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WABO 2016 Spring Quarterly Meeting - Leavenworth
Enzian Inn Putting Course (photo by Mike Noot) WABO PRESIDENT’S REPORT - by Jonathan C. Siu, PE, SE, ACO
When you honored me by electing me to be the president of our organization, I made an acceptance speech (thanks, Gary!) that emphasized four points: 1) maintain and strengthen WABO’s position as leaders in excellence in building and life safety; 2) we will work with anyone in a collaborative way; 3) support for you, the members of WABO; and my theme for my tenure, 4) Be Involved. For those of you who are not sports fans, forgive me, but I’d like to look at how we did in terms of a football team. If we look at what we’ve done as a team in all four areas, we haven’t scored many touchdowns, but we’ve at least advanced the ball in nearly all areas. Yes, we’ve scored a few touchdowns:
We’ve made first downs and advanced the ball in other areas, for example:
We’ve at least held our field position in the ICC arena, where we continue to be influential and well-respected in the political and code development areas (thanks to Gary Schenk and Lee Kranz, respectively). In addition, many of you individual members are continuing to work inside and outside the WABO community to further our mission. Unfortunately, we lost some yardage with our proposed apprenticeship program, but through Andy Higgins’ leadership, we are looking to turn it around and reconstitute it as a certification program. What does the future hold for WABO? If you were at the Spring Quarterly Meeting in Leavenworth, for the immediate future, you heard we’re looking at providing educational opportunities in the eastern part of the state just before the Fall Quarterly meeting. We’re exploring a slightly more formalized mentoring system for newcomers to the quarterly meetings. We’re exploring closer ties with the International Accreditation Service (a subsidiary of ICC), as related to our steel fabricator registration program. And finally, we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with the fallout of the Oregon Building Officials Association’s decision to pull out of the special inspection registration business. The long-term future will be determined by our next presidents, who will have his (or her!) own agendas—and you, the membership. I end my last report to you with the same challenge I issued to you when I started this journey: BE ACTIVE. BE AN INFLUENCE. BE INVOLVED. What will you do to be active, be an influence, or be involved? Our collective actions, individually and as a team, will determine WABO’s future and the future of our profession. Thank you for allowing me to serve you these past 2 years.
Wabonians enjoying pizza Committee ReportsTechnical Code Development Committee - Chair Lee Kranz Group B Code Cycle The Technical Code Development Committee has been busy writing and evaluating code change proposals to be prepared for the Group B Committee Action Hearings in Louisville, KY from April 17th through the 27th. Group B includes: Admin, IWUIC, IFC, IRC Bldg. & Energy, IECC Commercial and IBC Structural. Email Lee or Maureen if you would like a current list of our proposals and other code change proposals we intend to support, oppose or monitor and take further action, as needed, during the public testimony phase. Voting on Group B assembly actions will begin on May 11th and TCD will email our Voting recommendations in early May that members. Two TCD scholarships were approved for WABO members to attend the hearings in Louisville. Please contact Committee Chair, Lee Kranz, if you are interested in submitting a scholarship to attend the ICC Public Comment Hearings to be held in Kansas City, MO starting on October 18, 2016. TCD is always looking for volunteers to help with code development. Please check the WABO website for our meeting schedule. You can attend in person (in Bellevue) or telecommute. What’s happening on the Marijuana TAG? John Darnall is representing WABO on the SBCC Marijuana TAG addressing concerns expressed by industry representatives, fire and building code officials. John gave a presentation to WABO members that attended the quarterly meeting in Leavenworth. There are several changes proposed. One possibility is to create two or three different risk levels for processing and extraction facilities. WABO TCD was successful in getting clarity in the State Building Code on how to classify marijuana grow (Group U) and processing/extraction (F-1) facilities. The TAG has an aggressive schedule and should be concluding their work by the end of May. Maureen Traxler is retiring After approximately 15 years of exceptional service to the WABO Technical Code Development Committee Maureen is retiring. She has provided invaluable guidance in code development and has made a significant positive impact on the codes used in Washington, the United States and internationally. Maureen has been a great mentor and friend to many of us who aspire to improve the codes we enforce and she will be greatly missed.
John Darnall reports on the Marijuana Tag. Education Committee - Vice-Chair Gary Schenk The meeting of the Education Committee started off with a recap of the WABO Annual Education Institute event that was held last month in SeaTac. This event was the largest one ever held by WABO and the responses to the class offerings were positive with over 1,300 class seats filled. Many of the classes filled up long before the event which prompted a discussion for additional training opportunities this year. The committee looked at some of the class offerings for the remainder of 2016 in order to determine if additional training opportunities would be welcomed, if provided. MBP.com is offering IRC, IBC and IECC training in early June in Sammamish; The Western Washington Chapter and ICC Region 2 are jointly offering training in the 2015 IBC Means of Egress, 2015 IBC Accessibility of Usability for Commercial Buildings, and the 2015 IMC/IFGC/UPC Significant Changes with IPC Comparisons in late June in Kent; the Olympic Chapter is offering code classes in early May in Bremerton and it is reported that those classes should now be full. All training opportunities are posted on the WABO website for further information. The committee decided that training in conjunction with the timing of the fall WABO Quarterly Meeting in Spokane would be of value to the eastern part of the state and since it would be immediately before the WABO meeting, others would be enticed to attend as well if their intent was to catch both events in one trip. Currently, three 2-hour classes on residential sprinklers, Type 1 hoods, and fire/smoke dampers would fill out one day of training. A second day will be added that will cover a topic of local interest, and this will be determined with a polling by Greg Colvig, City of Pullman, and Ryan Edwards, Simpson Strong Tie, to determine what that will be. The training is intended to be held at a facility that is of no cost to WABO and the expenses will be held to a minimum in order to keep the training very affordable. For the members in the Spokane area, please offer some ideas of where that could be. A request was also received through the WABO office for a firestopping class that would be provided through an outside entity that is deemed to be an expert in the field. Since the program for a new special inspector certification is still in development, it was determined that attendance numbers would not be great enough at this time to warrant one, but it will be revisited again in the future. On behalf of Chairman Nordtvedt, who could not be with us, thank you to all that attended and made this meeting productive.
Government Relations - Chair Dave Spencer The 2016 legislative session adjourned on March 29, after lawmakers adopted a supplemental budget and overrode the vetoes of 27 bills Governor Inslee had vetoed at the end of the first regular session. During the legislative session WABO had two bills that it was eventually able to have introduced. Those bills were:
SSB 6284 went through both the House and the Senate without a single vote in opposition to it. It then became one of the 27 bills that were vetoed. During the extended legislative session, Amy Brackenbury, our lobbyist and I worked to get the bill overridden. We were ultimately successful and the bill will now become law this year. HB 2810 died in its committee. The WABO Legislative committee, Amy and many WABO Board members also worked to introduce legislation for immunity from liability for our Emergency Management role. This unfortunately didn’t move forward, nor get introduced in a bill form for this year. We hope to continue the dialog with others and work towards future legislation. Many other pieces of legislation were followed by the Legislative Committee and Amy our lobbyist this year. Some of those were:
Of these bills only SHB 2443 was passed. This bill did not affect the WABO membership, but it did provide for us to have a seat and voice on an L & I factory assembled structures committee for our input and expertise on aspects on the new legislation. In the next year’s legislative session, many of the topics and subjects listed will likely come up again. One critical key piece of legislation is the state building code council. There needs to be a long term solution found to the finical budget shortfalls of the council. As the council will continue to encounter these shortfalls year after year until a long-term solution is found. The Legislative committee did great work this year and many WABO members stepped up to take the challenge to get involved. I would like to personal thank the members of the committee, Amy, and the WABO board for all of their efforts this year on various pieces of legislation. I look forward to the upcoming year’s legislative session and believe we can continue to make great strides in making a difference. The committee will continue to work and follow many of the continuing issues from this year’s legislative positions paper. Some of those are:
Outreach Committee - Chair Todd Blevins The WABO Outreach committee met in Leavenworth Wa during the WABO Spring Business Meeting on April 14. We had a great discussion on getting the WABO name out. I have continued to pair up with Simpson –Tie, offering to provide them with Building Officials willing to go with them to scheduled programs at high schools, tech programs and colleges, the purpose is to provide students in the building, engineering, and architecture trade programs with information on the code enforcement and plan review employment options available to them. As the apprenticeship program is being developed, I am hopeful that this will keep the WABO name in the minds of our future inspectors, plan reviewers, permit techs and building officials. Our other topic of discussion was the continuation of mentoring those already in the industry. As our building officials and others are reaching retirement age, we could very well see a decrease in membership unless we start attracting those in our state that do not participate in WABO. We have started off on the right foot by offering a scholarship to first time attendees to see what WABO is all about. After a great discussion, it was decided that although we are getting first timers to come , they may not understand everything that is happening during our business meeting. Which is where you all can become involved in our outreach program. We would like mentors to volunteer to meet with first timers and explain the process at our meetings, introduce them to other Building Officials, help them develop contacts that they can use throughout their career, etc. I know this was beneficial to me since I became a member of WABO. If you are interested in being a mentor please email me and I will be pairing up mentors and first timers together prior to our meetings. If you are not a First timer, but would like to be paired with someone with more experience (politically correct verbiage for old timer) to better understand how WABO works please feel free to contact me and I would be glad to set you up. My email is [email protected]. Let’s all work to make a better, more energized, WABO membership! |
Washington Association of Building Officials
PO Box 7310, Olympia, WA 98507
Phone: (360) 628-8669
Email: [email protected]
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