January 13, 2010

MINUTES FROM BOARD OF APPEALS (BOA) MEETING

Approval of previous minutes

Ron Auch: Appeal to be “grandfathered in” for contractor license (File# 09-006)

Jerry Chaffin: Appeal to be “grandfathered in” for contractor license (File# 10-001)

Discuss setting a policy and revising contractor resolution to allow a contractor examination waiver.

Board Members were provided with, Staff report, letter from applicant, and Contractor exam waiver policy.

Members present were: Chris Allison and Mark Belford, William Van Horn, and via teleconference, Michael Millsapps. .

Members not present were: Ron Daggett.

Chairperson: Chris Allison, William Van Horn

Videoconferencing demonstration provided by County IT department.

Chris opened the meeting as acting chairperson. Does the board approve the minutes from the September meeting? Minutes approved: Michael Millsapps, 2nd by Mark Bedford.

Teleconference with Michael Millsapps ended with the arrival of William Van Horn at 7:40am.

Bill Van Horn presided over the meeting from this point on.

APPEALS:

Today we have two applicants who would like to appeal to the resolution to be “Grandfathered in” as a contractor for Larimer County. That resolution requires general contractors to pass an ICC exam or show proof of passing another exam through another jurisdiction in Colorado. There is no provision for exempting testing under our new licensing regulations. There is no grandfathering in of contractors.

First applicant Ron Auch has a contractor license in the City of Fort Collins, but they could not produce the test results. So Ron has appealed to the board. Staff requested a friendly consideration to the board. We have talked to the County Attorney about modifying the contractor licensing resolution to allow grandfathering and they suggested modifying the resolution to allow the CBO to accept examination waiver from contractors if they meet a written policy that has been approved by the CBO and BOA. Ron does meet the standard of our proposed drafted policy on examination waiver, he does have more then 10 projects in the county, successfully demonstrated by getting final on 80% of the permits.

William: Maybe we can go over the policies separately. It sounds like the staff feels that Ron is qualified for this

Tom: He has completed his permits and is consciencous.

Mark: Just out of curiousity, before we address the appeal, if we approve the policy revisions first, do the cases go away?

Tom: The applicants here today need to get their license going as soon as possible. The board would need to approve the revisions to the policy and then it requires formal action by the Board of County Commissioners and that will take time.

Bill: Last time we were unable to form a quorum, today we should be able to resolve this applicants request. Does anybody have any questions for Ron?

Chris: I do, and we may have already done it last time. Did you tell us when the last updated exam you had done with the city of fort Collins?

Ron: I took the 2003 IRC test 2 years ago, and have had a general contractor license since 1985.

Tom: The resolution didn’t have an update to the new license. The proposed policy draft will require classes or an abbreviated exam on updated code changes.

William: Sounds like he’ll be taking the class as he’s a contractor with the City of Fort Collins. Any further questions?

Chris: Motion to grant appeal to the Chief Building Official for Ron Auch to grant the Class C contractor license.

Mark: I second that.

William: Thank you Ron, sorry it took so long to get a quorum. Thank you for going through the process.

Jerry Chaffin? Same preamble, anything different?

Tom: Jerry has taken out building permits with the County and 11 of 12 are resolved. Jerry has agreed to take the abbreviate exam on updates to the residential code class as required by our proposed policy. He meets our criteria for our draft policy. We recommend approval.

William: Does anybody have any questions?

Mark: Did you take the exam with the City of Fort Collins?

Jerry: Yes. I was to bring the report of the exam, 64 was the score of 80 questions.

William: Any further questions or do you want to entertain a motion?

Mark: Same motion as before.

Chris: Same seconded.

William: Applicant is approved. We appreciate you cooperating with our process. Thank you both (the applicants were excused and the meeting continued to the final issue on the agenda).

Tom: The county attorney felt it was easier to modify the resolution so the building official is able to waive the contractor license if they meet the written policies that are approved by Board of Appeals. We have a contractor exam policy discussed at the November meeting, but it wasn’t’ official as we didn’t have a quorum.

The first issue is that the contractor would work specifically in the County, outside of the city jurisdictions.

Bill: If 6 are in the city and 4 are the county, I don’t see a problem with that.

Chris: If someone doesn’t have 10, let them demonstrate work they’ve done in another jurisdiction in the County.

Tom: Then we talk about successfully completed projects. I’m defining the successfully completed ones as those who have taken it the permit all the way to final. Even the best contractor may have missed a final on a deck so we are recommending an 80% success rate.

Next we are recommending that the contractor demonstrated that they have kept update with code changes by taking an Abbreviated Exams on code update or show proof that they have taken classes on code updates through the ICC. Do you think that’s a good idea?

William: You want them to know the newest code book.

Chris: There are online continuing educational classes through ICC that should be accepted.

Tom: To take it to the next state, I need a recommendation from the is board that we amend the contractor resolution and allow the building department to waive the exam if they meet the contractor waiver policy established by the building official and approved by this Board.

Chris: I move that.

Mark: I second.

William: All were in favor, none opposed. The recommendation passed.

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William Van Horn, Chairperson Tom Garton, Staff Liaison