| The monthly meeting of the Central Florida Chapter of FAOLO was held in the Commission Room at the Sanford. City Hall. President Dodie Beach called the meeting to order and declared a quorum of not less than 10% of the membership in attendance at 1:00 pm.
Attendance: Dodie Beach, Maitland Dan Florin, Sanford Susan Frasier, Eustis Tracy Morgan, Cocoa Beach Pat Drosden, Edgewater Debbie Reimers, Longwood Margaret Ingraham, Oak Hill Angee Grimmage, Winter Garden Cathy Roberts, West Melbourne Bobbie Hepfer, Citrus County Donna Lofley, Citrus County Joni Dixion, Casselberry Melissa Dunklin, Oviedo Sue Joyce, Marion County Sylvia Denson, Winter Springs Will Roberts, Volusia County Kathy Arundel, Department of Business & Professional Regulations Paul Melin, Marion County Athena MCAlarney, Department of Business & Professional Regulations Monica Gibbs, Altamonte Springs Joann Johnson, Sanford Danny Richards, Citrus Pam Sprouse, Palatka Guest Speakers Kathy Arundel�Department of Business & Professional Regulation, Inspection Division The DBPR regulates 1,000,000 people and agencies throughout the State of Florida. There is a Licensing Division and an Investigation Division, which handles unlicensed activity and complaints. There are times when offences that the DBPR investigates which are criminal in nature and they work with the States Attorneys office for prosecution on these cases. The Orlando Division has a total of 9 investigators 4 of which handle unlicensed activity specifically. Question: Can you tell us about the changes in the Workman�s Compensation Law? Answer: The changes in the law require that Construction related companies must be incorporated. Now both the business and the individual must be licensed. Question: Would a �Handyman� doing roofing fall under unlicensed activity? Answer: Yes, if he is doing the work of a roofing contractor. Being not licensed would also mean that he does not have workman�s compensation coverage. Question: What about sub-contractors? Answer: All sub-contractors must also be licensed. Question: What happens with a job that is started, but not finished? Answer: If a complaint is filed the DBPR will investigate and perhaps find that there is fraud and/or financial misconduct. Question: What happens with middlemen/Bidders/Consultants? Are they regulated? Answer: If the contract is written directly between the Contractor and the and the consumer then the middleman does not need to be licensed. However, it the contract is written between the middleman and the consumer, then sub-contracted out, the bidder must be licensed. Question: Do Home Inspection Firms need a license? Answer: The Home Inspection Industry is not regulated at this time, therefore they can not give bids or estimates. There are two ways that the DBPR handles complaints: 1. Standard Investigation�where information is gathered and sent to Tallahassee and they determine if there is probable cause and proceed accordingly. 2. Alternative Dispute Resolution Mediator�where all parties involved work to find an equitable solution. Question: How do the changes in regulation effect Aluminum Contractors/Dock work? Answer: It depends on the jurisdiction and what they require to build a dock, it varies from place to place. Question: What about installation of Hurricane Shutters? Answer: It will depend on how they are attached to the building, if you need a permit to do the work and if the jurisdiction requires the work to be done by a licensed contractor. Question: Does the DBPR regulate Cosmology? Answer: Yes, not only do they have to be licensed each location will be inspected on an annual basis. Everyone working at the premises must be licensed unless they are only washing hair. Question: Can a Cosmetologist work out of their homes? Answer: They can go into other people�s homes, individuals. However working out of the home would be something that the jurisdiction would regulate. Additional Questions may be addressed to: Kathy Arundel, Investigation Specialist II Department of Business & Professional Regulation 400 West Robinson Street, Suite N802 Orlando, FL 32801-1732 (407) 765-0312 [email protected] Victor Artreche�Mr. Adobo My first job was in Puerto Rico, selling chickens at seven years old. I was also a casino dealer for Donald Trump at age nineteen. Later moved to Orlando and started a restaurant and discovered that a lot of people, like myself have a desire to start a business at a young age. About ten years ago I started a catering service in Casselberry, FL and have a 4000 square foot facility and hope to become about 7,000 square feet in the next six months. Over the years I have received numerous calls from people who want to start a business. To set up a company like mine in today�s economy would cost between $400,000 and $600,000 just the equipment can run between $100,000 and $200,000 dollars. Not everyone can afford that. About a year ago I started a company called Mr. Adobo. What this company does is provide license for individuals that want to package their product and send them to the supermarket and all over the world. Or if you want to do catering, or go to the farmers market and sell hotdogs, you need a commissary. If you want to sell ice cream, you need a commissary. I want to sell cookies; my grandmother has the best recipe in the world. You have to get an occupational license, a commissary to conduct your business; you need a tax ID number. Our company provides everything. We will give you the necessary literature from starting your bank account, how to contact the DBPR and setting up your corporation. We have two licenses in our commissary. They license you right there. We have two inspectors that come in and they license you right there. Mr. Adobo will give you barcodes, labels, bottles, caps, nutritional facts, which you have to have if you are selling retail and lists of ingredients. Everything that it has taken us years to learn you can do in one day. We can walk you through it, not only that we provide staff that will build you a network