated consolidation.  To mitigate the settlement of the building, 536 mini-piles were installed down to 200 feet, plus or minus 20 feet.  Strain gauges were installed along the length of it.  The building is extensively monitored to determine differential movement between columns.  They even have an exterior control, an optical monitoring device, so if something should happen to the devices within the building, we would still have continued data.

 

Essentially, it was recorded accurately in the initial soils report that the groundwater was down approximately 32 to 35 feet, so you had a saturated-soil condition.  The original design felt that a large matt foundation of about 10‑feet thick would distribute the load over a broad enough area to mitigate any potential settlement that would be deleterious to the structure.  This, unfortunately, did not occur.  The loads were transferred further and further down, if you will, into areas that had not been subjected to those types of loads and then forced them into consolidation and the building continued to move.  There were a number of remedial techniques employed, that were not successful.  Finally, this last one has been successful.  Obviously, even at 200 feet, there is no bedrock down there.  There is no restive layer that they are supporting; it is all on skin friction.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Mr. Lynn, a “hundred” years ago, I used to be the executive director of The Boulevard Mall, and we constantly had a problem, especially in Woolworth’s, because the basement was always flooding because of the aquifer.  Was there trouble with the homes right behind the boulevard?  Are you aware of any problem they had?

 

Mr. Lynn:

I am not aware of any problems at the homes.  There were some problems with the pavement on the streets.  It may be that the actual elevation of the homes, remember that extra 18 to 20 inches, depending upon the height, may have prevented it.  There are, obviously, problems occurring that the county is not aware of.  No one complains.  But, there have been, and there continues to be issues of groundwater along The Strip.  There are structures within their basement that continue to pump.  There have been problems at other malls along The Strip requiring constant vigilance to make sure they are stable and safe.

 

Senator O'Connell:

The water table is not that far beneath the ground there, is it?

 

Mr. Lynn:

Not at all, in fact, in some areas of southern Nevada, with the changing climate conditions, water comes right to the surface.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Lynn, let us go through, if we may, the handout we have just received.

 

Mr. Lynn:

Before I start, I want thank the “geotechs” for assisting.  Also, this is, obviously, not hard-core code language.  This needs to be fleshed out.  (Mr. Lynn read from Exhibit C.)

 

Senator O'Connell:

When the planning commission meets, is the planning commission the first step before a developer even submits the plans to you?  They have their okay on going ahead and developing an area, and then they bring their plans to you.  Is that kind of the order in which the system works?

 

Mr. Lynn:

Yes, that is.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Does any information go back to the planning division, or do they have any information prior to the review of a project that would be from your department saying an area is not good, or it should only be used for golf courses and should not be used for housing development?  Is any information like that given to the planning commission prior to the approval of a project?

 

Mr. Lynn:

Rarely, we do have the opportunity to make comments.  Of course, we get thousands of projects.  When something is on our soil hazards map, and Clark County developed it, and the other incorporated jurisdictions reference it, the project would be fairly costly to do with a lot of cooperation with a lot of people.  If it is in an area where we consider it a particular hazard, now remember we are speculating on a hazard based upon a map, because it is not site-specific, it is area, then we will, and we have, put those comments on the developer’s submittal

 

Again, as I described before, generally when they are put on, that does not change the planning commission’s determination of the use of the property.  It merely puts the requirement on that says this is in a special hazard area, and in your design, you have to identify these hazards, and if they are found, respond to them in your engineering.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Does the planning commission have any criteria that they go through before they give their okay or stamp of approval on a project?

 

Mr. Lynn:

That is probably outside my area of expertise.  I am sure they do have some criteria.  I hope so.

 

Senator O'Connell:

But, this is not, necessarily, a part of the criteria that you are aware of?

 

Mr. Lynn:

That is correct.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Is there anybody in the audience, either in Las Vegas or in Carson City, who could give us any information on that?  I wonder if you (Mr. Lynn) could send us a list of the people who currently sit on the planning commission in Las Vegas, and probably in the Northern end of the state?

 

Mr. Lynn:

I certainly can, Senator.

 

Senator Townsend:

Is your planning commission, Mr. Lynn, inclusive of the cities and unincorporated areas, or is it broken up?  How is that done in Las Vegas?

 

Mr. Lynn:

Our planning commission is only in the unincorporated areas of Clark County.  Each of the incorporated cities has their own process.  I can, if it serves your request, at least get the membership for each of those incorporated cities.

Senator O'Connell:

That would be helpful, Mr. Lynn, thank you.

 

Mark Fiorentino, Lobbyist, American Consulting Engineers Council of Nevada:

I have extensive experience practicing before the planning commissions in Southern Nevada.  I think the answer to your question is, yes.  They have guidelines they use when they review projects, but they are generally land-use planning guidelines; i.e., whether the proposed use is compatible with the uses surrounding it.  I think Mr. Lynn is right.  They very rarely, if ever, get any technical guidance on issues like geotechnical issues.

 

The only time those issues come up is if it is in an area that everybody understands that there are potential problems.  Then planning commissioners are usually briefed that there are some problems, and they take it upon themselves to get whatever further information they need to make a decision.  They do not have a set of guidelines that provide any detail with respect to geotechnical issues.

 

Senator Townsend:

What I am hearing between you and Mr. Lynn is that the planning portion is land-use based.  Is it compatible with the overall plan?  Do you want an apartment complex there, or commercial, or something else, versus what Mr. Lynn’s organization does.  Which is, now that it has met the standards of the planning commission, let us go in and find out if, in fact, this particular project meets the standards and codes that have been established.  So, there are really two different things, as we understand it.  Is that correct?

 

Mr. Fiorentino:

Yes, that is correct.

 

Senator Townsend:

So, the planning people really have either no responsibility, no concern, whatsoever, whether, in fact, the land is physically appropriate for something to occur.  It is just a function of, “is that the way we want the valley to look.”

 

Mr. Fiorentino:

Primarily, but, every project I have ever been involved in, with very rare occasion, gets imposed on it in the planning process a condition requiring, subsequent to the approval, the need to address those geotechnical issues.  And, then, that process leads you to getting your engineers with the county engineers and putting together an engineering report that everybody signs off on.

 

Senator Townsend:

Then the planning commission does have to understand the geophysical issues; otherwise it could not put conditions on it if they do not know what they are talking about.

 

Mr. Fiorentino:

I think, in general, the planning commissioners understand the issues.  But, they are not qualified, and nor do I think they ever would be qualified because you would never get anybody to serve on the planning commission to get into the actual, technical issues related to how to solve the geotechnical problems or concerns.

 

Senator Townsend:

That is left at the building department level?

 

Mr. Fiorentino:

For the most part it is left at the building department level.  But, so you understand the process, when we take a project before the planning commission, they have staff who attend those meetings, which includes members of their public works department.  So they have some expertise on engineering issues in those meetings.  But, if your question was, “Do they get into a detailed analysis of soil situations when they are in the front end, when
they are making land-use decisions?”  The answer to that question is, clearly, no, they do not.

 

Senator Townsend:

In Clark County, since you practice there, how many projects have gone to the planning commission, received authority because of land-use issues they have met as long as they address these other concerns, and had someone from Mr. Lynn’s department say, “The project is not going to happen, this is a total, unmitigated predictable disaster, and you are not going to be able to build what your proposal is.”  Has that ever happened?

 

Mr. Fiorentino:

I have never worked on a project where the engineers could not come up with some solution to whatever the concerns were.

 

Senator Townsend:

And, Mr. Lynn, if the answer is that in his practice he has never had one turned down because the engineers were always able to come up with appropriate mitigation, and yet we are still getting severe problems, how do we resolve this?  I know we have this in front of us, and this is a great start, but is it true if you put enough conditions on these things, you can mitigate anything, or not?  I am not an engineer.

 

Mr. Lynn:

Theoretically, that is true.  However, as an example, if the foundation system calls for 50-foot caissons you are not going to afford a $100,000 or $150,000 house.  It is very difficult to do that taking away at my point, because there will be an engineer, there will be design professionals who say they can build there.  They built on the Everglades, after all, and had some ideas of success.  There are some things from our experience that simply cause problems 8 to 10 years down the line.

 

I firmly believe, in order for people to have it upfront and in order for there not to be economic hardship, it is a planning element that should be integrated in the overall master planning of a community.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Maddox, you have heard us frame the issue.  If we take what Mr. Lynn and the geotechs have provided us, how much of the current problem could have been mitigated had we done this working session geotechnical considerations sheet?

 

Robert C. Maddox, Lobbyist, Citizens for Justice:

If this geotechnical considerations paper were in place and strictly followed, I think all of the cases I have dealt with involving expansive soil and soils-related problems, would not have been nearly as bad as what they are.  I think most problems would go away.  I have a problem with item number 3 (Exhibit C), though, where it says, “The building official may waive these requirements on a project-specific basis.”  I do not like that.  There could be too much political pressure brought by a developer on a building official.  A building official like Ron Lynn, I do not think there is a problem, but there could be problems at other times and places with pressure on a building official to waive the requirements because of cost in a given instance.  So, I think that consideration should not be there.

 

Mr. Lynn:

In order to have that type of latitude, there may be a structure, an agricultural structure, for example, where a person is putting up a barn, especially in the rural areas, and perhaps in the urban areas, that some of these things are not as essential elements.  We make some type of discretionary judgments.  Let us say a mobile home in a rural area that some of these requirements may be excessive and so costly that the person is unable to use them.  That is why I keep that flexibility.  Obviously, that has to be used rarely, as Mr. Maddox said, and very judiciously.

 

Senator O'Connell:

If we were to keep such specific language in the bill, is there any liability to the official or the person making the determination to waive the responsibility?

 

Mr. Lynn:

I believe any building official, who does not do the proper research and does this either for political or superfluous reasons, deserves to have that liability.

 

Senator Townsend:

Your specific-project basis that you made mention to are the ones that would be obvious, and I believe, Mr. Maddox would say that is the perfect case.  However, it does not say just for those, it says for specific projects.  I think his point is well founded.  I think standards are standards.  You cannot have standards and say they are good for everybody else but my project or me.  I believe the caveat is really geared towards our rural communities.  Perhaps, that is where we can place the condition that there would not be an ability to waive in our urban centers, such as Clark and Washoe counties, and perhaps Carson City and Douglas counties.  In the other 13 areas, perhaps that should stay in to give them flexibility given the fact they do build different types of structures.  Then it is up to them, and then they do become liable.  If a guy waives it and the whole thing comes crashing down, there should be liability.

 

Mr. Lynn:

In some cases there is not a building authority in some of the rural areas.

 

Dennis Haney, Legal Counsel, State Contractors’ Board:

Include Nye County in the restriction on the waiver, because we are running into a lot of foundations that are literally cracking.  And, when talking to Mr. Maddox, too, items 2 and 6 (Exhibit C), I think, are the foundation of what Mr. Lynn has.  What is in the soils report is item 2; what the content is supposed to be, what it is supposed to address, and then the compatibility of the structural and the soils to make sure it works.  Typically, a soils report will give you more than one choice of how to build your structure.  It also varies what you have to do with the soil, depending on which choice you use.  What we have seen here is a developer will pick the cheapest type of slab and the cheapest type of soil and that was not what the soils engineer said had to be built.

