An executive order issued Monday by Gov. Kate Brown requiring Oregonians to remain at home and closing many nonessential businesses stops short of bringing construction to a halt.

The order aims to halt the spread of COVID-19 via person-to-person contact, and mandates that individuals maintain a distance of at least six feet from one another, prohibits the operation of many retail and service businesses, and requires employers to facilitate work-from-home operations to the maximum extent possible.

In instances where a work-from-home model is not an option – including construction – businesses are required to designate an employee to establish, implement and enforce social distancing policies, which must also address social distancing for business-critical visitors. Designated social distancing officers must be in place by 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, March 24. Businesses that fail to do so will be closed until they demonstrate compliance.

“It is critical to our industry that your company take the social distancing requirements seriously,” Mike Salsgiver, executive director of Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter, wrote in an email briefing to chapter members.

The order follows similar closures of all-but-essential businesses in other municipalities that in some cases – including the city of Boston and the state of Pennsylvania – have ceased most types of construction altogether. Other states, including California, New York and Illinois, have allowed construction to continue through “stay-at-home” orders.

To help builders stay in compliance and incorporate COVID-19 protection practices into their safety plans, the Oregon Construction Contractors Board has compiled a list of online resources at .

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A construction executive has stepped aside from the Beaverton Chamber of Commerce after an allegation of sexual harassment was lodged against him.

Jerry Jones Jr. has resigned from the Chamber board, said Lorraine Clarno, the chamber’s president and CEO.

Jones resigned Monday after a volunteer shared a letter containing allegations of sexual harassment.

“There was documentation and information shared that included some detailed description of one incident but also including additional activities and behavior that had occurred over four years,” Clarno said.

“We met with Mr. Jones and shared the letter, and it was his choice to resign at that time,” she said.

Jones served as president of Lanphere Construction and Development (LCD) for a decade until April 2017, according to his LinkedIn page. He has since started his own firm, Columbia Construction Management.

Jones, reached Friday, said he would release a statement on the allegations.

Jones has been active in construction industry and community organizations. He was appointed by Gov. Kate Brown to the Oregon Construction Contractors Board (CCB) in 2015. The board hears appeals of enforcement actions and set rules, among other responsibilities. Jones’ term is set to expire in June 2019.

Brown’s office did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment, and a spokeswoman for the CCB could not immediately be reached for comment.

Jones has served on the elected Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District board since 2013. He’s also served on the Beaverton Urban Redevelopment Agency board since 2010.

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A sampling of the penalties issued by the Oregon Construction Contractors Board in December:

• Gregory Mason Miller, Deschutes County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Nationwide Security & Building Services, Hood River County – fined $7,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Nationwide Security & Building Services/Ernie’s Locks & Keys, Wasco County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Matthew Lee Landry/Landry & Sons Flooring, Lincoln County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Chris Palmer, Clatsop County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Andrew Tunstall Thurston/Andrew T. Thurston Construction, Tillamook County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Jose Francisco Guerrero Alvarez, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Claudia Elizabeth McCormick and Aaron John McCormick/Anything Carpets and More – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Dietz Construction, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for performing work without certification as a lead-based paint renovation contractor.
• James Douglas Vanover/Vanover Construction, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Jaymes Taud Forsythe, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Palace Construction Corp., Washington County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Prestige Design & General Construction Inc., Multnomah County – fined $22,000 for working without a CCB license and engaging in dishonest or fraudulent conduct.
• Saul Escobar and Diana Marie Escobar/Santa Fe Construction, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• James Kalani Varde, Washington County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Michael Francis Cushman/Mike Cushman Construction – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Peter’s Paving, Jackson County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Larry Allen Collver, Yamhill County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Christopher A. May, Marion County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Scott Allen Roberts, Marion County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
  

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A sampling of the 115 civil penalties issued by the Oregon Construction Contractors Board in November:

