CONSTRUCTION:

Resumes get scant inspection

Clark County does not routinely verify work histories of those it approves to inspect sites

By Alexandra Berzon (contact)

Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Chris Morris

CityCenter Construction

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Reports suggest fixes for CityCenter safety problems (2-18-2009)
CityCenter work often precedes approval of plans (2-16-2009)
Perini redirects blame for errors at Harmon (2-9-2009)
A daptation or ‘disaster’?: Depends on your view of the Harmon (2-8-2009)
County wants proof CityCenter structures are free of defects (2-6-2009)
Watchers were not watched (1-15-2009)
How did CityCenter tower flaws persist? (1-8-2009)
MGM Mirage cancels CityCenter condo project (1-7-2009)

One of the CityCenter inspectors who failed to spot serious errors at the Harmon high rise was approved by Clark County to monitor complex construction projects after submitting a curious resume.

It listed no dates he attended school. It listed no educational degrees. It did not name any business that had ever employed him, or list the locations of projects where he had worked, as an inspector.

Normally those omissions would be a red flag, sending employers to the telephone for more information and verification. Not in Clark County.

No one at the county checked the resume of Scott Edberg before approving him as an inspector. Indeed, a county spokesman told the Las Vegas Sun that the county does not routinely verify information on resumes.

Qualifying as a specialized inspector requires a certain amount of experience in that area. A rebar inspector such as Edberg would need two years of experience.

Edberg was one of two private inspectors who filed dozens of false reports stating there were no problems with the Harmon before an engineer in July found 15 floors of wrongly placed reinforcing steel. That discovery, coupled with the weakening economy, led owner MGM Mirage to decide last month not build the top 21 floors of the building.

In assessing the aftermath, county officials have pointed to Edberg and the other private inspector on the project, Joseph Glenn Laurente, as two culprits in a systemic breakdown that allowed faulty work to go undetected for nearly six months. If Edberg and Laurente had properly documented problems at the Harmon, the county could have intervened much sooner, according to county officials. (Left unsaid in that is that the county’s own employees also missed the problems.)

A hearing next month could help resolve one of the key questions still unanswered in the Harmon debacle: Did Edberg and Laurente miss the problems at the Harmon because of incompetence or some other reason?

Neither Edberg, Laurente, nor a representative of their employer, Converse Consultants, could be reached for comment. And although Edberg’s resume was vague, it had nothing indicating he did not have the necessary experience to be an inspector in Clark County.

Yet some people familiar with the county’s private inspector program say the Harmon debacle points to a larger breakdown in the county’s monitoring of private inspectors. The system sometimes allows inspectors on the job without the necessary experience, they say.

“If it’s on the resume, we don’t follow up,” said a county inspector who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “A lot of times third parties will fudge the resumes because they need the bodies out there. They do it all the time.”

Several people familiar with the private inspector system agreed that falsified resumes for inspectors are common — an open secret within the county’s building department. This was particularly true when the valley’s construction boom caused a shortage of qualified inspectors, they said.

Clark County spokesman Dan Kulin confirmed that the county does not check the experience or educational background on resumes.

“Certainly if we had reason to suspect something is not accurate, we would look into it,” Kulin said. “As far as I know, we’re not aware of anyone who has falsified their resume.”

Kulin said the county does seek to verify professional certifications.

Like a number of other jurisdictions, Clark County requires project owners such as MGM Mirage to hire certified inspectors to sign off on complicated structural elements of construction projects and submit their reports to the county.

Development Services Director Ron Lynn has said he believes Clark County has one of the most stringent private inspector oversight systems in the country, given its dedicated team of specialized county monitors. But until recently, those monitors spent most of their time following up on reports from private inspectors rather than making sure the inspectors were qualified and properly performing their jobs.

Some aspects of the system are standard under the international building code, but activities related to oversight of the private inspectors are left up to the discretion of the county or city administering the system.