 

Senator Townsend:

How does that happen?  How do we get away with that?  Who is supposed to catch that?

 

Mr. Haney:

The engineer, typically, and the developer are supposed to catch it.  The developer is not supposed to do it; that is the person doing it.  He is just looking to save a “nickel.”

 

Senator Townsend:

Well, everybody tries to keep their expense down, but I thought there were enough checks and balances to pick this up?

 

Mr. Haney:

Oftentimes not.  Several examples I have seen, is you will get a good soils engineer who will write a decent report and then the developer ends up selling that parcel to another developer.  That developer has not had the interplay, or the discussions with the soils engineer and they just quickly look at it, maybe using somebody unskilled, maybe somebody unscrupulous.  Whatever their reasons are, they take a look and then say, “Well, gee, I can use this kind of slab, that is so many dollars, and I only have to take out 12 inches of soil instead of 24 inches of soil and re-compact it, that is cheaper.  I will take the cheaper one.”  And, they just do it wrong.  That is why Mr. Maddox is in business.

 

Mr. Maddox:

That is correct.  What Mr. Lynn has put together here is a series of checks and balances requiring, for example, in item 5 (Exhibit C) that the geotechnical engineer shall review the grading and foundation plans to verify compliance with the geotechnical report.  And, in item 6:  “The architect, civil or structural engineer responsible for the building design shall review the geotechnical report and verify their design’s compatibility by providing a written statement that the plans are in compliance with the geotechnical recommendations.”

 

This is the kind of thing we need here to keep providing these checks and balances to help assure that we just do not have a gap where the soils report was done, but now a different developer comes along and he has different engineers, and they are approaching it in a different way, and things that are recommended in the first report somehow just get left out, and there is nobody really making sure those things are, in fact, being done.

 

Senator Townsend:

If we are going to spend that kind of time to get to the heart of this issue, then we want to make sure there is a check and balance.  When it comes back to you, Mr. Lynn, what happens?

 

Mr. Lynn:

That is why we proposed these checks and balances, because a building department, any building department, even one as large as the one we have in Clark County, has certain limitations.  They look at everything, of what they are provided.  Do the engineering calculations work?  In other words, they will look at the soils, to the best of their abilities, and the engineer says, “Okay, I have three options for grading.”  Well, at the time of submittal, those options are all acceptable options.  What is, actually, put in the field is unknown.  It takes that loop where the geotechnical engineer is saying, “We have been retained to inspect it, and this is what is actually here, and this is the recommendation we wish to go forward with.”  Then it takes the engineer, instead of just submitting a foundation plan, which he will make assumptions that will be put forth as fact, that this is the bearing capacity of the soil, this is the loads of the building, this is how I am going to accommodate them.

 

Until that goes back to the geotech and he says, “No, that is not the bearing capacity of soil.”  And, they confirm, they get this loop, and that is what items 5 and 6 are (Exhibit C), bringing together these different disparate elements and making sure the professionals, if you will, are talking to each other.

 

Senator Townsend:

Let us try to act on this then.  Are you suggesting all of these considerations be mandated by the state?

 

Mr. Lynn:

I do not know if I can ever suggest the state mandate them, however, as it is put together, I think each city and county should adopt the appropriate regulations.

 

Senator Townsend:

I would agree, but the point is, I want to have the bill drafter take this information and try to create language that would accommodate each county’s requirements under this.  We are not going to tell you what to do; we are just going to tell you that you have to do something accordingly.  Each county shall develop technical provisions for the content of the geotechnical reports.

 

Mr. Lynn:

I agree with the substance of this.

 

Senator Townsend:

Committee, if it is all right, I will send it down and have it drafted, and then we will see what comes back and we will see where we want to put it.  The next issue is the issue of the engineers that come in front of you.  They are licensed, not by the contractors’ board, but by the board of professional engineers.  Is that correct?

Mr. Lynn:

That is correct.

 

Greg DeSart, Geotechnical and Environmental Services, and American Consulting Engineers Council:

I want to talk about these geotechnical considerations (Exhibit C) that we came up with Mr. Lynn.  Basically, we definitely agree with the concept presented here.  We feel these concepts are a very important part of solving the construction defect problem.  One of the key parts that I wanted to point out was item 4, where it says the developer shall provide the front-end guidelines concerning code, geotechnical and civil engineering recommendations for the use of the property and these guidelines shall become part of the buyer-acknowledged sales documents.  From an engineering perspective, we feel these are very important, that the homeowner is made aware of basically some limitations that might be on their property, of which the geotechnical or civil engineer had recommended in terms of planting and drainage, et cetera.

 

If anything, we might even recommend this be expanded a little bit so that it does not just involve the developer to the initial home purchases, but also to subsequent home purchasers, so those soils or civil engineering guidelines are transferred from homeowner to homeowner so they know what limitations are involved at their property.

 

Senator Townsend:

I thought we did that, Scott Young (Scott Young, Committee Policy Analyst), 2 or 4 years ago?  Was there not an acknowledgement attached to the deed?  Some covenant, in essence, to the deed regarding all of these issues?

 

Scott Young, Committee Policy Analyst:

I know we required some kind of a disclosure statement to be provided.  I think it is in the homeowners’ bill.

 

Senator Townsend:

OK.  Am I correct, then, Mr. DeSart, that you are talking about, basically, a covenant to the deed so it goes from buyer to buyer to buyer?

 

Mr. DeSart:

I do not know the legal way you would do, but, essentially, yes.  It is very important, not only that they have access to this information, but they physically sign off acknowledgement that they either have read it or will read it and they will, if necessary, maybe even hire an expert to help them understand those recommendations, because sometimes they (the property owner) may not know what they mean.  It would be kind of like a CC&R (Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions).

 

Senator Townsend:

Do you have any problems with this, Mr. Lynn?

 

Mr. Lynn:

No.  I think an informed constituency is better able to deal with these problems if they have these conditions to be aware of them.

 

James E. McNutt, Lobbyist, Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, Terracon Consultants Western, and American Consulting Engineers Council (ACEC):

My firm and ACEC would like to voice our support of the concept here, but I want to explain to the Senators something that came to mind while I was in the audience.  In California, everybody is aware of the seismic hazards in earthquakes, and homes are built, and high-rises are built, and I will call them “earthquake-resistant/tolerant,” but they certainly are not built with the idea that they can withstand certain earthquakes.

 

The public is very aware of the risk, I will use the word “risk,” when they buy a home and they can buy earthquake insurance.  Some of the problems we have in southern Nevada with clays, collapsible soils, fissures, I will call it a subtle problem.  The same concept really applies where the structures are built to be resistant, but there is still some risk.  So, this item Mr. DeSart was pointing out, is very important because a lot of the reports will say, “maintain drainage, minimize watering.”  Some of the problems we have seen on sites that have had some distress the people that have desert landscaping and follow the guidelines, seem to have no problems.  The people that violate the guidelines, change the drainage, over irrigate, add water to the subgrade, they seem to have problems.

 

I was just trying to give an equation, and such, that you could understand the California concept with earthquakes.  They cannot build to be totally protective of those, they build to be life-safety protective, but not from a loss standpoint.

 

Senator Townsend:

We are going to focus on two things.  One, when you talked about risk that automatically raises the flag in this committee about the responsibilities of the insurance carriers here.  Mr. Werbeckes, we are trying to cover some insurance issues.  With regard to the issues of these gentlemen in the engineering and the geotechnical area, does your company provide any liability coverage for professional engineers, land surveyors, et cetera?

 

Jim L. Werbeckes, Lobbyist, Farmers Insurance Group:

I would have to check that out.  We have really curtailed our commercial line of business in construction.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Mr. Werbeckes, in your household policies, is there any kind of protection available for that kind of damage to a home that does not come through being burgled?  It is not a natural disaster, of course, but it is a construction defect.

 

Mr. Werbeckes:

Are you talking strictly construction defects such as settling, cracking, et cetera?

 

Senator O'Connell:

Yes.

 

Mr. Werbeckes:

Normally those are all excluded under the contract.  If you have earthquake coverage and have settling, then you would have coverage.  Then, again, you get into the issue of “was the house built to code.”  As long as the house was built to code, and you have earthquake coverage, settlement is covered.  However, on your normal policy, earthquake coverage is not included.  It is an additional endorsement.  You would have to add that to your policy.

 

Senator O'Connell:

There is not a policy out there that can be an addendum to your regular household coverage that would cover any kind of a settling problem that you are aware of?

 

Mr. Werbeckes:

Under just regular settlement, if you have earthquake coverage it covers earth movement, settling, and those types of things.  Those would be covered under your earthquake coverage.  Again, when you start talking construction defect you need to find out if the house was built to code at the time that it was being built.  Then there are some issues that you would get involved in there, as well.

 

Senator O'Connell:

So, roofs leaking or windows not fitting or anything like that are not covered?

 

Mr. Werbeckes:

Well, again, it depends on the approximate cause of the loss.

 

Mr. Lynn:

We are dealing with situations where the structure may be completely code compliant, I believe.  We are talking about a naturally occurring subsurface environmental condition.

 

Mr. DeSart:

Basically, to elaborate on what Mr. Werbeckes was saying, expansive clays are naturally occurring just as an earthquake is naturally occurring.  There are times when a home is designed and built to the code and there still is some distress, or some movement and cracking that occurs.

 

Senator Townsend:

The cracking or the visual kinds of problems are one thing, but the structural kinds of problems are another.  Mr. Werbeckes, are there policies out there that can be, or currently are being, written that would cover these inherent soils issues?  Or, do you have to only get earthquake coverage in order to cover that?

 

Mr. Werbeckes:

I do not know of any policy out there that would cover that type of issue.

 

Senator Townsend:

What is the traditional warranty on a new home for something like soils?

 

Mr. Lynn:

The original homeowners’ warranty program done years ago, there is a new version of it now, went belly up because of problems related to soils, a subsurface environment, and to roof leaks.  Those are the two critical areas of payout.  In many of the policies right now that I have had the opportunity to review, the subsurface environment is excluded as a condition of coverage.  Now, they may cover some of the consequences of a broken waterline or a cracked window, but we are dealing with the symptoms, not the causes.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Mr. Chairman, that makes this information all the more important.  I think, to be, I do not want to say mandated because I hate that word, but really, that is what we are doing to the state level.  I think it makes it even more critical.  If a person cannot get any kind of insurance coverage on it, then I think it is certainly incumbent upon us, because we know the buyer is not aware.  They do not even know the questions to ask in these cases.  You do not think, necessarily, about the soil that your home is built on, unless you have been involved, I think, with the building of it.

 

Senator Townsend:

Your point is well taken.  I do not think this is a state-specific mandate, but it requires the counties to act in a manner that provides enough information to help the public help themselves.  Obviously, Mr. Lynn and his colleagues have gone an extra step in Clark County and, perhaps, not in other jurisdictions that do not have the substantial problem that they are facing, but perhaps a little guidance from us may be in order.