• Danny W. Berentsen, Umatilla County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Gerardo Pimentel, Hood River County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• John Kelly Ketzenberg, Lincoln County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• ADI Security Inc./Security One Video Surveillance Technologies, Clackamas County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Richard N. Anderson, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Animal House of Oregon LLC, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Fernando Cavares, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Samuel J. Cross, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• George Edward Dodsworth, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Jim D. Kinney, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Danny R. Neubauer, Clackamas County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• PDX Home Care Company, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• PNW Land Services LLC, Columbia County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Portland Home Repair Company/PDX Home Repair, Multnomah County – fined $3,000 for advertising or bidding without a CCB license.
• Prestige Design & General Contracting Inc., Clackamas County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license, $1,000 for having employees while not in a status to have employees and $1,000 for engaging in dishonest or fraudulent conduct.
• Loius Phillips Ramirez/Primavista Landscape Maintenance – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Reilly Signature Homes LLC, Multnomah County – fined $10,000 for committing eight lead-based paint violations.
• Sateki Halatahi Vaenuku, Clackamas County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Monte Rex Vandeventer II/Rivercity Sealcoating/Westcoast Asphalt Maintenance – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Dustin Wade Winn, Multnomah County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Mark Wayne Merrell II, Douglas County – fined $15,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Oregon Builders Guild LLC, Josephine County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Fitzpatrick Painting Inc., Linn County – fined $6,000 for employing lead-based paint work practices.
• Chris Hewson, Marion County – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Juan Pablo Raygoza/Matrix Construction, Marion County – fined $5,000 for advertising or bidding without a CCB license.

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A sampling of the penalties issued by the Oregon Construction Contractors Board in October:

• Brandon Lee Johnson and Kevin Smith/Rock and Roll Seal Coating Inc. – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Baker County.
• Eric Anthony Boler/EAB Services – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Coos County.
• Mark Austin Goodman – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Lincoln County.
• William Lorsung/W. Lorsung Productions – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Coos County.
• Animal House of Oregon LLC – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Adam Davidson/Ron Can Do It Inc. – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Washington County.
• Farrell Pole Buildings LLC – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Columbia County.
• James Taud Forsythe – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Washington County.
• Ideal Custom Homes LLC – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Clackamas County.
• Sitiveni Iongo/Affordable Contractors – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Sean Jensen/Jensen Roofing and Coatings – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Rene C. Jones/Like Nu Tile – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Washington County.
• Maximum Excavation LLC – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• PDX Home Care Company – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Michael L. Zeigler – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Columbia County.
• Jason Edwin Cutting/J&S Pressure Washing & Concrete – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Jackson County.
• James C. Snider, Kellie R. Snider, Paul J. Bradbury and Patricia L. Bradbury/Snider Roofing – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Bobby McQuillan – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Douglas County.
• Gil Parker Roberts – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Josephine County.
• Braderheart LLC – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license without a CCB license in Lane County.
• Mitchell Allen Farm – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Marion County.
• Jeremy Howard Foster – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Lane County.
• Todd Grano/Pavement Painters We Lay Our Reputation on the Line – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Marion County.
• ICBM LLC – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Polk County.
• David Earl Skinner – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Lane County.
• Tony Volbeda – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Linn County.

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A Portland construction attorney penalized for developing a project without a developer’s license is now being sued by the project’s owner to rescind the sale.

Ball Janik LLP partner Phillip Joseph is accused of performing shoddy construction work and misrepresenting key building specifications for a duplex project he developed at 5404 N.E. 15th Place in Portland. The owner, Ann N. Mitchell, is seeking to recover $615,000 she paid to cover the sale and associated costs.

According to the suit filed Sept. 1 in Multnomah Circuit Court, Mitchell bought the townhouse development in March 2015, with the sale closing the next month. The contract included a one-year warranty with the builder, Bridge City Construction. Several months later, Mitchell claims she started noticing numerous issues with the interior and exterior finishes. After notifying Joseph and Bridge City, she says eight months passed with only minimal steps taken to remedy the defects.

The complaint states a inspection by a forensic architect turned up additional issues, including an improperly installed fireplace, insufficient ventilation in the attic and difficulty closing and latching doors – including the front door.

Mitchell filed a breach of contract complaint with the Oregon Construction Contractors Board to force repairs. But the CCB can only investigate CCB-licensed entities. Though Joseph himself is CCB-licensed, and so is Bridge City Construction, the sole-purpose entity he created to sell the property – 14th Place LLC – was not. So in July, Joseph was fined by the CCB for not having the appropriate licenses when he developed the project.

Joseph told the 91��Ƶ last month that he didn’t know his LLC also needed a CCB license. He called the rule redundant and “silly.”

A CCB enforcement manager said the rule has been on the books for years.

Joseph, through his attorney, Jim McDermott of Ball Janik, issued the following statement: “We believe that there is no factual or legal basis for Ms. Mitchell’s premature and unfounded lawsuit.”

Mitchell’s attorney, W. Cory Haller of Stoel Rives LLP, declined to comment.

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It’s not the driveway Michael Smith wanted.

The retired electrician had agreed to terms with a Craigslist contractor to pave the approach to his Rainier home and add a retaining wall and drainage. But after taking some measurements – and a $7,000 check – the man never came back.

Smith, 68, is now trawling Craigslist daily and offering a reward to help find the man he says ripped him off – Jose Francisco Guerrero Alvarez. And Smith is far from alone. According to the Oregon Construction Contractors Board, this one unlicensed contractor – one of the most egregious violators of contracting law in the state in years – has defrauded at least 20 people to the tune of around a half-million dollars.

Calls and text messages to Alvarez’s cell phone this month were not returned.

Paper trail

In the mid-1990s, Oregon moved from a registration-based system to a licensure system that involves more education and standards.

Some contractors adamantly opposed licensure because they didn’t think government had any business getting involved, construction attorney Jeremy Vermilyea said.

The second major revision to the state’s licensure laws came around a decade ago, in response to an explosion of construction defect lawsuits. The problem was that the CCB regulated commercial construction in about the same way as residential – and there are vast differences between the two. The result of the revisions – which Vermilyea helped write – was more direct CCB oversight of the residential side, where there was said to be more “bad apples.” The commercial side got more focus on education and insurance and bonding requirements.

Today, Oregon’s licensure system is a bit more robust than other states’ – Idaho, for example, has only a registration requirement.

The problem in the case of Jose Alvarez is that so far, this residential contractor has been unwilling to act within the normal bounds of society.

“If someone’s just bound and determined to be a serial violator, it’s really tough, short of throwing him in jail, to stop him from doing that,” Vermilyea said. “It’s just like getting a judgment in a lawsuit. It’s only as good as the paper it’s written on, and only as much as the person against whom the judgment is issued is willing to pay.”

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These days, the name “Jose Francisco Guerrero Alvarez” is a fixture on the CCB’s monthly civil penalties report, appearing in most cases alongside the common offense of working or advertising without a CCB license, which often carries a $5,000 fine.

Today he owes the administration $45,000 in civil penalties tied to 10 cases. The CCB has six more completed investigations waiting to serve him.

Overall, the CCB has interviewed 20 victims, each out between $3,000 and $35,000, for a total somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000, according to CCB investigator Tim Lenihan, who’s worked on Alvarez cases for the past 14 months. Lenihan has spoken with an additional 25 possible victims who’ve declined for one reason or another to help prosecute Alvarez for fraudulent activity.

The way Alvarez typically operates, Lenihan said, is by moving into a neighborhood and performing one home improvement project that looks pretty good. This garners him more clients.

“In a short period of time, projects are having less and less work completed on them, to the point where the last people to sign on, he doesn’t perform any work for their project – he just takes the money,” Lenihan said.

CCB officials call Alvarez a “salesman-and-a-half,” a confidence man expert in separating homeowners from checks. Lenihan has spoken with people who’ve given Alvarez personal loans of between $5,000 and $25,000, including one man who owned an establishment where Alvarez liked to gamble.

In July 2015, KATU News interviewed a Beaverton woman who said Alvarez failed to deliver on a promise to build a ramp for her disabled son. Without signing a contract, she wrote him a check for $3,500. Then he stopped answering her calls. A neighbor of hers claimed Alvarez cheated her of $25,000.

What’s frustrating to Lenihan, is that he’s actually spoken in person with Alvarez many times – they’re on a first-name basis.