to brokers. We have all the information that businesses need to help them contact the people that they need to in order to do their business. We will help them know how much they need to sell in order to make money selling your product. We will help you figure in the overhead and other factors that will effect how much profit you are making at the end of the day. I do this because I can make a difference to single mothers and families who are trying to make a living in this economy. This company has Christian principals. People who come to you expect that they can just start a business. When you tell them, you have to go here and get this license, go there and do this thing, many times, it costs $20,000 or more by the time they are finished. Many times our company is able to help them defer some of those costs and they can start their business for less than $3,000. Often this can be accomplished in 4 to 6 weeks as opposed to the months it might take to set up all the machinery and get all the licenses for the facility itself. When you are finished you will have a company and a network to help you distribute your product. Mr. Adobo wants to help. Question: How did you get the opportunity to work with the Department of Agriculture for licensing and what are your limitations? Answer: The Department wants to see the Commissary first. They are concerned that the work area is clean, has proper refrigeration, thermometers etc. In addition to this the inspector will come in and ask for your certificate, which says what you want to do. Then you put in your application and they then schedule to meet you at the commissary. After that they come in and inspect every six months. We just help them to get through the process and provide the commissary for them to produce their products. Question: Is there a web-site available? Answer: Yes, the web-site is up at www.mradobo.com and within the next couple of weeks it will have more information on the services we are talking about today. Question: Do you actually obtain certifications for people or do you just tell them where they need to go and who they need to speak with? Answer: Right now we have two offices that we are loading with materials but in the future we are looking to have a professional who will help people get through the process, like a one-stop shop. In the future, we are looking to expand and add a classroom for training. Question: How many commissaries are there in this area? Answer: Only two that I know of. Additional Questions may be addressed to: Mr. Adobo Victor Artreche, President 1495 Seminola Blvd Casselberry, FL 32707 (407) 695-1912 [email protected] Introductions: See attendance list above. Old Business: Conference Gift Baskets: President Beach commended Pat Drosden, City of Edgewater for the basket that she has gotten together for the State Conference. Pat gave a report on the contents of the basket which includes; a two night stay at the Night Swan Bed & Breakfast, a Marine Discovery Eco Boat tour, a basket of goodies from Tropical Blossom Honey and various items from the SE Volusia visitors Bureau including a mini Frisbee, mini beach ball, maps, walking tour guides and more. There was discussion about the train ride out of Mt. Dora, which we have been unable to locate. Someone said that the train has been closed down for some time now. However, we did find a Mystery train ride out of Orlando for $39.00 and Pam Sprouse is going to write a letter to see if they will donate some tickets. There was discussion about having one large basket and two smaller baskets. It was decided to add a $50 gift certificate for a restaurant in Pat�s basket and then have two other baskets that we spend $50 on each too. We are still looking to put together two more baskets. So if anyone can contact local businesses from their jurisdiction please contact Tracy at (321) 868-3298 [email protected] and let her know. Web-Site & Message Board: Copies of the information submitted by Peggy Heintz, as provided by President Beach, and Jon McCarron which was submitted as a web-based PowerPoint file and printed out. Both Mrs. Henitz and Mr. McCarron provided information on various providers for message boards and hosting sites, which Tracy distributed as an Excel spreadsheet for easier comparison. The gentleman that put the message board up that y�all have been seeing for the last month is someone who expressed an interest in doing our web-site and doing the administration for the message board because we were not sure if Peggy was going to or not. She was having some health problems and some family problems and apparently they had been having some problems finding a provider for the message board. Lots of people who visited the message board suggested that they would like to have a threaded message board instead of the corkboard type that was up there. We found one that was posted up on the site a couple of days ago but we didn�t really get that until today and so Tracy sent it out this morning so those who were at the meeting may not have received that information before they came. Discussion ensued about how the corkboard and threaded message boards work. The one that is up now we can have for free. It has FAOLO�s name on it however, it is also a public access board and right now anyone can register and put in their comments. It doesn�t mean that they will, but they could if they wanted to. It also has a limited amount of space. If you look at the spread sheet it gives information on providers that both Peggy and Jon suggested. The one that was put up is the Xsorbit one as it turned out that they have a free one also, but it has a very limited amount of space. And if we decide to pay for one on their site it will limit the membership to those in our organization. President Beach, stated that members had not been able to look at the new board. That we had already discussed that we were willing to pay, that we needed to see if we were going to stay with Peggy, which she has no problem with. The only question is, is she going to