 

Mr. Maddox:

On the warranty issues, the insured warranty plans, as has been indicated, are really no help to homeowners with the type of problems we are talking about, the soils-related problems.  The claims against a developer for these types of problems that can be raised in a claim under chapter 40 of Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) go to the length of the statute of limitations, which is fairly complicated, but in the range of 8 to 10 years.

 

One thing about what is being proposed here, I think is so significant, it has been said a couple of times, it has been said this morning, it has been said in prior work sessions on these issues, that homeowners do foolish things when they put in lawns instead of desert landscaping, or they plant trees.  What is really important, when a homeowner buys a home, that the homeowner is made aware of the need to keep the proper drainage, the need to keep the planting away from the house.  So, in what Mr. Lynn has put together in item 4 (Exhibit C), the developer shall provide the end user written guidelines concerning the code, geotechnical and civil engineering recommendations for the occupant’s use of their property, that is really one of the other important things.  There are so many important things on this list, but that is really a critical thing that a home buyer be told of the need to not plant against the building and not to block any drainage, because, that is quite often not done.

 

Some of the better builders do so, but quite often it is not done.  So, the home buyer who comes from some other part of the country is simply not aware of these problems, and unwittingly puts a flower bed against a building and, perhaps that does end up resulting in moisture getting into clay soil underneath the foundation and lifting it up.

 

Laurie Nelson, Concerned Citizen:

I want to address some of these issues and tell you what is going on with my home.  I am sitting here listening and part of the selling point when you go to buy a new home, you go to the models and you do not see a lot of desert landscaping.  You see plush gardening.  You see flowers.  And, you go in and you look at these homes and you are in amazement.  You pick out the home that you think is going to be your dream home and that you are going to raise your family in.  Let me tell you what a big disappointment that has been for my family and me.

 

We, in good faith, bought our home.  We are middle class; that was everything we had.  We were proud of this home.  And, let me tell you, there was no desert landscaping.  When we went in, there were no specifications to not plant against our home or have grass.  The home builder provided the front yard landscaping, which, let me add, was not desert landscaping.  There were no specifications of watering or drainage.  When we moved into our home everything was fine.  Then we started having problems.  I will begin with the interior problems.

 

We have severe cracking in our home.  And, when I say severe, I am talking over inch-wide cracks, throughout our house that keep appearing.  We contacted the home builder.  We asked them, what can be done?  They came and they looked at our house and they gave us a lot of things that we need to do, with which we complied.  Number one was in the backyard.  We were to move our landscaping out away from our home three feet.  That was an expense to us, but in order to have our house fixed and to stop what was going on we did that.  A few months later, things continued to happen so they came back and they said, “Well, you need to move it out 10 feet from your house.”  Our back yard is 19 feet, how much back yard does that give you?  Not a lot, especially when you have children.  They want grass; they want swing sets.  Then they told us that in the front yard, we needed to do things.  At that point, we told them you were the ones that put in the front yard landscaping, and it does not drain towards the house.  It drains away from the house.

 

Ms. Nelson:

We continued to work with the home builder.  They would make appointments, at first they would show up, then in the end they stopped showing up.  They would not call to cancel the appointment.  Nothing was being done.  They did not ever offer to come in and fix our house.  We tried over and over and over again to contact them to have them come and look at our house.  You would be amazed if you were to come into my home and see the damage that is done, and to correctly fix my home, it would cost more than what we paid for our home, originally.

 

So, I am here to plead for these homeowners, because what is happening is not right, and were we ever told that there were soil problems?  Were we ever told that you should not plant flower beds?  Were we ever told that you should not have a garden?  No, and people need to be aware of that.  Would I ever buy another home in Las Vegas?  I do not know.  You go to a home builder in good faith and you think they are going to be honest with you, and, if you do have a problem, they are going to try to help you, that has not happened.

 

I know of several people in the same situation as we are.  We are in a situation where we cannot sell our home.  We had a realtor come into our home and he would not even list our home, because of the damage to the house.  So, you tell me, is it the homeowner’s responsibility to automatically know they are to ask questions and they are to know that they should not do these things?  I do not think so.  I think something needs to be done.  There needs to be guidelines.

The interior of our home and the exterior, our sidewalks they do not line up.  None of our doors shut properly.  Our front door, just for example, you can see a half-inch of daylight through our door at all times.  There is nothing you can do.  The bathroom doors, we have to take them off monthly and sand them down so they shut properly.

 

This, to me, is a big inconvenience.  It is embarrassing when you have people come over to your house and the first thing they see is inch-wide cracks throughout your home.  I do not know if any of you sitting on that committee have every experienced any of this, but it is disheartening.  I think something needs to be done.  I wanted you to hear my testimony of what has happened to us, and our neighbors surrounding us.  Nothing is being done, not one thing.

 

Senator Townsend:

Are you in litigation, currently?

 

Ms. Nelson:

Yes, I am.

 

Senator Townsend:

Are you in litigation along with other homeowners, or just you, singularly?

 

Ms. Nelson:

No, we are in litigation with other homeowners.

 

Senator Townsend:

In your development, is it a class-action suit?

 

Scott K. Canepa, Lobbyist, Nevada Trial Lawyers’ Association:

I represent Ms. Nelson and her neighbors.  And, in fact, that neighborhood was recently certified as a class by the district court about 4 months ago.  We first tried to get, under chapter 40 of NRS, the builder to step in and make the repairs and they turned it over to the insurance carrier, and they made no offer to repair, which led to the efforts to certify the class.  The problems Ms. Nelson described today are endemic throughout that particular neighborhood of approximately 110 homes.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Canepa and Mr. Maddox, I was trying to get to the heart of the insurance issue, and we do not know who now provides that kind of coverage.  Could you give us some insight?

 

Mr. Canepa:

There are really three areas of coverage, if you will.  The first is what has already been described by Mr. Werbeckes.  That is the first-party policies that the homeowners’ would buy, your homeowner’s policy.  He correctly points out that they routinely deny coverage, citing exclusions for any damages caused through construction defects.  I can tell you in my experience, which has been fairly considerable down south, here, we have never had a homeowner’s policy step up and pay where the damage is as a result of a construction defect.

 

The second area of coverage comes under the Homeowner Warranty (HOW)  programs, which Mr. Lynn described.  Most of those original programs are now bankrupt or out of business.  Most of those policies exclude soils-related issues or they have language in the policy that requires the building, essentially, be crippled as a result of the structural problem.  So, homeowner’s like Ms. Nelson who got inch-wide cracks in the house, and it is still habitable under their view, have no recourse under those policies.

 

Then, of course, the third area of coverage is the general liability policies, which the builders have, and those policies typically provide coverage for property damage that results from construction defects.

 

Senator Townsend:

Is it fair to assume the first one is not going to cover soils, unless you add an earthquake rider that may or may not cover it.  The second one has come to fruition, I guess, and has, basically, been terminated.  And, your third one usually excludes these kinds of things.  That is an exclusion in your policy.  Where would a typical homeowner go to say, “Here is the problem I am facing.  I have had my next-door neighbor, who is a professional engineer tell me it is a soils issue.  I want to put a claim in to get this fixed.”

 

Mr. Canepa:

The homeowner, typically, goes back to the builder, and then the builder turns it over to the insurance carrier.  That has been our experience in about 99 percent of the cases.

 

Senator Townsend:

So, it is his general liability insurance carrier?

 

Mr. Canepa:

Right, and regrettably there, we have even seen situations, and in my past when I have represented contractors, and soils contractors, where their policies even have soils exclusions in them.  So, you end up with a subcontractor doing grading work that has a soil’s exclusion in it.  You could not describe a more illusory policy.  Theoretically, there is no way you could provide coverage to third parties.  Really, the only way you could is if the guy accidentally drove over somebody’s foot, or hurt, or killed somebody on the job site.  But, in terms of damage to a structure resulting from mistakes that are made, you know, and nobody is perfect in the world, sometimes there is no coverage even there.

 

Felix M. Martin, Structural Engineer, Marcon Forensics:

I am licensed in Nevada, Arizona, California, and Washington states.  I am the owner of Marcon Forensics, a structural forensics firm specializing in forensic studies of buildings.  Basically, we try to go in and find out what, if anything, is structurally a problem with the building, and how to repair it.  In our capacity as structural forensic engineers, we do a lot of work for construction litigation, in support of construction litigation, both on the defense side and the plaintiff side.  Our work is, typically, about 50/50.  We represent developers, general contractors, subcontractors, design professionals, soils engineers, and homeowners’ associations.

 

Part of what I have heard here, today, particularly in the first part of the session had to do with adding new conditions to the code and providing a checks and balances system, which I think is always a good idea.  But, part of the problem we see, particularly here in southern Nevada is that those checks and balances are not necessarily working.  Typically, in the litigation that we see here, what we are looking at is just a general noncompliance with code requirements.  I am talking, specifically, about structural issues.  We see noncompliance along two faces.  We typically see noncompliance in the design portion where the design professional claims to be complying with the general requirements of the code, but, in fact, he is not.  The second portion is the builder is stating that he is complying with the requirements of the code and of the drawings when, in fact, he is not.

 

So, what we have is a passing of the buck, as it were, where your checks and balances system, essentially, requires the design professional and the construction people to come in and state, “Yes, we have complied with all the rules and regulations.”  And the building department, in effect, signs off on that.  The fact is they are not complying.  Some of the issues that come before them are sophisticated enough that it makes it difficult for the building department to understand exactly what it is that they are in compliance with, or not in compliance with.

 

Senator Townsend:

Do you have a copy of the geotechnical considerations (Exhibit C)?

Mr. Martin:

Yes, I do.  I am looking, specifically, at item number 6 (Exhibit C).  Senator, I have seen this statement on the drawings.  In my opinion, most of the time, the designs actually have some sort of statement that says they are in general compliance.  The problem is, like I said, when you actually review the design, you find out they are not in compliance with either the soils report or minimum code requirements.

 

Senator Townsend:

When did you purchase your home, Ms. Nelson?

 

Ms. Nelson:

In 1993.

 

Senator Townsend:

We just went back through NRS and refreshed our memory, and this committee did pass and it was signed into law, the requirement to give the first homeowner a soils report.  And, although, that does not help you, I want you to know your testimony is further proof that the initial soils issues are absolutely threshold to helping people like you in the future.  Hopefully, you can get yours resolved.

 

The testimony you have heard so far, Mr. Hillerby and Ms. Grein, goes back to, and let us use the bottom of this sheet, because it is so crucial (Senator Townsend reading from Exhibit C).  It is testified that is being done, and then they go back and, actually, check it.  And, it does not do what they signed off that it does.  Let us, for the sake of this discussion, say that happens.  Is that something that can be brought to your boards for disciplinary action, and what is the action, if you do have that information in your regulations?

