Tuesday, October 29, :00 A.M. Physical Location: Third Floor Conference Room Large Side 1263 South Stewart Street Carson City, NV 89712

Transcription

1 NEVADA UCP MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS Carson Area Metropolitan Planning Organization Clark County Department of Aviation, McCarran International Airport Nevada Department of Transportation Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County Reno Tahoe Airport Authority (NUCP) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (ACDBE) NUCP MEETING MINUTES Tuesday, October 29, :00 A.M. Physical Location: Nevada Department of Transportation Third Floor Conference Room Large Side 1263 South Stewart Street Carson City, NV Conference Call Phone Number: (567) Passcode: The following is a summary of the Minutes taken from the NUCP meeting and is not a detailed verbatim transcription of the Minutes. I. Call to Order Roll Call Meeting was called to order by Chair Schuman at 10:00 a.m. Members Present: Yvonne Schuman, Chair Nevada Department of Transportation Pat Torvinen Nevada Department of Transportation Debbie Munoz, Vice Chair Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County Amy Shaw Clark County Department of Aviation Catherine Smith Clark County Department of Aviation Kathy Keever, Secretary Reno Tahoe Airport Authority Lois O Neil Reno Tahoe Airport Authority Laurie Weeks Reno Tahoe Airport Authority Graham Dollarhide CAMPO Others Present: Joan Woods ACC via telephone Kevin Resler FHWA via telephone Joyce Fegert SanRoc October 29, 2013 Meeting Minutes Page 1 of 7

2 Michael Springer Attorney for SanRoc Brandon Balkenbush SanRoc II. III. IV. Approval of Minutes of the September 24, 2013 Meeting (For Possible Action) Chair Schuman introduced this item and entertained comments from the committee and there was none. MOTION: Debbie Munoz SECOND: Graham Dollarhide Voting Aye: McCarran, NDOT, RTC Washoe Co., RTC Southern NV, Reno Tahoe, CAMPO Voting Nay: Abstaining: Vote: Unanimous Absent: ACTION: Minutes of the September 24, 2013 meeting were approved. Approval of Agenda (For Possible Action) Chair Schuman introduced this item and entertained comments from the committee and there was none. MOTION: Lois O Neil SECOND: Graham Dollarhide Voting Aye: McCarran, NDOT, RTC Washoe Co., RTC Southern NV, Reno Tahoe, CAMPO Voting Nay: Abstaining: Vote: Unanimous Absent: ACTION: Agenda for the October 29, 2013 meeting was approved. Public Comment (Opening Period) Chair Schuman requested comments from the public. She stated exchange during the New Business presentation will not be allowed, if anyone has anything to say Public Comment is the time. Mr. Michael Springer, attorney for Joyce Fegert with SanRoc asked, there is no presentation allowed? Chair Schuman stated no, you have three minutes during the public comment. Mr. Springer stated he just received the recommendation for the denial of SanRoc. The first was failure to approve affiliation with other companies. As a matter of law, Title 15 Subsection 80 of the US code requires a 5% ownership interest to legally say you are an affiliated company. An affiliation requires a common ownership of stock. There is no common ownership of stock. When Joyce s husband died, Joyce gave to her sons spinoff companies. They run them independently. They have separate tax returns. Joyce was requested to furnish tax returns for her son s businesses, that violates every privacy act the United States has. She has no access to those things. This department never asked her sons to produce voluntarily their tax returns of their companies. The affiliation idea is absolutely wrong in this recommendation. They own October 29, 2013 Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 7

3 and operate their own companies. They do, do business with SanRoc, but that does not create an affiliated company as a matter of law. The second ground for recommendation to deny is based on failure to provide adequate financial information. Joyce can tell you she supplied everything that was asked of her. The financial information has been provided. I don t even know from the paucity of information in the recommendation it doesn t tell me where the short coming was in the financial information of her company. But I know Joyce took over from her husband when he died and it has been her business ever since. I don t think there is anything to hide financially. She took inheritances, life insurance policies and has done quite well on her own. She owns the company and if there is something more that can be provided financially I d like to hear what it is that is missing. I haven t heard that and it doesn t tell me in this recommendation. So on both grounds the financial information being insufficient I disagree, if you want MIA appraisals of properties I think that is going beyond reality. Her financial information of the houses she owns, she has given the information of her Hawaiian property, I can tell you right now it s not worth anything. And most importantly these affiliations and independence of the company, there is absolutely nothing in the application or nothing in the investigation by this agency, there is nothing to show that the company is not independent, Joyce has provided everything. I firmly disagree that there is a reason to deny her application as set forth in the recommendations. There may be something else, but it is neither one of these issues. Joyce Fegert stated she stepped into the business before her husband died because he was ill. She had to pay off debt from Target, she paid $11,000 a month for 12 years because the mine shutdown, her husband was ill. She shut another mine down because they were going in the hole. She paid off Target and it s free and clear. It set there for two years and she told her son Jeff to take it and she kept SanRoc for herself to keep her own income. She poured all her inheritance back into the bills her husband had incurred. She buys from Farris Supply sometimes, and sometimes she ll buy from someone else that s all her affiliation is with her younger son, Kevin. She never owned his company. She got a team together to try to go forward with building her company back up. With a good team, she hired a new engineer; her son is working for her. She has a good superintendent on the job site. She would like to get more than the one job that she s got and she thought that getting her DBE status would give her a foot hold into public works. She s hoping to get certified as a DBE and SanRoc could sub for some of the bigger companies. Mr. Springer commented, just because SanRock has a qualifying employee under its license and it s not Joyce, Nevada Statues clearly allows that. It s NRS and 260 that s how you qualify for a contractors license, it has nothing to do with ownership. Mr. Brandon Balkenbush with SanRoc commented he just read the report and was trying to find where it says Ms. Fegert is never in the field and only in the office. He stated she does obviously do a lot of office work but she regularly takes trips to Silver Peak to keep an eye on what is going on. He knows there was a period of time when she was doing that all the time. He said the report says that she has only had one infield experience but she has been out there quite a bit and he could testify to that. October 29, 2013 Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 7

