Editorial: Questionable appointment

Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007 | 6:53 a.m.

The most important function of the seven-member State Contractors Board is to protect consumers from people who claim to be qualified tradesmen but who, in reality, are unlicensed and undependable.

The board's main responsibilities are threefold: to issue state contractor licenses after applicants have passed thorough background and skills checks, to discipline contractors found to have violated the trust implicit in their licenses and to investigate reports of people doing contracting work without a license.

Given the emphasis on licensing, it would seem that a governor, who appoints the board's members, would be extra careful to appoint only those members whose licensing records are spotless.

But late last month, as disclosed Friday by Las Vegas Sun reporters Jeff German and Steve Kanigher, Gov. Jim Gibbons failed to exercise that care.

Gibbons quietly appointed Reno developer Michael Efstratis to the board, even though in 2002 Efstratis' company at the time, Double Diamond Ranch LLC, received a letter of reprimand from the board for hiring an unlicensed marble contractor.

According to state records cited by German and Kanigher, weeks after receiving the reprimand Double Diamond voluntarily surrendered its contractor's license. Efstratis and another executive of the defunct company then received a license from the board for a new Reno company, Tanamera Commercial Development LLC.

On its Web site, the Contractors Board lists short biographies of its members. Efstratis is described as being "vice president of construction and manager at Tanamera Commercial Development LLC." There is no mention of his past executive position with Double Diamond.

This isn't the first time Gibbons has made a dubious appointment. For example, he recently appointed Joe Waltuch, a former vice president of New Century Financial Corp. in California, to run the state's Mortgage Lending Division.

New Century filed for bankruptcy in April and CNNMoney.com wrote: The company "could be the poster-child for the meltdown in subprime mortgages. Few of its problems were known in January, but since then it has announced criminal probes into its practices, a cut-off of funding by lenders and questions by auditors ... "

Enough for a big red flag? We think so.

There is no reason for Gibbons to make such questionable appointments when there are plenty of qualified people whose backgrounds wouldn't raise eyebrows.