 

Fred L. Hillerby, Lobbyist, American Institute of Architects:

I represent the American Institute of Architects, which is a professional association.  I do not represent the board of architecture.  So, I am not clear on that, but I can certainly see if we can get you an answer.  One thing I would point out, of course, this is a proposed change, as I understand it requiring the cities or counties to develop these geotechnical reports then have to be complied with by everyone.  As I understand, generally, when an architect is involved, and it is normally in a custom home, it is not normally in the tract housing.  As part of their process, they hire the kinds of engineers, et cetera, to
get the soil tested, and all of that, and, when they sign off, they have done it on the basis of those studies.

 

This would be something new.  And, by the way, which I think is a good idea.  I like the recommendations Mr. Lynn and his group came up with.  Generally, it makes a lot of sense.  In terms of what kind of disciplinary action could be taken if an architect signed that he had complied with such a report and then was found not to, I am assuming there is one, but I will have to talk to representatives of the board to be able to get you that kind of answer.

 

James L. Wadhams, Lobbyist, Nevada State Board of Architecture, Interior Design and Architectural Design:

There are fining and revocation provisions in that statue, which is in the jurisdiction of this committee.  And, should a standard such as you are contemplating be adopted, that would be an obligation of law that the board would be able to impose sanctions or discipline or revocation, as the case may be appropriate.

 

Senator Townsend:

Is that your understanding, Ms. Grein, that if one of your licensees signs off saying they did something and they did not do it, what is the standard by which the contractor’s board judges them?

 

Margi A. Grein, Lobbyist, Nevada State Contractors’ Board:

Under NRS 624.3011, subsection 1, paragraph (b), there is cause for disciplinary action if there is willful or deliberate disregard of the building laws of this state or of any political subdivision.  So, any violation of something that is written by code, it would be grounds for disciplinary action.

 

Senator Townsend:

What would be the disciplinary action you would look to correct one of your licensees?  In other words, you see where I am going with these three groups.  Somebody signs off and says, “Yes, this meets everything, and I have checked and double checked it.”  And, then there is a problem and they found out it did not meet whatever standards.

 

Ms. Grein:

The board could take action ranging anywhere from ordering corrective action to revocation of the license.

Senator Townsend:

So it is pretty broad authority.

 

Ms. Grein:

Yes.

 

Senator Townsend:

The problem with this level of corrective action when you have a house plunked on a bunch of dirt is not easy.  Ask the shareholders of Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, I am sure that did not come free.  It is a little after the fact.  We are trying to make sure the disciplinary action is severe enough where it is likely to guide people to better behavior.  I am not saying for your guys; I am talking about the architects, and civil or structural engineers.

 

We have a responsibility to the citizens to do everything we can to give confidence to a home buyer that everything has been done to the best of their ability without taking a $150,000 home and making it a $400,000 home.  And, that requires all these little pieces.  This is not easy.  We have to make sure we do not leave one thing out.  We are not even at the litigation part.  We have to make sure, as we go through these steps, that we find everything.  So, we are missing the professional engineers.  We, fortunately, have the architects here.  You understand the goal, Mr. Hillerby and Mr. Wadhams, with regard to the proposal here.

 

The board level, I will go back to you, Mr. Wadhams.  Do you have the same kind of board flexibility that Ms. Grein has, in case there is a problem?

 

Mr. Wadhams:

I do not have our statutes in front of us, but the language is comparable and these boards are responsible for life safety, if this clearly falls into that category.  I would think that all three of these boards would take such violation very seriously.  The right to revoke your right to do business is extremely punitive, and should, certainly, get somebody’s attention.  The power would be comparable for all three boards.

 

Senator Townsend:

But, the perception of the licensees has to be that a board is willing to pull the trigger if there is a problem that was created, otherwise, it is no threat.

 

Mr. Wadhams:

I think your committee is capable of indicating legislative intent, and emphasizing it, if necessary, but that certainly is clear from the discussions today, should legislation emanate from this committee, it has that intent.  If you can make it more specific that would give direction to the boards in that regard.

 

Senator Townsend:

I think those front-loading issues and the disciplinary actions by those licensees who are part of the front issue are absolutely crucial.  I think Ms. Grein’s reputation is starting to, not only be well respected, but be passed throughout the industry that she and her board are taking absolutely no prisoners when it comes to inappropriate contracting.  That is the kind of thing you want to have perception on.

 

Mr. Canepa:

This is a good point to raise this issue, and I think Ms. Grein can make the point better than I, A.B. 366, which has not, yet, made it into the comparison, but one of the features of that legislation, which I think deserves some consideration here is that the state contractors’ board, or any other disciplinary authority, should not be foreclosed from initiating disciplinary proceedings against a licensee, simply because a homeowner has brought a claim against that licensee under chapter 40 of NRS, or a lawsuit or whatever vehicle they have available to them.  I think Ms. Grein can tell you there has been trouble in the past where, you know, lawsuits take 3, 4 years to run their course and if Ms. Nelson, for example, complains to the state contractors’ board about the builder, and then the builder says, “Well, you cannot do anything to me until the lawsuit is over,” that defeats the purpose of the disciplinary rules.

 

ASSEMBLY BILL 366:  Revises various provisions governing claims and             transactions relating to real property.  (BDR 10-911)

 

Senator Townsend:

Is that everyone’s understanding of what goes on?  That you cannot act on this?

 

Ms. Grein:

During the 1999 session, you repealed that portion under NRS 64.300, which prohibited us from taking action if it was in chapter 40 of NRS.  It did cause concerns, and we had a couple of cases where we were actually put to the test.  But, it has been resolved to the best of my knowledge through what we did in 1999.  I have not looked closely at A.B. 366.

 

Senator Townsend:

OK.  Now, I am confused.  I thought you said we repealed the portion that you can take action during a suit.

 

Ms. Grein:

That is correct.  We were prohibited before.

 

Senator Townsend:

So, now you can?

 

Ms. Grein:

Correct.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Canepa, your concern is that we would go back on that, right?

 

Mr. Canepa:

No.  I guess I have a difference of opinion with Ms. Grein.  I think there is no express statement in the legislation anywhere, presently, the state contractors’ board, or any other disciplinary authority may proceed with disciplinary proceedings when the builder is also the subject of a chapter 40 NRS claim, or a lawsuit.  It is my understanding that some builders have taken the position, if they are the subject of a lawsuit of a chapter 40 of NRS claim, that they cannot have disciplinary proceedings taken against them.

 

Senator Townsend:

Why would those two be tied?  Are there public policy reasons to tie the two together?

 

Mr. Canepa:

Not from the Nevada Trials Association standpoint, but Mr. Wadhams may want to speak to that.

 

Senator Townsend:

I would not think there is any reason to tie the two together.

 

Mr. Wadhams:

On behalf of the state board of architecture, there is no pre-emption of their ability to sanction registrants under that chapter in any way, shape, or form, and civil litigation would have no bearing on the board’s willingness or power to conduct such proceedings.

 

LEONARD v. Nevin, Lobbyist, Interstate Plumbing and Air Conditioning, and Nevada Subcontractors Association:

I will check, and double check for you, but it is my understanding on this soils list that we have, in Washoe County they have to have a soils engineer on premise from the time that blade hits the ground and be on premise the whole time until all the soil is prepared, and check it everyday before it is written off.  I think this is something we should also look at.

 

Senator Townsend:

We are going to the inspection issues next, so your point is well taken.

 

John Wilson, Consultant, PP Industries:

For 18 years I was a nonunion contractor and faced this problem, continuously, with litigation and corrective measures.  I think you have the crux of the problem when you speak about accountability.  The accountability we are talking about takes place 3 to 5 years after the action during court cases, and then the poor work becomes notified.  Twenty years ago when I was in the business and doing work for the major developers, if you had your home stopped by an inspector because of poor-quality work, you were not going to get another contract.  Today, that is not the case.

 

I will give you some figures just in Henderson, Nevada, alone.  They have 40 to 45 inspectors, inspecting work there, daily, anywhere from 50 to 60 inspections.  From their own admissions, 15 percent of those inspections fail.  That means 60,000 permits fail each year because of poor-quality work.  And those contractors are not held accountable, trade contractors and builders alike.  This is a problem.

 

Senator Townsend:

Slow down just a little bit, because what you are saying is monumentally important.  So, I was hoping Mr. Barengo (Robert Barengo) and Ms. Grein could respond, so if you can go back through those statistics in Henderson, I think that is important.

Mr. Wilson:

In Henderson, alone, they have between 40 and 45 inspectors doing residential inspections.  Each inspector does approximately 50 to 60 inspections a day.  What that means is they spend approximately 2 minutes per inspection in trying to catch the problem, but their division head says 15 percent of all their inspections are turned down because they have to go back for a reinspection because the quality of the work done.

 

Senator Townsend:

That is 15 percent of the total.

 

Mr. Wilson:

When you add that total together, at 15 percent you do not think that is a big number, but you start to add it up and that is 60,000 inspections per year turned down because of poor quality work.  There is no accountability to that contract or the builder that is allowing this to happen.  And, their problem is trying to catch it.  This is like trying to stop the drugs coming in from California.  We catch more and more drugs, but more and more are getting through.  It is the same with these inspections.  The accountabilities have to be with the contractor today.  And that is not by the contractors’ state licensing board that does not get the information until 3 to 5 years in a lawsuit.  That is by the city inspectors being able to stop a job and saying, “You are not going to go forward.”

 

If a contractor has more than four or five of these violations out, he should have his license revoked for 30 days, until he learns either of two things and is going to do something about it.  The only reason this happens is either omission or commission.  The contractor should go out and education himself as to what he is doing wrong if it is omission.  If it is commission, he should be thrown out of the business.  He is defrauding the public.  He is defrauding the builder.  He is defrauding the consumer.  But it does not happen, and I think that is where you have to put your emphasis.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Lynn, the issue that was brought up by Mr. Wilson begs one question.  You heard his testimony regarding the number of inspections per inspector, per day in Henderson.  How many are you doing, Mr. Lynn, in Clark County?

 

Mr. Lynn:

We are doing 29.3 inspections per day in Clark County.  We keep accurate records.

 

Senator Townsend:

Well, it begs the question, if Henderson is attempting to do almost twice as many inspections, and Henderson is turning down 15 percent of those inspections, do you have a statistic on how many you are turning down, Mr. Lynn?

 

Mr. Lynn:

Yes, I do.  We have about 22 percent turndowns.

 

Senator Townsend:

OK.  Obviously, I think, the point Mr. Wilson is making is that at the level of 2 minutes per inspection, they are catching 15 percent.  What would happen in the city of Henderson if they went to, let us use yours, 30 inspections a day?  They might get to 22 percent turndowns very quickly.  Then it now begs the question back to the board, what happens when those are turned down.

 

Ms. Grein:

First, we have to be notified.  And, I believe, we had a provision in S.B. 423 of the Seventieth Session that did not make it through.  We may want to visit that bill again, and put that back in.  We get involved after a complaint is filed with us, long after the inspection has happened, for the most part.  If we are informed of it, we will proceed with discipline.  However, if we are not, and some of the things Mr. Lynn is talking about, we have no way of knowing.

