As an everyday citizen now, knowing what I know about the way the Nevada State Contractors' Board does business, I could—if I was that kind of person—use them to make a pool contractor build me a pool for free.
—Bob Macke, a former investigator with the Nevada State Contractors' Board who retired last year, after a near quarter-century of work.
Before Jim Alexander had been scheduled to defend himself before the Nevada State Contractors' Board (NSCB) on January 23, against a massive complaint charged against his contractor's license; before his heart problems had begun to exacerbate; before he'd had to start unloading equipment and selling land to maintain his attorneys' fees, now exceeding $700,000—
Before the staff at the NSCB had added 57 violations to the complaint against his license last November; before he had resolved within himself to fight to the end; before he, prior to that, had tried without success to surrender to the woman he believed to be behind the cataclysmal attack on his business, Margi Grein, executive director at the NSCB—
Before the staff had filed the complaint in the first place, with 74 initial violations, in June 2006; before he had sought every possible recourse from the NSCB, to no avail; before his business, Renaissance Pools and Spas, had begun to sink at the end of 2005, falling fast in sales and suffering irreparable damage to its reputation—
Before all that.
Before his doctor had told him that he would die if he did not relieve himself from his feud with the contractor's board; before Grein and her right-hand man, George Lyford, had ordered nine closed complaints on his record to be reopened and reinvestigated at the beginning of summer 2005; and before he campaigned for an appointment to the NSCB's actual seven-member board, which oversees all contractors in the state of Nevada—
Before all that, Jim Alexander didn't have any reason to complain.
"Before I tried to get on the contractors' board, I never even knew who Margi Grein was," says Alexander. His face and voice seem as if they've capitulated to the gravity of his 62 years. "I'd been one of the lucky ones."
Meaning that, except for one citation, which he handled with no problem, he had never been disciplined by the board.
Meaning that his success in the industry had been great. Since 1994, when Alexander, the son of a pool builder, established Renaissance Pools, he had experienced steady success—by 2004 he was the third most prodigious pool-builder in Southern Nevada. Five-hundred and fifty pools sold that year alone. An offer came in from an East Coast company that wanted to buy Renaissance for $10 million. The news media spread stories on his innovative product—one-piece fiberglass pool and spa shells, as opposed to the cement typical pool-builders work with—and he left in his trail hundreds of customers who were willing to testify to the upright quality of Alexander's service.
So lucky, Alexander says he felt, that he decided in the beginning of 2005 he would seek an appointment to the board, to replace a member who was stepping down. He says the rumblings in the wind were that pool-builders had been receiving unjust and discriminatory treatment from the board's staff, and because no one on the seven-member board came from a pool-building background, he felt he could provide a voice that was empathetic to his peers.
And then, in May 2005, just after he returned from Carson City, where he and his lawyer campaigned for Alexander's potential appointment to the board, misfortune came down in torrents, just like a summer monsoon.
Yet it did not pass.
"It's been like quicksand ever since," says Alexander.
There are more than 16,000 legitimate contractors in Nevada, and they are all licensed and regulated by the NSCB, an agency that derives its powers from state law but works with a $7 million budget generated by the contractors themselves, who pay licensing fees, renewal fees and, if the NSCB finds them to be in violation of state law, citation and investigative fees. The lucky ones don't have any stories about the NSCB, for they have managed to steer clear of the board, and of its staff, led by Grein and responsible for day-to-day operations. The unlucky ones, on the other hand, have many stories—most told as if they were nightmares, underlined by the same substantiated issues—and yet, they are afraid to recount them on record.
It's not just contractors who are afraid to speak in print. Employees, ex-employees, even some outside the contracting business: They say they fear retaliation from Grein and Lyford. Contractors are afraid to have closed complaints against their companies reopened, since every contractor knows that each open complaint against your license is detrimental to your business, and with enough of them, you may lose your license; and with Renaissance the board's regime has proven itself capable of reopening complaints. Current employees at the NSCB won't talk; they say they fear being fired if they do. Former employees anticipate harassment, litigation and other burdensome forms of repercussion, for they say they have witnessed it happen before. Those outside the contracting industry say they can do without the hassle.
