Q&A
Council member inquires about licensing board's effectiveness in catching fraud
1:58:50
·
146 sec
Council Member Pierina Ana Sanchez asks about examples of the licensing board catching fraud or other misdeeds. Multiple participants, including George Bassolino, April McIver, and Terence O'Brien, provide responses highlighting the board's value.
- George Bassolino explains how the board's real-world experience helped identify anomalies in applications
- April McIver mentions the industry's role in reporting unlicensed activities
- Terence O'Brien emphasizes the importance of peer review in the licensing process
Pierina Ana Sanchez
1:58:50
Thank you.
1:58:51
Thank you so much.
1:58:52
Maybe maybe starting with you, George, but anyone who can speak to this.
1:58:57
Regarding the licensing board, were there examples if you served on 1 or if you were familiar with with proceedings, were there examples that you can share of the licensing board catching fraud or other misdeeds?
George Bassolino
1:59:10
Yes.
1:59:11
So I've been the licensed plumber now for over 40 years, and the process was much different.
1:59:16
So what happens now is you get an application, you fill it out, you fill out, you send in all your stuff and it's review by the department.
1:59:23
Let's call it 10 point checklist.
1:59:25
So once you hit all the boxes, you go to the board.
1:59:29
And then you would go for review.
1:59:30
So we would look at people, and every once in a while, very rare, we'd find an anomaly and bring people in for further questions.
1:59:38
The importance of the board is that you have a licensed plumber, a licensed fire suppression contractor with real world experience.
1:59:44
That can look and see those anomalies.
1:59:46
That was the advantage of it.
1:59:48
And again, it's just advice.
Terence O’Brien
1:59:50
I'll go one step further.
Melissa Barbour
1:59:51
Oh, sorry.
April McIver
1:59:52
Yeah.
1:59:52
I'm sorry.
1:59:52
I just wanted to add recently is the summer, the person who's in charge of enforcement said to us, the plumbing foundation gives a lot of tips on unlicensed plumbing, something we call cover up plumbing, just general unlicensed construction activities.
2:00:07
They said, they are primarily complaint driven.
2:00:12
And most of the complaints come from our associations.
2:00:15
So, I mean, these are the plumbers sitting on these associations, and that's, you know, important for just plenary actions.
Terence O’Brien
2:00:21
I'll have one further comment.
2:00:22
The George talked about the applications of new applicants, the review of activities of current license holders.
2:00:32
The industry has reviewed them over the years, and they would have taken a different tact.
2:00:37
You have a a finite amount of experience of people dealing with, investigating license holders, and peer review fills those gaps.
2:00:48
And we're not talking about getting involved in the process.
2:00:51
We're talking about before the Christian side of stipulation to bring it before blindly redacting information much the way it was intended, and I've seen it in action over the years.
2:01:01
Been doing this for quite some time.
2:01:03
That's what we're talking about.
2:01:04
The so the the industry would say that's not severe enough.
2:01:08
Did you look here?
2:01:09
There were things that make this a lot more equitable and responsible for the city to do if they had involvement from the industry.