 

SENATE BILL 423 OF THE SEVENTIETH SESSION:  Makes various changes to             provisions concerning contractors. (BDR 54-1479)

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Lynn, I am going to ask you and Mr. Wilson, as well as the contractors’ board, how hard would it be to keep the statistics of one of those turndowns placed in the file?

 

Mr. Lynn:

The turndowns are already placed in a permanent record for Clark County.  They are put on optical disk.  The inspection history is recorded.  From a statistical basis, building may be 18 percent while electrical may be 26 percent and that is what skews the different numbers, the style of inspection.  I, also, in defense of any incorporated city, counties, typically, have to take, less so Clark County, but typical counties have to travel quite a bit to do their inspections and, therefore, their workloads, typically, the number of inspections are going to be lower.

 

Mr. Martin:

You are focusing on the issue of the turndowns, but I just want to remind you that a lot of the investigative effort we have done following construction and after problems arise, are with projects that have been inspected and approved.  I am not trying to say the building department is not, exactly, doing their job, but there are a lot of issues that get through even on the projects that are approved, that are not turned down.

 

Senator Townsend:

OK.  We have not gotten to that part, yet.  We are only talking about the turndown ones.  If they are on optical disk, is it conceivable that a very skilled computer person for the contractors’ board when a license is to be renewed could pull up those turndowns from the various jurisdictions?

 

Mr. Lynn:

It would probably be very time-intensive, but yes, because the turndowns themselves are not a field.  They are part of the general record for inspections.  They would have to pull up each of the inspection histories for that particular contractor and overlay it, and then they could determine the number of turndowns.

 

Senator Townsend:

You have 10,000 students at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), you would think one of them would be looking for work enough to create a field to do that.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Mr. Lynn, do you have a way of separating the serious, and perhaps this is not the right language, turndowns as opposed to the turndowns that are going to be quickly fixed?

 

Mr. Lynn:

No, not at this time, because even if it is serious, and I guess, like critical life-safety issues, if it is fixed, it is okay with us.  Sometimes turndowns are for pretty small reasons; it is true.  Sometimes the work is not complete.  One of the tremendous impacts on our workload, in some of the medium-size and larger projects, is a general calling for inspections and the subcontractor is not ready.  Well, we turn it down because it is not ready, and the subcontractor is upset because he was not ready.  So, we do not want to get in the middle of that.  But, a number of turndowns are simply less quality of work, they are not in a position to do the inspections, or perhaps not complete.  But, no, specifically, we do not have a way of differentiating.

 

Senator O'Connell:

I was just wondering if we are going to, specifically, look at this area that has to be something we would be able to separate, because it would not make any sense to have the contractors’ board involved with something that had not been done, yet.

 

Mr. Lynn:

Although rare, building departments do refer contractors to the state contractors’ board.  It is not often, but, for example, working over a stop-work order will automatically get a referral to the state contractors’ board.  That type of failure to comply with the administrative provisions of the code for any entity will trigger that kind of an action, rather than the technical or competence issues, because we deal with them on a case-by-case, person-by-person basis.  In fact, in conjunction with the Southern Nevada Home Builders and the Southern Nevada association of general contractors, we put on training courses as long as 20 to 30 hours over a period of 10 weeks, or more.  They were well received.  We are even talking with the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association to do their master builders’ type of training.

 

Mr. Wilson:

What you are trying to look for is a way to monitor who is the problem and who is not the problem.  I think in most counties and cities when you call for an inspection, and they brought it up, maybe a builder will call for an inspection when he knows he is not ready in hopes to keep up a production schedule.  If you were to enact a law where, if they called for an inspection, whether it is because they were not ready and wasted the city’s time, or because they did not have it done right, if you put in a 7-day delay, you would clean up a lot of the crap out there that has poor-quality work.  They would not try to get away with this because there is a financial liability, today.  In fact, most inspections, if they do not pass today, they will come back tomorrow to do the inspections.  There is just no penalty for having abused the system.

 

City inspectors cannot continually go out and do inspections when they are not ready.  It wastes their time.  So, put a 7-day delay on it, and you will see a lot of this stuff cleaned up.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Lynn, is there no penalty for calling someone to a job for an inspection when it is not ready?

 

Mr. Lynn:

No, in effect, there is not.  What can occur, if it is repeated in Clark County, and understand I am not speaking for other jurisdictions, if it is on the third time, we assign a reinspection fee, which requires them to come down and pay it.  Perhaps the inconvenience is much more than the money.  The reinspection fee is, I think, $55 at this time, and that is to help offset any generation of overtime from the reinspection.  Essentially, I think, what was brought up was the education of people.  We are working with contractors in educating them, because what we need is a complete team out there.  We need the cooperation, not the fear of the contractor.  We need them helping us to build this structure, and we help them, and the design professionals.

 

There was some earlier testimony about some of the correctness of designs.  Understand, in most jurisdictions, overwhelmingly, you do not have engineers, necessarily, reviewing all those plans.  They are looking to make sure there is the engineer stamp and seal on them.  They are making sure, as in this proposal, there is a geotech involved and that all the different professionals are reviewing the plans.  They are making sure, when they can, to check the calculations and that the general assumptions are correct.  But, they are not in the business, typically, of second-guessing the engineering.  Nonetheless, I can say there are significant, and I am unaware of any major project, which we have not had turndowns in engineering with our own staff reviewing those calculations, reviewing those hypotheses, and not sending it back to the engineer for corrections.

 

While there may be some state of the art in the industry in slab-on-grade construction, I think fingers can be pointed in a lot of places, including, inherently, the research that went about in designing the concept of post-tension slab-on-grade construction.

 

Dick Peck, Lobbyist, Secretary, Nevada Subcontractors’ Association:

I know, for a fact, Mr. Wilson represents a group called Horse or Cart.  It is a union-based group.  He has never contracted, to my knowledge, in the state of Nevada.  He is a contractor out of Southern California, and he is testifying for this group, I feel, with false colors because he has not identified himself with the group Horse or Cart, whichever one they call themselves, and they are strictly affiliated with the union.  So, these are the numbers he is telling you.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Lynn, in your experience, what is a legitimate time for an inspector to be on a job?  I know this fluctuates depending on what inspection they are doing, but are you comfortable that your inspectors are given enough time to do an adequate job for the public they are trying to serve, or is it a financial constraint, do you need our help, should it be 24, can you give us some guidelines that could be helpful?  Basically, we are talking about complex cases where you have multiple units.

 

Mr. Lynn:

Like housing tracks, or apartment buildings?

 

Senator Townsend:

Exactly.

 

Mr. Lynn:

You can do a lot of tracts, if you are doing solely tract construction, in a short period of time.  A 2000-square-foot home, say, with a garage and a foundation, if you have already looked at the plans, been out there a couple times, in 10 minutes you can do that inspection.  On the other hand, the framing is going to take much more time.  Would I like more time?  Yes, I would.  I would like to bring that number down.  In commercial inspections, I would like to bring that number to 16/18 inspections per day, which do take more time.  I would like to have the residential up to around 22/24, as an ideal number.  Again, with due consideration that we cover a broader area and there is some travel elements in there, that is why we are broken up geographically.

There is a building code effectiveness grading system.  They would like to see an ideal of 12 inspections per inspector per day.  I am not positive that is realistic.  I am unaware of any jurisdiction in the United States, other than very small ones, or that are undergoing severe recessions, having that low of number.  I think mine of 16 to 18 for commercial and 22 to 24 for residential would be, I believe, ideal.

 

Senator Townsend:

Former Senator Nevin, as stated that in Washoe County, when they go to grade, there is someone on the project until that grading is done.  Obviously, he is going to check that out.  How important is the grade inspection versus other inspections?

 

Mr. Lynn:

I think grading is very important.  I do not believe that Senator Nevin was referring to the entity inspector.  He is not out there that entire time.

 

Senator Townsend:

Was he referring to the geotech, or some engineer?

 

Mr. Lynn:

Yes, he said the geotechnical engineer, the soils engineer, as a representative of the firm, rather than the actual engineer.  But, it is essential, it is a critical element to have adequate inspection during that grading, because as we said, the investigative report takes just that small little boring over a series of acres.  By having someone there through the grading operation, you will know more accurately what is exposed, what is under there, and what is actually going to be placed there in its condition and see if it meets its intended use.

 

I am probably going to be stepping outside my bounds, but I can offer, though, not in a short period of time, perhaps it would take at least 90 days, to put together a residential guideline that is generic in nature describing what, generally, should and should not be done for homeowners, in layman’s terms.  And, I could provide it to ACEC for their more in-depth technical review.  Because, what I believe what Ms. Nelson commented on is very true.  There are people in existing homes that, even if we put something as a condition of new sale or resale, it is not going to reach them.

 

Senator Shaffer:

Mr. Lynn, we have been talking about the soils problems, but when you get into framing the structure we know many times the truss design, for an example, is bearing on outside walls and the interior partitions, the spacing between the bottom of the truss and the interior partitions prior to loading the roof with tiles, things of that nature, is sometimes overlooked by the field inspector.  The compaction is another big issue when you are looking at on-site problems.  If compaction is not adequate, it is just as bad as having expansive soil.  Tell the committee how do these inspectors look at the actual framing?  How about the grading of the lumber?  I have seen loads of lumber come in that you could ring the water out of 2x4s, they were that fresh out of the forest.  So, there are all kinds of problems other than just the soils.  Maybe you could amplify on that.

 

Mr. Lynn:

That is 100 percent true.  We are focusing on soils because they tend to be regional in nature, but there are many other elements in construction that impact the final serviceability of that building.  Going into the compaction issue, the proposal addresses that because compaction is part of the geotechnical report.  Again, that is not something an entity inspector, typically, can look at.  He does not have the testing equipment.  But, progressing beyond that, yes, that is a critical element in the framing.  You cannot have the trusses if they are designed to be free-floating over the interior walls.  If they are on those interior walls, any type of movement will cause stress cracking within those walls.  They could, if they were attached to it, restrain the trusses so they do not function correctly.  That is a point of inspection.

 

Obviously, it the contractor’s responsibility to do it, but, in fact, our inspectors should be catching that.  As far as the moisture content of the wood, there are code provisions for the moisture content of the wood.  And, that is exceeded; I will not deny there is green wood that sometimes comes in and is used, or is allowed to be exposed.  However, the inspectors do not, typically, have those measuring devices.  They do have within their powers, since it is code requirement, if they feel it is excessive, to call attention to it, but they do not have those measuring devices.  Again, the contractor who is purchasing it should be assuring that he is getting the proper building materials.  Whether they are wood, concrete, or steel.