"Their fear is very real," says Steve Holloway, the executive director of the Nevada chapter of the Associated General Contractors association, who, after giving unfavorable testimony in Carson City on one of Grein's endorsed legislative bills in 2005, encountered retaliatory threats against his organization's funding from Lyford. "There's plenty of evidence of Margi's vindictiveness, and everyone knows she wields a lot of power."
Margi Grein, an unimposing woman with short, stylish hair, black-rimmed glasses and a way of speaking that shifts from hospitable to caustic without transition, was hired by the seven board members in 1997, and she now oversees 75 employees split between NSCB offices in Reno and Henderson. Without equivocation she has earned the appreciation of many lawmakers and homeowners, and the respect of several people within the contracting industry, and in an interview for this story she says:
"I ask that you would keep in mind when you hear complaints [about us], that we oversee 16,000 licensed contractors in this state—so a few complaints isn't that overwhelming."
Grein, however, has declined direct comment for this story on all matters involving Renaissance, on account of pending litigation and a scheduled board hearing with the pool company. No matter. For both that pending litigation and scheduled board hearing have produced so much paperwork in the form of court documents and depositions that both sides of the story of the conflict between her and Jim Alexander are accessible.
In April 2005, around the time Alexander and his attorney traveled north to campaign for his potential appointment to the board, Margi Grein had made comment to Alexander's attorney at the time, Richard Peel, a political lobbyist and author of many laws governing pool-builders, that Renaissance was a "bad contractor." She cited the 70 complaints on its 10-year record as proof. This comment, according to documentation surrounding the case, might have caused Peel, son of a pool-builder who has represented several pool-builders, some concern. Not because of Renaissance's 70 complaints—for records show that all the state's big pool-builders at that time had similar if not greater numbers, and, moreover, that Renaissance was actually free of pending complaints during those first four months of 2005—but because he had come to feud with Grein over a version of a Senate bill regarding pool-builders in that same April. It was legislation irrelevant to Renaissance; yet, Peel, who like many in the pool industry had heard rumors that Grein ran pool attorney Keith Gregory out of town for getting on her bad side, made explicit to pool ombudsman Paul Easton in a letter dated June 27, 2005--about a month after "all hell broke loose on me," according to Alexander--his belief for the reasons behind the massive investigation of Renaissance ordered by Grein and her right-hand man, George Lyford:
"We further understand that your aggressive prosecution of Renaissance is directly attributable to: Mrs. Grein's stated dislike of Renaissance; Mrs. Grein and/or Mr. Lyford's mistaken belief that Renaissance supported the passage of Senate Bill 434; and Jim Alexander's possible appointment to a seat on the Contractor's Board."
Unfounded, Grein said in an affidavit taken of her in August 2005, regarding the allegations that she has abused her power as head of the board's staff. If Renaissance has incurred any misfortune, it's only because they've brought it upon themselves, through a lack of diligence and professionalism, her lawyers have said. Also through her lawyers, Grein has said that Renaissance's complaint history demonstrated a need for the all-out investigation. Lyford, who declined through a spokesperson to speak for this story, has stated that it all sparked from one homeowner complaint (filed in 2003) that led them to believe they had been improperly investigating Renaissance in the past.
Yet, few people within the NSCB know anything about the Renaissance case. Affidavits and depositions taken of several employees on the staff, including Lyford, blare a common theme: Nobody seems to know anything. Knowledge of facts and procedures are often deferred—"I don't know, sir, you'll have to ask ..."—as are many of the duties involved in opening, investigating and closing complaints.
"Everyone was kept in the dark about the Renaissance issue," says one former employee who had worked for the board for more than five years, and who says she has been threatened with litigation for talking before. "Everything is done real deceitfully around there."
Former assemblyman and contractor Lou Toomin says that he, in recent years, has developed an inordinate suspicion about the regime leading the board, above all because of secrecy. "I've been around government entities and politicians for 40 years now, and I've never seen such a secretive public agency," he says.