“At one point, I could call him up and he’d tell me where he was and I would go and serve him papers,” Lenihan said. “Now he won’t return my phone calls.”

Lenihan said that in the eight years he’s been a field investigator with the CCB he’s never encountered an offender so prolific.

Alvarez is said to live a transient lifestyle – 30 to 60 days at each stop. Lenihan has known him to live at six different addresses over the past year, including those of an ex-wife, a girlfriend and some friends. He’s known to change vehicles frequently. He recently bought a Lexus, according to Lenihan.

“I don’t know what the endgame is,” he said. “I’ve never had somebody take it this far.”

To be sure, Alvarez isn’t the only offender the CCB is after. In the past quarter, it took 350 new cases – 218 for July. From 572 jobsites checks, it issued 90 field investigation reports.

Lenihan recently served a man who had stolen $100,000 in scams similar to Alvarez’s. Earlier in his career, Lenihan saw cases where the Department of Justice got involved, injunctions were ordered and equipment repossessed to pay for fines. But other than keep doing what he’s been doing, Lenihan doesn’t know what more he can do.

“Discouraging,” is one way to put it, he said, but added, “We refer to it as job security.”

Low-impact man

One limitation facing the CCB is that working without a license is only a Class A misdemeanor, meaning the offense has to get the attention of local law enforcement and the district attorney. Otherwise, about all the CCB can do to compel an offender to stop committing crimes is notify the Department of Revenue so it can withhold money from a tax return refund.

“If (authorities are) not willing to take them on because they think it’s a low-impact crime, we’re pretty much done,” said CCB enforcement manager Stan Jessup.

This is why most habitual offenders deal strictly in cash and don’t report income. The CCB has to prove offenses without any doubt, and that isn’t as easy as it might sound. Discerning an “employee” from a CCB licensee on a jobsite can be a challenge for an investigator.

Because the CCB is a civil administrative agency, the most Lenihan can do to offenders when he witnesses a violation is write a report and send it to his office (unless he teams with a local official like a police officer or a building inspector). He can neither issue a stop-work order nor a penalty in the field. A report must be written and a case officer assigned before penalties can be determined.

“The fastest I’ve seen that happen is three or four days,” he said.

Though Lenihan has had the most involvement with Alvarez, all Oregon CCB investigators are aware of him, Jessup said. They’ve been in contact with local authorities around the Portland-metro area and Southwestern Washington – police departments, building code divisions and cities.

The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries knows of Alvarez, and its inspectors are aware of his patterns of behavior, according to spokeswoman Debby Abe.

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After Alvarez stopped answering his calls and texts, Michael Smith said he realized Alvarez didn’t intend to do his driveway. Soon enough the materials arrived, and waited for days outside on pallets.

The cancer survivor ended up performing most of the work himself, then spending three days on the couch recovering.

Smith is offering $200 through a Craigslist ad to help find Alvarez. So far it’s only helped him find other  victims of Alvarez.

“I have to do it,” he said of completing his driveway project. “I’m still here.”

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A sampling of the 149 CCB penalties issued July 1-31:

• William Michael Clark – fined $5,000 and $1,000 for advertising or bidding without a CCB license in Deschutes County.
• Three Little Birds Construction LLC – fined $1,100 for four violations in Clatsop County.
• 14th Place LLC – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Sloane H. Ainuu – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Bruce Allen Brown – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Cheryl A. Hunt and John Beresky – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Washington County.
• Anything Carpets and More – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license.
• Gio Refurbishes – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Clackamas County.
• Deck Tek Northwest Coatings – fined $5,000 for advertising or bidding without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Jenco Construction & Remodeling LLC – fined $5,500 for working without a CCB license and not having a written contract in Multnomah County.
• Ming Fa Supplies/Quality Home Building Supplies Co. – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Washington County.
• Clackamas Coating – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Clackamas County.
• Safileti Pasiaki – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Patio Cover People LLC. – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Clackamas County.
• RH Heating and Cooling Inc. – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• Robert M. Salberg – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.
• OTG Construction Services – fined $5,000 for working without a CCB license in Multnomah County.

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