 

Jess S. Traver, P.E., Director, Department of Building and Safety, Washoe County:

I would like to speak on the soils issue, because in Washoe County we do have an ordinance that does require certification of soils, setbacks, and drainage at the certificate-of-occupancy phase.  The reason that was put in, actually it was done in the city of Sparks when I was the building official there in 1989, was because we did encounter a lot of expansive clays as we were moving farther up into the mountains.  We get into the altered andesite-type rock and some clays that were highly expansive, 10 times their volume if you put a little bit of water to them.  So, we did want a very good soils analysis on those homes and adopted the idea into law.  When I came to Washoe County, we also made the law effective.  It has helped us, drastically, on reducing the number of expansive clay problems that we have.

 

As Mr. Lynn was pointing out, we have liquefaction problems in certain areas.  We have different types of soil problems.  A lot of that is already identified by university seismic maps.  It is actually the amount of testing we require that is left up to the engineer’s judgment to determine how the characteristics are resolved and how we build on them.  I also agree with your proposed legislation to tie the soil’s engineer in at the beginning of the job, tie him to the structural engineer, and tie him to the end of the project, too.  You complete the information loop between that team of builders and the architects and contractors, and you will reduce a lot of the miscommunication and a lot of the poor design that does happen.  Yes, we do require it in Washoe County.  It has been in effect for about 5 years in Washoe County, and it has reduced our soil problems.

 

One more issue, as a registered engineer for 27 years, I have been involved in designs.  I have also taken seven engineers to the board as a Washoe County building official.  And, the board of engineering has been very supportive of me.  Of those, two licenses were lost.  It does send a message to the community that we are serious about having it done right, and we do not want to cut corners.  I have taken one architect to the board, and was successful on the removal of his license.  But, it takes a lot to get there.  I think, one of the problems that the building officials face, is we become fairly criticized by the industry, sometimes, for being a little rough, or being a little hard, or trying to influence this, getting too involved into designs.  That is unfortunate, but that is our job.  I think the building officials in the state of Nevada, Ron Lynn and Bob
Webber, and the people that I have been associated with for a lot of years, do stand very seriously on what we do.

 

Senator Townsend:

What are Washoe County’s responsibilities?  When you get up in the morning and you start to do your job, what do you think your responsibilities are, and what is your goal?

 

Mr. Traver:

Our responsibilities are two-fold.  We have a code to enforce.  We are supposed to look at plans and ensure those plans are correct and to make sure the building structure that is preformed out there meets code.  The other duty is of public service:  trying to educate, trying to develop codes, trying to put together a partnership with the community so that it functions as a whole.  The enforcement part, clearly, is a priority with our building department.

 

Senator Townsend:

We have given authority as a committee and as a state to every licensing board to set criteria by which people will be judged in order to get a license.  For 20 years, the mantra of this committee has been that the role of the board is to protect the public interest first, the licensees second.  Now, based on that, when you get up in the morning, what do you think your role is?

 

Mr. Traver:

I think that is very clear what our role is, an enforcement of the codes.  That is why we developed those codes.  But, in reality, there is a certain amount of time and a certain amount of training and expertise that you can send around on getting that product done.  I think Washoe County does a very good job of that; our staff is very well trained and certified.  Our inspectors are given 15 inspections a day to do, and we concentrate on that.  We do have some area, like Mr. Lynn is saying, a travel distance can control a lot of that.  And, the complications of the homes nowadays are just not the little ranch style, 2000-square-foot homes.  Washoe County is building 17,000-, 50,000-square-foot custom Montreux-type [Montreux Golf Club, Reno, Nevada] of homes that are very complex.  The way we handle some of that is we will require the engineer, there will be a civil engineer, normally, sometimes a structural engineer, but we will require them to do the structural observation on the complex projects.  That is how we handle that commitment to the community.

 

Senator Townsend:

Does each one of your inspectors have the same qualifications relative to their knowledge of soil issues?

 

Mr. Traver:

We do not make the soils call.  We require the certification and the engineers to be responsible for determining what that soil is.  But, to kind of answer your question, yes.  A lot of my inspectors have been in the area and have been on the job, maybe, for 10 years.  They know what a clay soil kind of looks like.  They know when they are getting into an alluvial type of soil that may have some voids in it.  They do know some basic things, alarms, that will set them off, and they will follow up on them.

 

Senator Townsend:

You are saying your inspectors do not inspect soils?

 

Mr. Traver:

My inspectors do not have the expertise as a soil engineer to make that determination.  It could be a wrong determination.  All jobs in Washoe County are certified for soils.

 

Senator Townsend:

You are leading us to believe and, I guess, Mr. Lynn, you can answer this, too.  Inspectors do not inspect soils after the site has been graded?  We now just take the plans that have been certified by the architect or engineer and we say, “OK, go?”  Or, did I misunderstand how this works.

 

Mr. Lynn:

Mr. Traver is very knowledgeable for what is occurring and the standard of practice in northern Nevada, as far as I am aware, however, there are more no‑jurisdiction inspectors who go out there and judge the quality of the soils or the implementation of the geotechnical recommendations.  There are some noticeable exceptions if the recommendation requires Visqueen (plastic sheeting), or something noticeable that they can see, and then they will respond to it.  However, we are dependent, as building departments, upon a report, and to some degree, it is alluded to in that submittal with enhancements, but a report from whomever is retained as the geotechnical engineer to have properly inspected it and to certify that pad is in compliance with the report.

 

On the submittal that I gave you (Exhibit C), that one is the pad certification, if you will, and is described.  So, we need that certification.  All building departments do.  We do not either have the staff or retain that level of expertise.

 

Senator Townsend:

Well, you just sent us in a whole new direction, and we appreciate both of you doing that.  So, what you are saying is this committee has sat here for 6 years, we have 13 bills this session, mostly on litigation and defect issues, and we have now narrowed it down that soils are the majority of the problems and, yet, we do not inspect soils before the project starts to be built.  Is that what I am hearing?

 

Mr. Lynn:

If you are referring to any governmental entity, no.  We are depending upon, what is also proposed as far as a state issue, having a professional skilled in that area to do that inspection and tell us, give us, a certification that says the subgrade is A-OK for building.

 

Senator Townsend:

So, we are dependent on the project, itself, to give us appropriate information to say it can be built on those soils and engineered subsurface, that it will be successful.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Mr. Lynn, on the items you sent to us (Exhibit C), even though your department does not inspect them, you depend upon the stamp of the engineer, your department has the right to waive the requirements?

 

Mr. Lynn:

That is correct.  A tentative provision, of course, is to allow the building official the discretionary ability to waive certain provisions if in his professional opinion they are not applicable.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Everything about that deals with the soil, and I am a little perplexed as to why the building officials should have the ability to waive those requirements since you do not inspect them.  Am I missing something here?

 

Mr. Lynn:

No, actually, not, and I respect that position, to be frank with you.  And, I am only going from a historical point of view that there have been times when some of the elements are simply not required.  As an example, if you were sitting on top of a mountain or some level bedrock, no use to be drilling through it, it would just be compromising.  You are in the middle of a rural area, in an agricultural area, where traditionally the urban rules have not been used, they are putting up a barn, they are putting up some other kind of facility of that nature that allow us that latitude.

 

I understand the low comfort.  What is possible, and I have conversed with Mr. Bouse (Michael Bouse), a building official of the City of Henderson who is also in attendance, and we talked about changing the comfort level, raise it a bit, that we need to itemize, specifically, the conditions under which that waiver can take place.

 

Senator O'Connell:

I would certainly appreciate that instead of the broad statement we have here.

 

Mr. Lynn:

Certainly.

 

Senator O'Connell:

I think that would be helpful to us, Mr. Lynn.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Lynn and Ms. Grein, is it accurate to state an inspector goes out when the structure is being framed?  Tell me when they go.  What is the first inspection?

 

Mr. Lynn:

They will go out on a foundation inspection prior to the pouring of any concrete to determine if all the underground utilities have been placed correctly, if the siting of the building, in other words the setbacks, is properly done, and to check the steel and the foundation, et cetera.  That is from a general point of view.  They will not see the concrete being poured.  They are not there for the grading.  They come for the next step when the foundation system has been excavated.  After the concrete has been poured and there is the framing and roof sheeting, there will be another call for inspection.  Inspectors are called for
on specific, prescribed times during the construction process as outlined in the code.

 

Norm Denny, Building Official, Douglas County Community Development, Douglas County:

I thought I might offer some clarity on the issue of the inspections.  A lot of your jurisdictions count inspections as, for instance, when you go out to a frame inspection you are looking at their framing, the shear wall, the electrical, the plumbing and mechanical areas.  So, that is five inspections.  A jurisdiction like ours, we base everything on stops.  For instance, if you were called out to do a gas pressure test inspection, that inspection takes a minimum of about 15 minutes.  If you were to go out and do a framing inspection, where you are looking at all of the disciplines, that inspection would take you 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending upon the size of the house.

 

In Douglas County, we keep our stops to our inspectors down to 12 to 15 stops per day, which is adequate time to perform the inspections and do a good, thorough job.  On the soil-related issue, in Douglas County, we also have alluvial soils.  We have bedrock up in Lake Tahoe with boulders the size of this room.  We deal in clay material.  All of our subdivisions that are approved do have geotechnical reports pertinent to the overall subdivision.  In those reports they recommend for the clay material for each building pad, to come back in with gravel or decomposed granite, recompact it to 95 percent, and then the contractor goes in and puts the foundation on the fill.

 

Say you were on a 20-acre parcel at the base of the mountains, and you brought in a house that you designed yourself, which is permitted by state law, and our minimum frost depth is 18 inches in the valley and 24 inches at the Lake Tahoe.  The building code requires that you brush the lot off 12 inches to undisturbed soil prior to your foundation system.  So, one of the inspectors would go out at the foundation inspection, he would see the lot has been brushed off, the footings are dug down the 18 inches, and if they met all of the structural requirements for the rebar and the hold-downs for the structural frame, he would sign off the project.  If the inspector was out there and he looked down into the footings and he saw a line of grass or he saw some trees or debris, he would notify the contractor that he feels there is a problem.  He would write a correction notice.  I believe, earlier, they were calling it turndowns.  We call it a correction notice.

 

Mr. Denny:

The gentleman who was sitting to my right earlier, he made the remark of the contractors getting turndowns and should be turned into the contractors’ board.  It is not uncommon almost on every project you will write a correction notice, whether it is for a piece of plumbing that may need to be strapped at 4 foot on center, or a shear wall that may need a little extra nailing.  It is not necessarily something that is malicious intent upon the contractor during the course of construction.

 

Senator Townsend:

You are stating that you go out there for some kind of foundational inspection, you are talking about footings, et cetera?

 

Mr. Denny:

Correct.

 

Senator Townsend:

Your inspector does not have any responsibility relative to the soils and how they were handled?  You are just looking at whether they poured the foundation correctly?

 

Mr. Denny:

We inspect it prior to the pouring of any concrete.  The uniform building code has soils classification tables.  Each type of soil has varying load capacities, whether it is for vertical load or lateral load.  The minimum being a sandy loam, I believe the soil bearing capacity is 1000 pounds.  The soil capacities go up from there.  If an engineer comes into our department and submits a set of structural calculations for our area and he is using the minimum soil-bearing requirements for a single-family dwelling, we would not ask for a soils report because as the building official, I know the minimum in our valley is 1000 pounds for sandy loam.  If he specifies 2500 pounds of soil-bearing pressure, then I would say, “We need a geotechnical report to substantiate your design.”

