Council revisits contractor registration

At a committee meeting Monday night, Athens City Council again discussed the possibility of requiring contractors to register with the city.

Planning and Development Committee chair Christine Fahl brought up the subject after concerns had been raised about the costs of such a program.

In February, Fahl first brought up the concept of requiring all contractors who work within city limits to go through a registration process. City Auditor Kathy Hecht and Athens Code Enforcement Director John Paszke developed preliminary details of the proposal.

On Monday, Paszke said that a proposed $100 registration fee came from city code figures for plumbers and electricians.

He said that contractors would see a very similar process to plumbers and electricians. The city would not make a distinction between part-time and full-time contractors, he said.

Third Ward council member Nancy Bain suggested a lower fee of perhaps $25 to encourage cooperation.

"I would think we would get more if we lowered the price a little bit," she said.

Hecht said that she and Paszke had discussed lower fees, and are willing to work with that possibility. She also clarified that the city would only be doing a registration of the contractors, and not any sort of other check.

At-large council member Elahu Gosney asked about a scenario where a contractor might be registered with the city, but have a number of complaints about the work they've done.

"That's one of the main reasons to have this is because then we have a tracking mechanism," Hecht said. "That's probably the main reason that this discussion started with council. It's for the community so that the city could be responsive to people who come in and knock on doors and want to do work and the occupants don't know anything about them."

Paszke said that if the city receives a number of complaints about a given contractor and quality of workmanship, then they could decide from year to year whether to renew the contractor's license.

"Obviously, you could have a complaint from somebody, and they might just not be happy with the work and actually it was OK," he said. "So it would have to be a good compounded argument."

While the decision would be made in the code enforcement office, he sad, it would be a transparent process.

Gosney expressed a concern that a single person would have the power to deny the registration of contractors in the city.

Paszke said that he understands this concern and suggested writing some sort of policy into the code if it's adopted.

"If the contractor completed the project, is state licensed and paid his taxes, but if the homeowner isn't happy with it, I don't see where that's a reason to take away their [registration]," he said.

Hecht said that one reason that this discussion began is that a lot of people around Athens are knocking on doors and asking to do work. This registration process would help protect residents in that they could be assured to have contact information through the city with any contractor they hired.