Los Angeles employs eight people who spend almost all of their time reviewing the qualifications and activities of private inspectors applying to be authorized there, said Los Angeles Building and Safety Department spokesman Bob Steinbach. Unlike Clark County, Los Angeles requires all aspiring inspectors to go through an interview with a city employee and take a test designed specifically for the city.

Other municipalities take a smaller role in oversight. Phoenix leaves it entirely up to engineering companies to verify the suitability of private inspectors, said Mo Clancy, Phoenix’s deputy director of commercial inspections.

One problem with the system in Clark County, critics say, is that when county employees identify unqualified inspectors, accountability is minimal. Companies are sometimes allowed to repeat errors, they say.

For example, from May 15 to Aug. 27, Owens Geotechnical Inc. was cited for sending out unapproved inspectors four times at Summerlin Centre, the Hard Rock Hotel and a residential building project, according to county documents. In total, the company was issued 36 violations in 2008. One Owens employee was identified in violations two dozen times.

An Owens representative, who asked not to be identified, said the problems were mostly related to paperwork and dispatcher errors. Another problem was that the county sometimes verbally approved inspectors before they were placed on the official list, the Owens representative said.

The violations were not related to “life safety issues,” he said.

The Owens representative said the county did not promptly notify the company of the violations. Two weeks ago Owens officials were told they had racked up an unusual number of violations and were called into a meeting at county offices, but until then they were unaware of the problems, he said.

The company has a new inspection manager and has not received as many violations in recent months, he said.

Kulin, the county spokesman, told a different story. He said Owens’ violations were discussed with the company as far back as July 17.

“The system isn’t broken,” the Owens representative said. “What happened is that a lot of these things have been going on for years and the county was always ‘too busy’ in the past. Now that the workload has gone down, they’re issuing more notice of violations. The part I have a problem with is that the county is not very timely in this.”

Accountability for the Harmon incident is also still forthcoming, during a hearing set for March.

Edberg has been removed from county-approved inspector lists at the request of his employer, Converse Consultants, according to a county source. Laurente was removed from the list of approved rebar inspectors but is still authorized to inspect foundation work.

Lynn, the county’s development services director, originally said neither inspector had worked on any projects in the county other than the Harmon. However, Laurente’s resume states that he worked on numerous projects in Clark County, including 10 structures at CityCenter. Edberg’s resume was too vague to determine whether he had worked here.

Kulin acknowledged that Lynn misspoke.

The county recently said it is requiring MGM Mirage to hire inspectors to reinspect all buildings where Converse inspectors — including Laurente — had been stationed to make sure they’re structurally sound.

Discussion: 12 comments so far…

By fremmasmind

2/22/09 at 6:11 a.m.

Suggest removal

Is the city that hard up they can't afford an inspector with proper qualifications so they hire an ice cream vendor?
By Babyboomer

2/22/09 at 8:40 a.m.

Suggest removal

Clark County needs to wake up. They will be the first they look at when these faults arise from them turning their heads and looking the other way. How many are getting paid off ?
By lvinspector

2/22/09 at 9:39 a.m.

Suggest removal

A real follow up article to this would be an investigative report on the inspector certification process. The problem is that the certifying agencies DO NOT verify experience nor qualifications of applicants prior to taking the exam.

All one needs to do is attend one of the numerous "pass or don't pay schools" that tutor anyone to pass the inspectors exam. Then submit an application to the certifying agency (along with the nominal fee) and you can now be employed as an inspector on projects such as the Harmon with no one so much as questioning your background.

I'll bet that any reporter could submit an application with the same certifying agency that certified the two inspectors mentioned above and could be certified as an inspector within 30 days.
By lakeside21

2/22/09 at 11:30 a.m.

Suggest removal

"And although Edberg's resume was vague, it had nothing indicating he did not have the necessary experience to be an inspector in Clark County." Awesome! So if a blank sheet of paper is submitted as a resume, that would be ok because there was nothing on it to say he WASN'T qualified? (I think the proof is supposed to be in the other direction!)
By Houstonjac

2/22/09 at 11:35 p.m.