4 Chair Schuman said thank you to the public. V. New Business a. Nevada Department of Transportation Certification Review: i. Foothillz Photographic dba Vantage Point Global (DBE) Las Vegas (for Possible Action) Chair Schuman introduced this item and Pat Torvinen reviewed the agenda materials. Ms. Torvinen entertained comments/questions from the committee and there was none. MOTION: SECOND: Voting Aye: Voting Nay: Abstaining: Vote: Absent: ACTION: Kathy Keever Amy Shaw McCarran, NDOT, RTC South, RTC Washoe, Reno Tahoe, CAMPO Unanimous Approve DBE certification of Foothillz Photographic dba Vantage Point Global ii. SanRoc, Inc. (DBE) Reno (For Possible Action) Chair Schuman introduced this item and Pat Torvinen reviewed the agenda materials. NDOTs recommendation was to deny certification. NDOT could not determine if the eligibility standards of 49 CFR Part 26 had been met due to insufficient information to determine personal net worth and gross receipts average and lack of responsiveness to requests for information to determine affiliations and independence of the company. Ms Torvinen also stated it is correct that the state law states a business has to have a qualified employee in order to get a contractors license, however per 49 CFR Part 26 it states you go by what the state law requires, however, if the disadvantaged individual does not posses the license you can look at that as far as control. Chair Schuman added other clarifying points in regards to Mr. Springer s comment regarding Title 15 US Code, she said it is not applicable to DBE regulations, the only rule that controls DBE certifications is 49 CFR Part 26. The same is true with questions of affiliations whether or not a company is affiliated with a DBE applicant; it is governed by what are in 49 CFR Part 26 and not any other rules. More specifically 49 Part 26.71h, in this case Ms. Fegert does not have the contractor s license. NDOT s review suggests that SanRoc is not eligible because Ms. Fegert does not have a contractors license; NDOT was unable to establish what Ms. Fegert s personal net worth is; and, NDOT was unable to establish what the average three year gross revenues were for the business. Ms. Shaw asked if in the individual tax return, was there a schedule C? Chair Schuman stated she does not remember what was in schedule C, or if there was a schedule C, she stipulated that there is no suggestion that Ms. Fegert currently owns either of those companies. It s an affiliation. There s an affiliation between SanRoc and Olympic. SanRoc leases or rents a truck from Olympic, which is another company October 29, 2013 Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 7

5 owned by one of her sons. Ms. Schuman said she is not making a suggestion that Ms. Fegert currently owns any of those companies, she clearly did own them previously and she gifted them to her children. Ms. Keever asked why they could not determine the value of the property in Hawaii. Chair Schuman stated how do you determine the market value of the property, you have to get something. Ms. Keever asked did you ask for something and that was not provided to you? Ms Schuman stated they did, they have the tax returns which every property owner knows that the assessed value for property taxes is quite different from market value and NDOT could not use that. They requested a market value, they provided Ms. Fegert with some guidance and direction on where that could be obtained and it was not provided. Instead NDOT was given MLS listings for other properties and they have no idea what the relationship to those properties are to the applicant s property. NDOT needed some sort of indicia of current market value and none was provided. Ms. Keever asked if NDOT went out to the work site. Ms. Torvinen stated no, they only have one current contract which is at the mine in Silver Peak. Ms Torvinen did go to Ms. Fegert s home where she has an office that is dedicated to SanRoc. Ms. Torvinen interviewed Ms. Fegert, her son Keith, and Brandon. Ms. Keever asked what PNW information was not provided? Chair Schuman stated the value of the Hawaiian property. Ms. Fegert did include the value from her tax statement but it wasn t in the real estate portion, it was in other personal property. Ms. Keever asked in regards to the other tax returns, did SanRoc fail to provide them? Ms. Schuman stated they were not provided. Ms. Torvenen stated they did receive one years tax returns from Target and that was all. Ms. Keever asked if SanRoc cooperated fully with your request. Ms. Schuman stated no, we did not get the information. Ms. Keever cited 49 CFR Part which states DBE firms seeking DBE certification shall cooperate fully with NDOTs requests for certification process, failure or refusal to provide such information is a ground for denial or removal of certification. Ms. O Neil asked if the certification could be tabled in order for SanRoc to get the additional Hawaii property value and find out the PNW. Ms. Schuman asked SanRoc attendees to not comment at this time, it is not time for public comment. Mr. Springer stated this is not public comment this is applicant participation, just for the record. Chair Schuman responded to Ms. O Neil s question and stated we have asked for the tax returns from the affiliated companies, we were only provided one year from one company and none for the other years we were unable to determine whether the applicants businesses meets the revenue cap for the DBE goals. On the PNW side we ve requested documentation of current market value of that specific property, we have given guidance and direction to Ms. Fegert on how that may be obtained and we were not provided a copy of the market value of that particular property. We were unable to determine if she meets the PNW cap. Are you requesting that we table so Ms. Fegert has additional time to still provide the documentation that has previously been October 29, 2013 Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 7