 

Now, every commercial project that comes in, we require a geotechnical report.  Once the project is submitted, we take the geotechnical report and we compare it to the foundation design.  Somebody, earlier, did state that it is on the cover sheets of the plans that the engineer of record is to review the geotechnical report.  We also require that.

 

Senator Townsend:

It leaps off the page that we have approximately 13 construction-defect bills, half on the Assembly and half on the Senate.  Almost every bill has an identical bill, which leadership needs to look at since it costs a lot of money to do this and a lot of time.  But, there is only one bill actually dealing with the design professional, and that is S.B. 218.  Now, whether you agree with S.B. 218 or not, is not relevant.  It is the fact that out of 13 bills, only one deals with what everyone has concluded to be the base problem.

 

SENATE BILL 218:  Makes changes concerning certain professions. (BDR 54-76)

 

Since it has been a little while since I have read the bill, it really is important that we focus on it.  And, whether this is the vehicle, because it has been introduced by one of the committee members or not, we literally have to get to the bottom of this.  And, we have to trust professionals like you and Mr. Lynn and all his staff.  We are fortunate because Senator Shaffer has building, not only experience, but also building inspector experience.  The hardest thing for me to understand is that we trust a report, which is the literal basis on which we build this entire issue.  I do not know whether that is correct or not, because not everything has a problem.  But, I think, that is the crux of the matter.  Mr. Lynn, so you have your own geotech person physically go out to the site and see if they can perform certain tests that say, “Yes, this is exactly what it is purported to be on the reports.”

 

Mr. Lynn:

We rarely go quite that far.  We do have geotechs on staff that will review the content of the report.  If it is a critical area, for example if it is in a sloped area or we have known problems, we do have geotechs who will go out there and do some physical site reviews.  But, we are someone gifted in that.  In addition, if there turns out to be a problem, it certainly helps to have the people of that competence level and that expertise to deal with the professionals.

 

We also have a couple other elements.  Part of our quality assurance program is that we go out there while they are doing grading and make sure that, one, the inspector who is supposed to be out there is out there.  Two, our monitors, and these are not inspectors, they are monitors, and I know the semantics can be confusing, but, if you can bear with me, the inspector is employed through the quality assurance agency, or the geotechnical engineering firm.  We review to make sure they are out there.  We will go out and we will observe them conducting tests, and our people are versed in the tests and make sure they are doing it right.  We have the ability to give correction notices to the actual inspector on the site to remove him or to sanction or discipline the agency.  That is independent of any state board; we have that in our local ordinance.  We also have the staff to be able to go do that.  We have 14 people involved in that area, alone, augmented by a field engineering staff.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Lynn, or anyone else who might possess the information that we need, is there any jurisdiction in this country that inspects soils even though they may get a soils report by an engineer before they start construction?

 

Phil M. Herrington, Chief Building Official, Building Department, Carson City:

Several years ago, when I was with the Reno building department, the University of Nevada, Reno, offered soils seminars for building inspectors.  The City of Reno took advantage of that, Carson City took advantage of that, so a field inspector, even though we had a geotechnical report, could go out on the job when the work was being done and say that the work was being done in accordance with the geotechnical report.  A real world analogy is that the building inspectors in the City of Reno who we were under that time, we challenged the work that was being done even though we had a geotechnical report.  We said the report was not being followed.  The City of Reno even went out and hired a consulting geotechnical engineer to contest what work was being done, over and above the responsible geotechnical that had done the report.  We got compliance from that.

 

Currently, in Carson City, we do the same thing.  We have geotechnical reports on subdivisions.  We go out and make sure the geotechnical report is being followed, and you can do that in several ways.  When they do the trenching for the sewer and waterlines, you can take a look at a profile of the ground.  You can see what is happening below the pad grade, and an inspector has the authority in the state of Nevada to reject anything, and to require further certification, whether there is a geotechnical person on the job or whether you have a geotechnical report in hand.  If it does not look right, every inspector in the state of Nevada that has adopted the uniform building code has the right to reject that.

 

Senator Townsend:

Are there two issues here?  Will the actual report that is filed mitigate the soils problem?  And, did they follow the report or did they not follow the report?

 

Mr. Herrington:

They are two separate issues.

 

Senator Townsend:

Do you run into that, and if so, what is your experience given your longevity in this arena relative to which is the more troublesome?

 

Mr. Herrington:

I think the more troublesome is educating the inspectors so they can take a look at the work being done in accordance with the geotechnical report and know it is in compliance and can accept it.  Yes, you are going to have a certification, but the certification is only as good as the geotechnical engineer.  Have they been out on the job?  Yes, most public works jobs have a continuing inspector on them.

 

Senator Townsend:

Because Clark County has such a building boom and most of our problems in this arena have come from that area, mostly complex cases, is there value in having Clark County have a geotechnical person actually go and make sure that whatever has been submitted as a geotechnical report, or a soils report, is actually followed?  When we say complex cases, I believe that is more than one residence.  That does not mean Clark County will do it, because we cannot make them fund something, but we could send a nice letter encouraging them to consider hiring a geotechnical professional.

 

Mr. Herrington:

Certainly, I think there is a value in that.  I know one of the things we put in place in the City of Reno and Carson City is that when staff reviews the geotechnical report, and this goes back 15 or 20 years ago when I was with the City of Reno, we got together with all of the geotechnical engineers in the area.  We developed minimum criteria to profile the soil.  We developed minimum criteria to profile a subdivision, so that, I think Mr. Lynn was speaking to going out and doing one boring, you cannot do that in Reno and Carson City.  You have to develop enough soils analysis to prove to the building official that you have given a profile of that particular parcel of land.

And, I think, in conjunction, and everyone here has talked about the partnership, with the local geotechnical engineering firms we develop minimum criteria that they had to follow.  That was adopted by policy, both in the City of Reno and Carson City.

 

Senator Townsend:

Were you the inspector or was one of your staff the inspector on the building on which we are currently seated?

 

Mr. Herrington:

No, I think that was all under the State Public Works Board.

 

Senator Townsend:

Under public works, so you do not deal with them?

 

Mr. Maddox:

I want to bring to the committee’s attention that A.B. 498, which is not in the comparison chart, does contain provisions for third-party engineering review.

 

ASSEMBLY BILL 498:  Makes various changes to provisions governing             construction of residential dwellings and actions for constructional             deficiencies and defects.  (BDR 22-926)

 

Senator Townsend:

Could you tell us where that is in A.B. 498, Mr. Maddox?

 

Mr. Maddox:

The entire bill deals with the subject of providing third-party engineering review first for geotechnical review.  Section 3 of the bill provides for a geotechnical engineer to approve recommendations for soil preparation and foundation design.  Section 4 provides for third-party structural engineering review of the structural design.  Section 2 deals with the civil design for grading and drainage and is similar to one of the components in Mr. Lynn’s proposal.  Assembly Bill 498 and Mr. Lynn’s suggested list would be, I think, something to work together to try to come up with something that might make sense.

 

Mr. Chairman, I would also like to bring to the committee’s attention an issue more common in northern Nevada than it is in the south, but it is the problem with the type of construction in the north where the bottom of the footing has to be at least 2 feet below grade.  So, typically, then there is a supported wood floor over stem walls, and then under the floor is, in effect, a sump.  It is all below the exterior grade.  It tends to gather water, and excessive water in the crawl space then contributes to mold formation, which can be hazardous to health.  It also contributes to a directly related microbiological phenomenon, the fungal attack of the wood itself.  I tried to get an engineer to testify to this committee this morning on suggested increased standard to help protect homeowners from that condition, but because of the relatively short notice, I was not able to get anyone.  But, I have asked one of the engineers to, at least, provide some written suggestions to your committee, Mr. Chairman, to help deal with that.

 

It is my understanding, presently, where the crawl space under the house is not a basement, that there is no requirement for a drain at the footing.  There is no requirement for waterproofing of the stem wall or the cull joint between the footing and the stem wall.  It is my understanding that the only code requirement, but there are other people here who are certainly more knowledgeable than I am, is there be what is called “positive” crawl-space drainage.  In other words, you let the water in, but then you need to have a way to get it out.  And, at least in the cases that come to me, that just does not exist, and some cases cannot exist.  There really needs to be some increased standards for keeping water out of these crawl spaces under homes to protect the homeowners both from the health hazards and from ultimate structural damage that can occur because of the fungal attack to the framing members.

 

Senator Townsend:

Do you perceive that to be a code issue?

 

Mr. Maddox:

It could, and should be.  It is not now, really, other than that one element of requiring positive crawl-space drainage.

 

Senator Townsend:

Unless I did not learn anything on the testimony, the inspector simply follows the code.  If the code is wrong, there is nothing they can do about it.  So, we need to rewrite the code.  Is that the way you see it?

 

Mr. Maddox:

Well, we are talking about, I thought, the committee is here addressing some issues that would cause increased standards.

 

Senator Townsend:

Absolutely.  But, is that not a code issue?  Do we not have to rewrite the code in order to do that?

 

Mr. Maddox:

Yes, it would be a code issue, but so are many of the things that are before the committee right now.

 

Senator Townsend:

I agree.  I am just saying I want to make sure that I understand where it needs to be addressed.  It would be in the code?  Is that correct?

 

Mr. Maddox:

Yes.  It is not a problem with inspectors not doing their job.  It is a matter that we do not have a standard for it right now.  And, I am saying that we do need to have a standard.

 

Senator Townsend:

When you say the north, you are talking about, literally, anything north of Pahrump?

 

Mr. Maddox:

Yes.  I think it is more common in areas with frost conditions where the footing has to be at least 2 feet below grade.  That is why we end up with that type of construction as opposed to slab-on-grade that we have down south.

 

Senator Townsend:

Mr. Herrington, do you understand the issue Mr. Maddox is referring to?

 

Mr. Herrington:

Yes, sir, I do.  And, I think Mr. Maddox is right.  There is not a requirement for a drain on the outside of the footing when you have a crawl space.  It is only at a basement.  And, there is not a requirement in the building code for waterproofing the outside of the stem wall because it is not a basement.

 

Senator Townsend:

How simple is that to do in the code?

 

Mr. Herrington:

It is easy.  You would just make a local amendment if you had a high-water condition that was substantiated.  You could take those remedial ways of resolving it.  Then the other way is the positive crawl-space drainage.  One of the things, though, from my experience in Reno and Carson City, when we approve subdivisions that we have been told there is high water in those subdivisions, that we dewater the subdivisions by various methods.  But, even though the dewatering occurs, sometimes you will still have high water occur when you have a very wet winter.

 

So, you could have a very dry building pad, which would be the crawl space area, and all the geotechnical reports will say to you that there is not a high water at that particular time, but the way Mother Nature is, you will experience high water sometimes.  That is just the facts of life.  And, I do not know if we can go around and put these kinds of remedies into every building just on the suspect that we are going to have high water in some years.  You have this balance of economics.  If you have known high water, take care of it.