Grein spends most of her time in the NSCB's Henderson offices, where, several current and former employees say, she fortifies herself in her office, complete with a bathroom and a back entrance. With 16,000 licensed contractors to watch over, 75 employees to manage, two discipline hearings and one standard board hearing to prepare for each month, and an unprecedented case as massive as Renaissance's to handle, there is no doubt she is a busy woman.
"She works really hard," says NSCB spokesman Art Nadler. "We all take our jobs very seriously."
When Alexander had traveled up to Carson City in April 2005 seeking appointment to the board, records indicate he had no open complaints on his record. Meaning that all prior complaints—which are inevitable for a prodigious contractor—had either been resolved or closed by the board's staff. Soon after he returned to Las Vegas, however, 10 homeowner complaints appeared on his record, nine of which had been reopened by Grein's or Lyford's authorization. Alexander was thus ineligible by law to be appointed to the board.
Furthermore, Alexander's business took an immediate hit. His competitors advised potential customers to look at Alexander's record, which is made public by the board, which, unlike any other law-enforcement agency, disseminates unadjudicated charges. Moreover, that public record provides only raw numbers and gives no indication as to the ratio of pools built by a contractor to complaints filed against him. This means, for example, that a contractor who builds 10 pools a year and has five complaints looks better on record than the contractor who builds 500 and has 10 complaints.
Within 18 months, Alexander would lose more than half his customers. As of today, his business is generating less in total revenue than it did in profits in 2004. The attorneys for the board's staff, on behalf of their reticent clients, have stated that the whole pool industry is down 20 percent. Renaissance has sunk more than 75.
Alexander had no idea as to the extent of the power bestowed by state law onto the board's staff before Grein and Lyford had retrieved his file from the NSCB's Reno offices, reopened those nine closed cases and ordered them reexamined in the first week of June 2005. While the law provides the board no explicit permission to do this, Lyford, in court depositions, has said that nothing in NRS 624 explicitly precludes them from doing so, either. It shocked Alexander, a former police officer, when the board's staff, soon thereafter, served him with subpoenas for the documents surrounding seven of those cases. He was bewildered when the staff forced him to complete two projects he had withdrawn from, on account of the homeowners stopping payments, and to finish them without getting paid. And he was beside himself with the manner in which the staff's new pool ombudsman—Paul Easton, who had been promoted to that position, despite only a year's experience with the board's staff, that first week of June—investigated his cases in the summer of 2005. On at least three occasions Renaissance never received a copy of the complaint filed against them, a violation of due process. With one of them, Easton called Renaissance to inform Alexander and his wife, Tanya, treasurer of the company, of a scheduled site inspection the next day (which are required for all workmanship complaints, to be attended by the inspector, the homeowner, the licensee and, if desired, counsel). The conversation between Easton and Tanya Alexander was recorded:
Easton: I'm calling to let you know I'm going to the [name withdrawn] residence at 10 o'clock, and [name withdrawn] at 1:30.
Alexander: Do you have anything you can fax to me?
Easton: No. There's nothing official in writing, this is just to let you know.
Alexander: Okay, hold on please, let me write this down. And, can you explain to me—we don't have a copy of the official complaint. Can you fax it to me?
Easton: You should be getting one in the mail.
Alexander: But I would like to read it before I go to the site.
Easton: I'll be there tomorrow. If you're there, you're there; if you're not, you're not.
Alexander: Can you please fax me the complaint?
Easton: You should be getting it in the mail.
Alexander: Well, I want to read it before I go. That's my right.
Easton: We'll be able to talk about this tomorrow. If you want to be there, be there. If you don't, don't. Now, I'm asking you if you want to come and defend yourself, you can.
Alexander: But it's my right to have the complaint.
Easton: Well, I don't have time today.
Alexander: Well, I'll call Chris Denning [his supervisor]—
At which point Easton says, "Have a nice day," and hangs up. (To this day Renaissance has never received the complaint for that project.)
And for good reason. The lawyer whom Alexander paid $33,000 to draft his contract, Richard Peel, author of several laws governing pool-builders, had brought the completed contract to NSCB investigator Bob Welch and Deputy Director Chris Denning before advising his client to employ it—and both said it was one of the best contracts they'd ever seen. "In general, those IR (industry regulation) violations are harmless," says Bob Macke, a recent retiree from the board, who investigated some 15,000 cases during his tenure there, almost a quarter-century. "And if you were to scrutinize any other pool-builder's contract the way investigators were instructed to go after [Alexander's], I'm sure you could find just as many. Jim was unlucky."
Especially because the Legislature did not have his product in mind when they conceived the laws, says the current employee. He's referring to Alexander's one-piece fiberglass pool shells, and as an example he cites the law on front-loading, which prohibits a pool-builder from charging more than $1,000 or 10 percent of the contract (whichever is less) before completing the first stage of work. In his interpretation of the law, Lyford went as far as to issue a memo to investigators on June 2, explicitly instructing them that contractors could not charge the price of a pool shell prior to installation. Alexander is the only steady pool-shell seller in town.
"These shells can cost between $8,000 and $15,000," says Alexander. "When we buy them with our own money and the customer decides the next day he wants to go to one of our competitors instead, we're in the hole. That's happened to us more than a few times. That's why Arizona has exceptions to its front-loading laws to allow companies like mine that install fiberglass pools to remain in business."
Alexander took his concerns over these matters to District Court in October 2005. He was seeking recourse from the NSCB, for since June he had completed all work (even when unpaid) on projects for which the board ordered issues to correct, and he had offered to pay off all plausible citation fines and investigators' fees to clear his record of the complaints; but the board persisted. He had no luck with District Court, either. The judge, stating that Renaissance needed to exhaust all administrative remedies, sent Alexander back to the NSCB to have his matters heard before the seven-member board.
The board heard his concerns, in the form of 13 questions posed in a hypothetical manner, on February 16, 2006, during a hearing that was packed wall-to-wall. Grein, Lyford and their counsel were there; several NSCB investigators were there ("at Margi's direction," says Macke); and several of the homeowners who had originally filed complaints with the NSCB against Renaissance were there, having received letters in the mail warning them that their specific cases might be impacted. Also there was a crew of happy customers Alexander had brought for support, and various contractors who wanted to hear what the board had to say on those 13 issues.
The news media was there, too, and it captured abridged versions of Alexander's story, and of Grein's side, and it reported that the board would render its written interpretation of the 13 matters posed by Renaissance the following month.
The board did just that, stating, in essence, that Grein and her staff, under law, had the right to do everything Alexander questioned.
Bob Macke says that the chief problem with the regime at the contractor's board is the way they interpret the laws.
Like any set of laws, the ones specifically governing pool contractors are not black and white. They are open to interpretation. Several contractors, employees and lawyers who spoke for this story, on and off the record, say Grein not only interprets the laws to her advantage, but also retains private attorneys to do the same.
Former Attorney General Brian Sandoval had raised this issue in the media a few years ago, when he suggested attorneys from his office should be representing the NSCB, as they do most government boards and agencies. For not only would his attorneys cost less than half the hourly price Grein's private attorneys charge (which is still true today), they, as a separate governing body, would also keep the board and its staff in check.
According to several opponents of the board, including Jim Alexander, private attorneys are the central issue; for the opponents say they would have no problems with the Board if it were kept in check by attorneys who interpeted the laws in an objective manner.
Grein says her private attorneys are preferable to full-time counsel from the AG, because they are intimate with the law. "Dennis' expertise can't be replaced," she says of her attorney, Dennis Haney, who has more than 20 years of experience in the field. Moreover, Grein says that the AG has a history of shuffling different attorneys in and out, which isn't conducive to mastering the many crucial laws governing the contracting industry.
Alexander's second try for recourse through District Court came on August 31, 2006, more than 15 months after his misfortune first began brewing. During that time his and his wife's anxiety catalyzed into sheer desperation, for they had concluded that no matter what they did, it would be impossible to escape the board's continual onslaught of charges, as evidenced by the complaint with which Grein served them in June 2006, a quarter-inch thick with 74 listed violations. And so Alexander, his business descending and his employees jumping ship, sought to take the NSCB to court.
Through his lawyer at the time, Kevin Stolworthy, of the Jones Vargas firm, Alexander told the judge that the contractors' board was both prosecuting and persecuting him unjustly—that the way in which the board was interpreting the laws against him was unconstitutional and the reason they were doing so, in such massive fashion, was Grein's personal vendetta against him. The court didn't rule on any of that, but rather, it said Alexander had still failed to exhaust all administrative remedies.
In other words, Alexander had to return to the NSCB's jurisdiction, to have his complaint—with its 74 alleged violations at the time—heard before the board.
"Which means he is going to lose," says a former NSCB investigator who speaks anonymously. "With the way the board works, the contractor loses 80 to 90 percent of the time. Just look at the minutes."
According to the minutes of the last three discipline hearings posted on the NSCB's website, 17 contractors of various disciplines had their cases heard before the board, and all 17 were found guilty, each incurring fines and investigative fees, and some ordered to pay restitution costs or contribute to the board's recovery fund for homeowners.
The general consensus in the contracting industry is that when Grein took over the helm at the NSCB in 1997, a shift in philosophy occurred, and during her reign the NSCB has become more and more intent on advocating for homeowners. There is no doubt that Grein and her staff have done a lot of good by the public, nor that there are thousands of homeowners who have testified to this.
"We really do break our back to help people," says Art Nadler, NSCB spokesman. Staff employees attend home shows, set up stings to catch unlicensed contractors and, according to the agency's budget for the fiscal year 2005-2006, contributed $140,000 of their combined $3.2 million in salary to the recovery fund for defrauded homeowners.
"But they go overboard," says the former investigator. "It's a guilty-until-proven-guilty situation. They're getting behind the homeowner to the demise of good contractors trying to make an honest living."
Macke, who doesn't fear speaking on record because he has already taken his former employers to court (for firing him after he reported on them on an unrelated issue) and won, says Grein made her allegiances clear to investigators while he was on staff with this austere instruction:
"If there's ever any doubt, always side with the homeowner."
This is not a new issue. In 2000, the Las Vegas Sun reported on investigator claims that they were being sent out to inspection sites with the instruction to not come back until they found something wrong. Macke says the same mentality abounds today. Especially because the heads of the regime—Grein, Lyford and chief of enforcement Daniel Hammack, a former high-ranking Nevada Highway Patrol officer, through at least one of whom each and every complaint must pass—all come from law-enforcement backgrounds, and none has any construction experience with which to empathize with contractors.
With this knowledge, Alexander was utterly resigned when Judge David Wall sent his case back to the board. So he acquiesced to the advise of his lawyer, Kevin Stolworthy, and proposed a settlement, offering the board $50,000—equal to the most the board had ever collected from a single contractor before—to bring an end to his stress.
According to Alexander, his attorney spoke to Grein's attorney, Dennis Haney, and came back with this report: "Haney said if it were up to him, he would settle. If it were up to staff counsel David Brown, he would settle. But Margi doesn't want to settle. She is emotionally involved."
Stolworthy was not available to confirm this statement, nor could the board or its attorneys comment on anything involving Renaissance.
Unlike other state agencies, says Lou Toomin, the way things are set up, there's no recourse for someone who feels the board's leadership is abusing its power. Alexander's case is a pertinent example of what he means. Richard Peel, Alexander's initial lawyer, tried to communicate his client's concerns to the seven members of the board, by whom Grein is hired and to whom she is supposed to be accountable. One of the board members reproached Peel for trying to prejudice the board before his client's hearing. Alexander and Peel twice sought the help of the governor's office, to whom the board is accountable, and were shunned, according to Alexander, who had also beseeched the ACLU of Nevada to no avail. Stolworthy had dissuaded him from reaching out to the FBI or AG's office. And on this day District Court Judge David Wall sent his case back to the board's playing field—"where it's their rules, their officials, their judges, their everything," says Toomin.
The board had originally set Alexander's discipline hearing for that September. But then Alexander, who has stents in his heart, went to see a doctor in Southern California about his worsening condition, and the doctor issued a note prescribing 90 days of unperturbed rest. Grein extended the hearing by 60 days. And then, she hit Alexander's license with 57 more violations on November 1, and gave him until this month to, along with his new lawyer, Eugene Backus, prepare his defense.
Renaissance's public file reflected 25 open complaints, and customers left messages on the company's phones stating that they had just looked up Renaissance's record and were now seeking another builder.
It was at this point that Alexander recited a pledge to himself that he would fight these charges to the end; that if his ship was to sink, he would sink with it, resisting with the last of his breath.
"I'm a fighter," says Alexander. "My attorney likes to say they grabbed the tiger by the tail and now the tiger is biting back."
Jim Alexander is an anomaly because he has enough clout to endure the fight.
"Other contractors just don't have the money to fight the board," says Neil Davis, a licensed contractor in Nevada since 1973. "The attorneys' fees alone will break you. I heard Jim at Renaissance has already spent more than $700,000 on lawyers, or something ludicrous like that."
It's true. He has liquidated various assets to stay afloat, and he says he is prepared to spend more than $1 million by the time it's all said and done.
During his career, Alexander has never been popular amongst his peers. His audacious infomercials, his outspoken nature and his irrepressible arrogance make him difficult to like, many say. Yet, several pool-builders have rallied around him. Few, though, have done so in public.
"I don't need that target on my back," says one pool-builder in good standing with the board's staff. "I saw what happened to everyone who signed Jim's paper—I don't need any of that."
He's referring to the February 2006 board hearing, in which Alexander posed 13 questions and several contractors attended to hear the board's responses. Alexander had offered them a document that, if signed, did not demonstrate support for Alexander's case, but rather, a desire to hear the board's say on those 13 matters. Ten pool-builders signed, and it was presented to the NSCB. Since then, all 10 have come under scrutiny in some fashion or another from the staff.
Owner of SwanPools, Bryan Gorman, who, like Alexander and all the contractors contacted for this story, has provided meticulous documentation to substantiate his defense, had signed Alexander's document. And in October 2006, the board's staff served Gorman with a complaint containing 76 causes of action—all IR violations.
Gorman's contract was drafted by Richard Peel, and his current attorney is Peel's old law partner.
One pool-builder, who pleaded to have his name kept from print for fear of losing his business ("the only means I have of supporting my family") claims that soon after that February hearing an investigator from the NSCB showed up at his offices and demanded that he turn over his books, even though the contractor's record has always been pristine. The pool contractor obliged, confident in both his integrity and his diligence. Before leaving, the investigator, sent by Daniel Hammack, commented before witnesses on how sharp the contractor had kept his books. "Then what was all of this for?" the pool contractor asked. "To dispel rumors," the investigator said.
Kenny Caouette, of Water Creations, who has been in the business as a licensed contractor for more than 30 years, also signed the sheet. He now has a case pending before the board. One of his employees built a pool for $90,000 without a license, without Caouette's permission and without using Water Creation's name at any time. All checks were made to the employee personally. Even though the homeowner, in obtaining a Henderson permit to have his pool dug, signed a notarized document stating he would not hire an unlicensed contractor, it is Caouette whom the board has held responsible, Caouette says. They have issued his plaster company to do repairs on the homeowner's deck.
"Now I have a horror story with the board like everyone else," he says.
"It's not just a Renaissance issue—it's an issue affecting the whole pool industry," says Darren Colman, a pool-equipment supplier who works with many of the region's pool companies. "It's much bigger than Renaissance."
The laws themselves are the problem, says a former NSCB investigator who quit because he "got tired of the bullshit—it just wasn't right," and who wishes to speak in anonymity because he believes Grein and Lyford possess the power to take away his current job with a mere phone call. He points out that Alexander has been charged, among other petty things, with listing in his contracts the number of days it would take at most to complete any given stage of a pool instead of calculating the corresponding date.
