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Editorial: Overhaul Pinellas Construction Licensing Board

 
The Pinellas County Construction Licensing Board should be a watchdog that monitors local contractors and acts as an objective arbiter of consumer complaints about shoddy work. Instead, it functions with no oversight and shows little interest in serving the public.
The Pinellas County Construction Licensing Board should be a watchdog that monitors local contractors and acts as an objective arbiter of consumer complaints about shoddy work. Instead, it functions with no oversight and shows little interest in serving the public.
Published Jan. 23, 2017

The Pinellas County Construction Licensing Board should be a watchdog that monitors local contractors and acts as an objective arbiter of consumer complaints about shoddy work. Instead, this public agency functioning with no oversight shows remarkably little interest in serving the public or operating in the open. A change in state law is needed, and Pinellas legislators already are promising to abolish the existing structure and create a new system with a licensing board that is transparent and directly accountable to county government.

In an investigation published Sunday, Tampa Bay Times staff writer Mark Puente uncovered numerous irregularities on the licensing board and a smaller panel of its members that decides whether there is reason to believe contractors have committed infractions. Puente found the board failed to keep minutes of disciplinary hearings or notify the parties before they happened; did not consistently make audio recordings of the hearings and sometimes turned off the tapes mid-meeting; voted without the required three-member quorum; and rebuffed requests for its records from the public. This is not how government should run.

Another glaring problem: The licensing board does not answer to the County Commission. The commission chairman can only sign off on nominations to the 21-member board. No other local licensing board in Florida runs this way — precisely because without local oversight, an insular, self-serving culture can take hold. That was on repeated display when a licensing board member who was paid by unsatisfied homeowners to inspect work was then asked to vote on the complaints against the contractors. Such an arrangement is fair neither to the homeowners nor the contractors.

Anyone who wanted to inquire further about a case would have little redress. The board's records are inconsistently kept and not easily accessed, though they are subject to Florida's broad public records law. While full board meetings are recorded and minutes are kept, the Times investigation found that minutes of disciplinary hearings were not kept until recently and the hearings were recorded erratically. One St. Petersburg woman asked for records from her 2014 complaint, which the full board had rejected, and was initially told there was no record of the initial hearing. When she persisted, a board employee sent a list of the first initial and last name of the board members at the hearing but did not identify which ones voted. She was never told about an audio recording of the hearing, which only surfaced in the Times investigation.

The Times also asked for a database of complaints against contractors and was told the board didn't keep electronic records. Executive director Rodney Fischer questioned why the newspaper wanted the records and warned of a steep price to provide them. The bill: $75,051. There was, in fact, a database containing more than 22,000 files, which was eventually provided for $218. Denying records exist when they do, quoting exorbitant fees to inspect them and demanding that the public give a reason for wanting to see them all violate Florida's tradition of open records.

Fischer is at least partly responsible for the toxic tone. He is heard at meetings bemoaning how he dislikes being recorded and directing that the tape be turned off when it suits him. He showed disregard for members of the public who brought complaints to the board, forgetting or ignoring whom his agency exists to serve.

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Pinellas legislators reacted swiftly to the Times' findings, promising legislation that would give control of the licensing board to Pinellas County government. County commissioners agree. The quick response is commendable, and just in time to be pursued in the coming legislative session in Tallahassee. The board that licenses contractors in Pinellas needs direct local oversight to ensure it is fulfilling its purpose of rooting out unscrupulous contractors and protecting consumers.