6 requested and not provided or should we go forward and act on the application in its current state? Ms. O Neil stated I would vote we table it and give SanRoc the opportunity to provide the documentation. MOTION: Amy Shaw SECOND: Lois O Neil Voting Aye: McCarran, NDOT, RTC South, RTC Washoe, Reno Tahoe, CAMPO Voting Nay: Vote: Unanimous Absent: ACTION: DBE certification of SanRoc, Inc. was tabled to the next UCP meeting in order to give SanRoc the opportunity to provide the information requested by NDOT. b. Reno Tahoe Airport Authority Certification Review i. Forever Heather, Inc. (ACDBE) Reno (For Possible Action) Chair Schuman introduced this item and Joan Woods with ACC reviewed the agenda materials. Ms. Woods entertained comments/questions from the committee. Ms. Schuman stated there was a mention of a $25,000 promissory note which the onsite says was repaid; I assume you have that documentation. Ms Woods indicated they have the documentation but for clarification, it was a loan and it was paid off. Ms. Schuman questioned the financials; you only list the sales for the one store but not for the six as it should be. Ms. Woods stated she did prepare a sales recap by location and it is well below the cap. MOTION: SECOND: Voting Aye: Voting Nay: Vote: Absent: ACTION: Debbie Munoz Amy Shaw McCarran, NDOT, RTC South, RTC Washoe, Reno Tahoe, CAMPO Unanimous Approve ACDBE certification of Forever Heather, Inc. VI. Discussion a. Small Business Enterprise (SBE) Updates Chair Schuman stated NDOT launched its SBE program October 1 st. They are issuing SBE applications and making them available on demand. For confirmation Ms Schuman indicated the SBE applications will be handled in the same general fashion as DBEs. NDOT is still working on their SBE contract language. Amy Shaw indicated McCarran s SBE application has been posted to their website. October 29, 2013 Meeting Minutes Page 6 of 7

7 b. Inclusion of PNW cap of $1.32 million on Certification Affidavit forms All members were in agreement of the inclusion of the PNW cap of $1.32 million on the Certification Affidavit forms. c. Certification Summary Form (Yvonne Schuman) Chair Schuman suggested all NUCP members to follow the same Certification Summary form used by McCarran. Amy Shaw will e mail form to committee. d. Potential date change for NUCP Meetings held in November 2013 and December 2013 The NUCP members agreed to combine the November and December 2013 meeting on December 10, Kathy Keever noted that at this meeting the committee will be voting for new 2014 officers. VII. Public Comment (Concluding Period) Mr. Balkenbush with SanRoc thanked the Board for not rejecting and for tabling SanRoc s application. Ms. Schuman informed Mr. Balkenbush there will not be a discussion, he could make public comment but he could not ask questions. She informed him that SanRoc can talk to NDOT after the meeting but it can not be part of the public comment period. Ms. Fegert said she has provided NDOT with the property tax statement of the Hawaiian land and what she paid; which is $30 per year. She said she provided NDOT with the MLS. She stated she talked to a real estate agent in Hawaii and he provided her with an MLS listing around her property area that was for sale. The Realtor indicated her property would probably go for $35,000. She stated she gave NDOT the listing from the Realtor. She said if you look on the tax key I provided, you can look up the lots that are around my property. If the property were double that value she said she would still be below her net worth. She didn t understand why her son s tax statements were required, they are separate corporations. They are totally separate from her; they have nothing to do with her. Her attorney said they are separate corporations. She is not affiliated with her sons. She is in charge of her own life and is trying to build it up. She moved her office to her house that she has had for 30 years because she could not afford an office building. She does have a small office out on the job site and NDOT chose to come to her house instead of the job site. She would have preferred to have them see the job, she has equipment there that they purchased over the years. She stated she is trying to build her company. Ms. Schuman thanked the public for their comments. VIII. Next Meeting: December 10, 2013 at 10:00 a.m. Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada Conference Room S. Grand Central Parkway Las Vegas, NV Adjournment Meeting adjourned at 11:06 a.m. October 29, 2013 Meeting Minutes Page 7 of 7