 

Senator Townsend:

How difficult is it to make a change in the code?  Do you have to post it and go to public hearing?

 

Mr. Herrington:

Yes, an amendment to the uniform building code, locally, usually takes 2 hearings.  And, I think, most building departments even go further than that; they will work with local builders and their community advising them of what is in the mill and what is being proposed, and of ramifications thereof.

 

Senator Townsend:

The committee is very sensitive to different geographical areas and their various needs.  We are a little reluctant to put something in the statute unless it is geographically sensitive, meaning county by county.  Mr. Lynn, it would be important that you work with Mr. Herrington and all your other colleagues in this area, because there may be additional things in your code that you want to upgrade.  If you can have a conference call on the things you think need to be upgraded, and we would like any of the engineers, the geotechs, soils experts, Mr. Maddox, you and members of your organization, should participate in that meeting and then report back to this committee next Thursday.  Is that possible, everyone, to get your heads together and find out what needs to be upgraded?

 

Mr. Denny:

There is one other issue that we probably should address when we are talking about drainage.  It is not uncommon in our area to take a 10-acre alfalfa field and get a geotechnical report, develop a subdivision on it, and then put in 8,000 to 10,000 square-foot lots.  By the time the subdivision is built out, you have taken an alfalfa field and you have covered it in concrete, driveways, paving, and landscaping.  When an inspector goes out on a final inspection, our top priority is to make sure we have the minimal code drainage away from the house and out to the street, which is 2 percent, which is about one-eighth of an inch per foot.  This is pretty easy to see with the eye, if you are trained in drainage.

 

The problem we run into in 99 percent of all my drainage complaints is, after the subdivisions have been completed, the homeowners have landscaped all their backyards, and they have changed the drainage to drain onto their neighbors property.  We end up with water under all of the houses, because the drainage has been changed.  It is something, at that time, where we have lost control with trying to keep water from underneath houses.  So, I think this is more of a public awareness and some sort of education that needs to be provided to the landscape architects, landscape installers to make sure they carry the drainage that was already established out to the public street.

 

Senator Townsend:

What happens when a guy does his own landscaping?

 

Mr. Herrington:

I was also going to allude to that.  I think one of the very positive things that I have heard here is to have the builders provide the owners with what is expected as far as landscaping and planters and this sort of thing.  As Ms. Nelson alluded to, if she had known, then she would have landscaped her property accordingly.  I think what Mr. Denny just alluded to is really a crux of the matter as far as water in the crawl space and those problems that all go around with water and high water.  If builders would provide their owners with this kind of notification, as these are the parameters that have to be done as far as landscaping is concerned.  I know one of our major problems is, we go out and certify the landscaping.  We walk off the job, issue the certificate of occupancy, and then we get a complaint about water in the crawl space.  It is because they put in a drainpipe, and the water off the roof is going directly into the crawl space.

 

Mr. Maddox:

I have to disagree with the suggestion that most of these problems with water in the crawl space is because homeowners have changed landscaping.

 

Senator Townsend:

We are just trying to gather information.  I would like for you to disagree with him when we have this meeting.

 

Mr. Maddox:

I would be happy to do that, Mr. Chairman.  I just did not want the committee to think it is strictly a homeowners’ landscaping issue.  It is far more complex than that.

 

Mr. Lynn:

I think Mr. Maddox brought up an excellent point.  There is some complexity to these issues.  There are a lot of issues.  You can put one element, or a couple elements into a local code change.  However, this one is a little tougher.  Dealing with a mold issue, you have, of course, the propagation of the mold.  You have, not only the drainage of the overall site, the way it can be compromised either through irrigation or groundwater or historical drainage, you have the waterproofing.  I am not sure that in a few days we can get an actual, hardcore code change.  We may be able to get a direction, but I do not want to mislead the committee that we can produce something.  I think there are a lot of variables, and I think it is a synergetic effect.  There are a lot of things that go wrong to get us to the problems we have.

 

Senator Townsend:

What the committee would be looking for is not actual, hardcore, in cement, printable code upgrades.  What we are looking for is a gathering of the very able minds that have been coming before these committees and coming back here Tuesday, April 3, between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m., and saying this is where we are, relative to the issues in the north that were raised by Mr. Maddox, the issues in the south that even you so articulated relative to these drainage issues.  Believe me, I am very sensitive to those issues, because there would not be a successful landscape industry in southern Nevada were it not for people buying and putting all of these wonderful, nice things in.  Because Senator Shaffer has such a substantial background in that, I am going to ask him to keep you moving in the right direction.

 

I am very reluctant to start dictating codes from the state level, but we think you guys need to upgrade these things based on the history we have seen in this committee for 10 years on what the problems are north and south.  We do not want to be insensitive to our rural communities, but your issue of the 10 acres of alfalfa is a serious issue.  We do not see those in Washoe County or Clark County.

 

Senator Shaffer:

Mr. Herrington, does every county in Nevada have a certified building official?

 

Mr. Herrington:

They do not, and it is not required.  There is a bill, I think, that is winding its way through the Legislature that would require certification.  It has been modified somewhat to eliminate the smaller communities because of the education portion of it, which is a tragedy in my opinion.  I think one of the cruxes of the matter is making sure on the education side, that is taken care of no matter how small the community is.

 

Senator Shaffer:

I think it is very important.  If I was sleeping in a motel in Austin, Nevada, that I would be comfortable that it was not going to burn down.

 

Mr. Herrington:

It is almost the smaller communities that need it more than the larger communities.

 

Senator Shaffer:

We do not know that today.

 

Mr. DeSart:

I wanted to provide some clarifying information about whether or not inspections are actually performed during the grading of a site.  While it is true that the building officials and the building departments do not perform inspections, private geotechnical engineering firms are providing inspections, and usually on the clay soils or the problem soil sites, usually it is full-time inspections.  When the building department talks about 29.3, or whatever it is, inspections per day, per person, often we have inspectors that might inspect one job, or in some cases 2 or 3 jobs in one given day.  So, all grading for residential development is, in fact, inspected.  It is that inspection that ultimately leads to the pad certification reports.

 

Mr. Lynn:

Mr. DeSart is 100 percent correct, again.  We do not count their inspections; they are required to have them.

 

Senator Townsend:

But, they are inspecting themselves, are they not?

 

Mr. Lynn:

No, they are inspecting the activities of the grading contractor, and they are looking at the material, these are the experts.  And, I know what Mr. Herrington was talking about.  We educate our people, too, but it is pretty rudimentary.  These are people, full time, skilled in the analysis of soils, the identification of the uniform soils classification system.

 

Senator Townsend:

So, what you are saying, Mr. Lynn, based on Mr. DeSart’s testimony, is that there is a registered professional who is now inspecting a contractor licensee to make sure he or she is doing the work the plan calls for.  Is that correct?

 

Mr. Lynn:

With the exception that it is not a registered professional actually doing the inspection.  It is possible, but it can be someone under the direct auspice of a registered professional.

 

Senator Townsend:

So there is a small amount of check and balance.  What happens if they do not think they are doing it?  What happens if that inspection finds the contractor, and in this case the grading contractor, is not doing it to the level of requirement in the original geotechnical report?

 

Mr. Lynn:

In Clark County, if the work is either not being performed in conformance with the approved, submitted geotechnical report or if the variabilities of the subsurface environment change, and therefore, there has to be an addendum, they put notice upon the contractor, and then notify the Clark County building department.  If it is necessary to stop the job, then it is under the auspices of the building department, not the inspector.

 

Further, because this falls under chapter 17 of the Uniform Building Code, or under the 2000 International Building Code, which, by the way, is even more restrictive for drainage requiring even increased drainage, because nationally there have been these drainage problems, and we hope to go to the 2000 IBOC (International Building Officials Conference) in southern Nevada, these geotechnical engineers are beholden for their listing to Clark County.  If we can take action against their listing and de-list them, and therefore, they could not work on a Clark County job.

 

Mr. DeSart:

When we find a contractor, or observe the work being done is not in compliance with the original geotechnical recommendations, it is common for us to notify the contractor that if the work proceeds and this work not complying is covered up or not dealt with, then we will not be in a position to issue a pad certification report.  And, 100 percent of the time they realize they are not going to get paid unless the pad certification report is issued, and they are able to go in and fix the problem.  The building department does come out and inspect our inspectors, if you will, and they audit the inspections that are being done.  If they have any concerns they immediately bring it to the attention of the lead engineer for that particular firm.  And, once again, they make it perfectly clear that they have the right to de-list that firm, which essentially takes away the firm’s ability to do business in the county.  That is a very powerful tool.

 

Senator Townsend:

I think Mr. Lynn, you might want to de-list the first “bad guy” and get everybody’s attention, because apparently it is not working as well as it should.

 

Mr. Lynn:

We have de-listed people, both individuals and firms.

 

Senator Townsend:

Good for you.  Committee, what I would like to do to help us, is to send all these parties back to start the process of changing and upgrading the codes based on the two things we have heard:  the soils and drainage issues, particularly in southern Nevada, and drainage and flooring issues in northern Nevada.  So, we would expect all the parties to be cooperative and come back to us Tuesday.  It would be my intention to have an amendment drafted that would incorporate these geotechnical considerations (Exhibit C).

 

Ms. Grein, for your licensees, we have discussed at great length in this committee the issue of raising the bar.  That bar being two things:  number one, the qualifications; and number two, being the bonding requirements.  I think the goal of everybody involved in this issue is to get the property fixed, but in some cases, and I believe Senator O'Connell, Senator Shaffer, and Senator Schneider have all come across this.  There may not be money left to fix something because somebody was not financially capable or they should not have been building that type of structure because they were not deep enough in asset value.  Have you and your board looked at that and analyzed what some of the solutions to that could be?

 

Ms. Grein:

We have talked about it in great detail.  As you know, our chairman feels very strongly about the cause of most of these problems is of a financial nature, not of a lack of ability to do the job.  I believe in the licensing process now we look even closer and in more detail to the financial statement of the contractor.  I can take this back to the board, again, and ask for their input, further, regarding that issue.

 

Senator O'Connell:

OK, committee, do you have any concerns or questions that you would like to bring to Ms. Grein’s attention?

 

Ms. Grein:

I would like to clarify a statement I made earlier on A.B. 366.  I looked at the bill and those two sections, 7 and 9, we would definitely support.  It would clarify, even further, that we have the ability to discipline a licensee.

 

Senator O'Connell:

Section 7 and 9?

 

Ms. Grein:

Yes

Senator O'Connell:

And that would add to, or just clarify your ability to discipline a licensee?

 

Ms. Grein:

I think it would enhance our enforcement ability.

 

Chairman Townsend:

There being no further business, the meeting is adjourned at 10:19 a.m.

 

 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

 

 

 

Gayle Nadeau,

Committee Secretary

 

 

APPROVED BY:

 

 

 

                       

Senator Randolph J. Townsend, Chairman

 

 

DATE: