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WABO Spring Quarterly Business Meeting Government Relations Committee Report The meeting began with a recap of WABO’s legislative proposals. Ron Newbry, WABO’s now retired lobbyist, accurately surveyed the legislators prior to the start of the session and reported back that “any proposal with funding or unfunded mandates will not be considered”. A wait and see position was adopted with the exception of the apprenticeship funding bill which was dropped but never received a hearing or support. An interesting note concerning our legislative proposal to require L & I to enforce the energy code provisions was picked up by the staffer within the Governor’s office. It was reported back that a meeting would be scheduled with L & I and that they would enforce the energy code. We opted not to drop our legislation figuring it was handled internally. Should your jurisdiction find L & I is not enforcing energy provision, please share your finding with us. This fall, we will review our proposals for inclusion at the next legislative session. Tom Echols, our interim lobbyist, reported his thoughts and findings on the legislature. Funding for the SBCC remains to be reconciled between the House and Senate versions with a wide margin of difference. Tom expected the Governor to call legislators into special session. Ray Allshouse, WABO member and SBCC president, spoke about the upcoming meeting May 15, when the council will be discussing their “process improvement” regarding Washington State Amendments. Ray also spoke briefly about SBCC funding in the legislature. A sign-in sheet was circulated to form two sub-committees of governmental relations. First, a group will quickly form to provide positive input to the SBCC process review. This group will rapidly put together suggestions for inclusion at the May 15 SBCC meeting. The second group, will develop online WABO internal voting/polling policies and procedures. This is a valuable tool for WABO as our organization needs to have legislative positions on bills dropped within 5-7 days that impact our industry. We must be prepared to support or oppose proposals at their first hearing. This group will report progress at our next meeting in Bremerton June 27-28, 2013, with presentation of their work for membership approval at our fall business meeting October 17-18, 2013 in Chelan, WA. WABO membership has the opportunity to provide positive input to the SBCC review. Online voting/polling is a needed tool for us legislatively. If you missed the Leavenworth meeting but would like to help out on either/both committees, please email me at [email protected]. _____________________________________________________ Certification and Registration Committee There was a light turnout at the meeting that started at 9:30 AM. Jerry Abson, City of Seattle, told local Special Inspection agencies that beginning with the implementation of the 2012 IBC, they will no longer be approving Steel Fabricator Shops and will be directing them to WABO. 1705.16 Fire-resistant penetrations and joints. A new section in the 2012 IBC now requires special inspection for fire stopping. There is no program in place to approve the special inspectors. The question was asked if we need to develop a program for certifying this group of inspectors. If so, it won’t get done before July 1, 2013, the date the 2012 IBC would be implemented. Having looked at some of the different manufacturer’s products and installation instructions, it seems to be a huge undertaking. Each manufacture has their own specific instructions for the application of their product and each product can be different. I am not sure how to develop a program that would cover all the bases. I have been in contact with Kraig Stevenson, ICC, and he wrote that ICC and BIPS were working on the development of a special inspection certification for fire stopping. Not sure when this will be available. Jack Fingold of Sound Fire and Life Safety Inspection Services, LLC will be at the next C&R meeting in Bremerton for the Annual Business Meeting. He is doing the fire stopping inspections and has expressed an interest in helping WABO determine the best path regarding 1705.16. We talked about the Welding examiners re-certifying. The question was, “should the examiners who do not currently hold an AWS/CWI be required to obtain those certifications?” It was decided since there weren’t any issues showing up on this we would leave it as is. We also talked about bringing the requirements for re-certifications in line with the rest of WABO’s registrations for welders, key personnel and special inspectors and require the re-certification to be done annually. This would make it consistent with the rest of the rest of the people needing re-certification. We only have two building officials on the Welder Advisory Board and need to have at least three. This was brought to the membership Friday morning and asked that we get volunteers. The meetings are held at Bates Technical College and there is the possibility to phone in to the meeting to limit any need for travel. _________________________________________________
The Emergency Management Committee discussed the following:
The committee reviewed and provided final comments for the draft Emergency Response Deployment Procedure. Click here to read final report _________________________________________________ Education Committee This year’s Education Institute was a great success with over with 1050 in attendance. The success of the Institute is primarily because of our professional management staff and their hard work for WABO. This year we received substantial reviews of instructors and suggestions for future offerings at the Institute. We will not be lacking in ideas. In looking forward to the 2014 Institute (off cycle), there will be an opportunity to offer training on non-code related topics. This would be training that will help personal growth for inspectors in code administration. There is more to being a successful inspector or plans examiner than just knowing the codes. Some of this training could be woven into the apprenticeship training program so more for discussion at a later date. Other agenda topics were not explored due to a continuous discussion on the new energy code. The concerns of many of us that are tasked with this code seem to pour out whenever it is mentioned. Gary Nordeen from WSU Extension service discussed the many training offerings they will be hosting both for the residential and non-residential portions of the code. If you have a facility that you can provide, he will come and provide energy code training. In addition to the many worksheets they provide for use by jurisdictions, they are working on a prescriptive worksheet for sizing of heating and cooling equipment. This will attempt to simplify the process in ACCA Manual S. and other calculation methodologies - if this is even possible. |
Washington Association of Building Officials
PO Box 7310, Olympia, WA 98507
Phone: (360) 628-8669
Email: [email protected]
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