"[The laws] are onerous, and only one sector of the contracting industry has to abide by them," the former investigator says.
Neil Davis agrees. "It's ludicrous what pool-builders have to do to follow industry regulations. If they don't use exactly 10-point bold font in their contracts, it's a violation. If the owner of the whole company doesn't sign the contract, it's a violation. There's a whole litany of them. And it only applies to pool-builders. If someone ever challenged these laws in the Supreme Court, I'm sure they'd be ruled unconstitutional."
The laws applying specifically to pool-builders, passed in the 1997 and 2001 legislative sessions, were a response to public and media pressure that mounted in the latter half of the '90s, when Las Vegas' suburbs were booming and numerous miscreant pool-builders were performing shoddy work, or, even worse, taking homeowners' money up front and running with it, leaving what one senator called a lot of empty holes in the ground. A new chapter emerged in the NRS, and its provisions addressed the miscreants' deeds.
Toomin, president of his own pool company back then, was one of the guys asking for the pool industry to be cleaned. "Because those bad guys, who were few, hurt us good guys," he says. "‘Pool-builder' became a bad word back then."
But the NSCB is interpreting and enforcing those laws all wrong, he says. And so, now, it's like those bad guys, who've been banished from the state, "are still making it tough on the good guys."
Nevada's governor in 1997, Bob Miller, foresaw this, and so he sent a letter to the speaker of the assembly which stated:
"Instead of helping Nevada's consumers, it may reduce the number of pool and spa contractors, thereby reducing consumer choice and undermining healthy competition. This legislation places onerous financial demands on pool and spa contractors that could threaten their viability by forcing them to assume an unreasonable level of financial risk. It has become clear that, in fact, the contractors have not been consulted nor afforded opportunity to present evidence as to the financial implications of such drastic legislation on their ability to remain in business."
There are 120 pool contractors in Southern Nevada, trying to get their piece of the $250 million industry. If going by number of complaints per contractor, the pool industry is still the most problematic of all contractors (just above roofers and home-builders), but the total number of homeowner complaints has decreased dramatically.
Grein says: "The pool industry is much better now."
Grein's attorney, Dennis Haney, says there is no tangible assessment indicating how effective legislation—and the staff's enforcement of it—has been, because that would cost too much for the NSCB, which operates on an autonomous budget of $7 million.
"The board is really getting out of hand," says Neil Davis, stating on the record what several sources said off of it. "Somebody needs to step in and do something."
Alexander says the impulse toward survival and self-dignity has forced him to be that somebody.
But he might not have to be. According to Steve Holloway, the Association of General Contractors intends to call for the termination of Margi Grein as executive director, to be replaced with somebody with contracting expertise.
Moreover, it has been confirmed that the attorney general's office of Nevada has commenced an investigation into the regime at the head of the board's staff.
Now, at the beginning of 2007, nobody wants to buy Alexander's business. His store on Boulder Highway is quiet and barren, and Alexander spends most of his day behind his desk, speaking on the phone with anyone who might be able to provide him help.
He says that no matter the outcome of his board hearing—which will be delayed beyond January, according to the latest reports—he will be suing the NSCB for violating his civil rights. His new lawyer, Eugene Backus, has already begun the process of deposing the board's staff.
Tanya Alexander says, "Our old lawyer tried to settle, and Margi said no because she was emotionally involved. Well, when you've been through what we've been through this last year and a half; when you've stayed up all night retrieving documents that they've subpoenaed; when you feel like you haven't seen your young children in weeks; when your husband's heart problems get worse and worse by the day; when you feel so bitter because someone has made an attack on you and caused irreparable damage to the way you make a living—then you start get emotionally involved, too."
Alexander believes that, if he prevails, it will take two or three years to rebuild his business to the height at which it once stood. But he doubts he can muster the energy and enthusiasm at this stage in his life, and with what he's been through, to start over. Above all if he has to do it in the omnipresent fear that something like this can happen all over again.
"I have land," he says. "I can sell it and send my kids through college and live comfortably off it. But the thing is, I don't want to go out a loser."