Suggest removal

This entire CityCenter constuction Project appears to be plagued by serious organizational and accountability problems. These begin at the top levels of the MGM Mirage and the County,and extend down into the Contruction Manager Tishman, and the General contractor Pierni, and its subs.From all indications in various stories appearing in the Las Vegas Sun, and the Review -Journal, this project is being conducted as a "fast track" constuction project,but appears to be missing the necessary inspection, and oversight functions that all projects require.
By Eastern_boy

2/23/09 at 3:13 a.m.

Suggest removal

"The county recently said it is requiring MGM Mirage to hire inspectors to reinspect all buildings where Converse inspectors -- including Laurente -- had been stationed to make sure they're structurally sound."

That's all well and good, but how will they confirm soundness of something burried in concrete or sealed behind walls, etc? Another thing I wonder about, with City Center, is the results should a significant earthquake hit the area.
By John_Doe

2/23/09 at 8:35 a.m.

Suggest removal

This article is awesome! I love the quotes from the anonymous source from Owens Geotechnical. So based on what that person said, the county missed all of the violations because they were too busy. So if the cat is too busy the mice get away with whatever.

Also, the claim that the county is not timely with their Corrective Action Reports is false in my experience. The County always sent notices out within days of the issue. In fact, I remember receiving calls from the County Structural Inspectors regarding violations prior to them writing the reports to let me know what their concerns were.

The issue of the County not verifying experience is true. Although, they were very strict on this for a few years when a different person was in charge of reviewing the resumes for approval.

This article was very amusing to me and my friends that have done inspections in the County.

One more thing, Scott Edberg should never have been approved to inspect reinforced concrete structures since he does not hold the proper certification by ICC and he is not certified by ACI. Based on this information he should never have been approved to do any sort of structural inspections. He isn't even qualified to inspect residential slabs-on-grade. He is listed as an Associate which means he only passed the exam and has not complied with the other requirements for Special Inspection Certification.

This is so great. I love to read about this stuff since it is so right on the mark.

Oh, to comment on Eastern Boy's remark about confirming construction. Well that is pretty simple. You can do destructive and non-destructive examinations to check for certain elements, and if problems are found there is always a fix. Although the fixes are not always aesthetically pleasing or cheap.
By LaDiDa

2/23/09 at 9:09 a.m.

Suggest removal

So if I am reading this correctly, the county building department ignored possible violations because they were "too busy" (whose quotes are those in the article? the authors or the county spokesperson. and if the author added them, why?) when times were good. Now times are bad, they are sitting around doing nothing, waiting for the economy to pick up, so to kill time and create some revenue they decide to do what they should have been doing in the first place and start handing out violations at a huge rate...

Interesting.

Seems like Ron Lynn and crew need to say at some point "the buck stops here" and stop trying at all costs to shift the blame onto someone (anyone..) for all these problems that keep popping up down there at the building department.
By rejco100

2/23/09 at 9:23 a.m.

Suggest removal

You can't even get a job sweeping/mopping French Fries/Special Sauce off the floor at McDonalds without a resume, cover letter, criminal record & sex offender check, credit report, drug/alcohol test, 3 interviews,and food sevice card.
By CCDDSwatcher

2/25/09 at 3:07 p.m.

Suggest removal

Does everyone who has a memory already forget that Mr. Ronald Lynn, director of the CCDDS-BD himself submitted a false resume' stating that he had a Bachelors of Science degree when he was in the running for the Building Official position and his simple and only response was that it was an "oversight" on his part. Four years of college was an oversight? no wonder the resume's are so easily reviewed and "overlooked".
By lvinspector

2/28/09 at 12:03 p.m.

Suggest removal

I just received a mailer advertising that for $850 anyone can be certified as a building inspector or building official. They advertise guaranteed pass fist time. <www.constructionexam.com> I wonder if the "inspectors" in question are graduates.

Hurry and sign up, they have a class scheduled for April 8, 2009 here in Las Vegas. I feel safer already.