Columnist Jeff German: Inspectors don’t feel at home with plan for builders

Friday, Aug. 5, 2005 | 5:35 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

WEEKEND EDITION

August 6-7, 2005

Call it A hunch, but I don't think you're going to find too many future homeowners who would like the idea of letting developers do their own inspections during construction.

Ron Lynn, the county's top building official, has proposed allowing the wealthy home builders to hire private contractors to do the brunt of the work now done by county inspectors.

This is Lynn's answer to relieving a shortage of inspectors under his command during one of Southern Nevada's biggest homebuilding booms.

County Commissioners last week put off a vote on the proposal until Aug. 16 amid an outcry of opposition from construction industry unions and labor leaders representing Lynn's own county building inspectors.

By no surprise Lynn's plan was enthusiastically endorsed by the influential Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, which represents more than 750 contractors.

Executive Director Irene Porter told commissioners that it would shave 13 days off the construction of a new home and get it to the buyer that much faster.

But at what cost?

"This is going to lead to more defects in homes, and eventually every citizen will pay for it," says Zack Gharibian, a senior county building inspector and shop steward for the Service Employees International Union, which represents 86 county inspectors.

"It's like saying we don't need firefighters because we have sprinkler systems in place. It's ridiculous."

Gharibian and his fellow overworked inspectors, the majority of whom are furious with Lynn for not thinking this out, have received support from an unlikely source -- Lynn's counterpart in the city of Las Vegas.

"I would never do this," says Las Vegas Building Department Director Paul Wilkins. "It's not the way that inspections are supposed to be done, in my opinion.

"I think it's a slap in the face to all of the inspectors we have trained in government agencies all of these years."

The private contractors, county inspectors say, would not be subject to the same ethical and training standards.

Even Lynn acknowledges that program he has proposed isn't perfect.

But he says it's necessary "to get us through this combination of construction boom and manpower shortage."

Depending on who you talk to, the county is down 17-21 inspectors and, according to Lynn, unable to handle 200 to 400 inspections a day.

But others, like Gharibian, say kowtowing to the politically connected home builders, who are only thinking about their bottom lines, is not the responsible way to approach this crisis.

Gharibian has a simple solution for the county: Hire more inspectors and give them incentives to stay in the county's employment.

"We've been crying for two years for more inspectors and trying to get them to pay attention to salaries, but they've been ignoring us," he says.

The county, Gharibian explains, has been losing inspectors left and right to the fast-growing cities of Henderson and North Las Vegas, which pay higher salaries and offer better benefits, such as four-day work weeks.

"Morale is at its worst ever," he says. "What's happening here is the easy way out."

Gharibian hopes Lynn abandons the proposal for the sake of his fellow inspectors -- and for all of those future homeowners out there.