be able to oversee the message board. We will need to have an administrator to oversee the message board. The letter that you have in your hands is the correspondence that she provided to us (note: we inadvertently passed out Peggy�s letter not on letterhead, a copy of which is provided with this e-mail) It says on the bottom paragraph that she is not sure about making technical advances. Paul from Marion county stated that the idea of getting a web-master/message board for the State FAOLO was brought up at the State Board Meeting. That somebody in the Tampa area had submitted that for $25 an hour they would come up with something as many of the Chapters web-sites are floundering. So if each individual Chapter wanted to could work with them. So far Central Florida is the only Chapter that has a web-site up. Pam asked what the chances were that the State would putting a web-site together that all the Chapters can access and have one central message board that we can all share statewide? It was stated that the membership did not have a problem with the web-site as a whole it was just the fact that the message board disappeared and never came back which had us look into other alternatives. It was stated that it is up to the general membership to decide what they want and how they want it. It is not something that the Board is going to decide, you guys have to use it and you have to live with it. The Board felt that because we all have to live with the decision that is made that is should be a decision that everyone makes. It was requested that we contact Peggy and find out what she means by �technical advancements�. It was discussed that our current web-site provider does not provide the message board capability any longer (see geocities.pdf attached) What we have been talking about is getting our own domain name at CFFAOLO.org or something like that. But we don�t have to do that, the web-site can stay up just like it is now. However, if we do that we can�t go directly to our web-site because the address has all these little symbols in it. Pat, from Edgewater stated that she liked the idea of no adds and she likes the idea of a threaded message board and she likes the idea of having our own domain name. Pam, from Palatka stated that who ever we get to do the web-site she would like to see an agreement that when they receive the information that within 48 hours that is up on the web-site. So that you don�t go to your own web-site and read minutes from three months ago. This is something that has been going on for a very long time. We have been looking at old information, the minutes and/or agendas have been forwarded in ample time and it takes a very long time for them to be updated. She stated that she does not care who provides the service, but especially if we are paying for it, that it is updated in a very timely fashion. Tracy, from Cocoa Beach stated that this is not personal at all but that it was told to us that the information on the message board would be brought to us months ago and it was not. That even today it is being said that, you can stay with what you have and that she didn�t see where adequate research has been done to let us know how to go about getting our own domain name or how much it will cost. She stated that it does not really matter to her and that the other person who is talking to us about this has no vested interest in FAOLO. He does part-time web stuff and he works for Health First during the day. He doesn�t have a connection with FAOLO, whereas Peggy does have a long-term connection with FAOLO, so there are other factors involved. At this point we are not sure if we decided to get the domain name, set-up our web-site there and get the message board if Peggy is able to do this or if she wants to do that I don�t understand from my correspondence with her what her intention is as far as that goes. Can she do it? Does she want to do it? Or does she just want to leave it the way it is today. Debbie, from Longwood said that she would like to see us contact Peggy and see if she is willing and able to do this. Since she has done this for us for so long that it would be courteous of us to contact her and clarify what she can do with this. Pam stated that we do not have to make a decision today, that most people had not had a chance to look at the threaded message board. Tracy stated that she would have a problem with taking all the research that Jon has done on the setting up the domain/message board and handing it to someone else to implement. He has taken his time without pay to do the research and set up a test site for us to try and she does not feel that it is ethical to do that. Personally, she does not feel that it is. Even though these are public information sites that anyone can go to and get the information. But this guy took the time to do it and to provide us with the test sites with that information. So she she does not feel that it is ethical to say that we want to use the domain site that and message board that you picked for us but hand the work to someone else. It was asked if one person could do the web-site and another person could do the message board. Pat said that she had the feeling based on the letter if we go to Peggy and say this is what we want to do and this is what we are willing to pay can you do this that she is going to say no. She is not saying to give her the information of who to go with just that we want a web-site with a message board, updated within 48 hours after receipt of sending the information. It was decided to draft a letter to Peggy and find out her intentions and abilities on this matter and that the letter will be copied to the general membership. Motion passed unanimously. In the mean time visit the NEW THREADED MESSAGE BOARD TEST site and register to use it at http://extremeforcepaintball.com/central_florida_faolo.htm and post a message to see if they like the way that this message board works better than the corkboard. And to see Jon�s online presentation go to http://extremeforcepaintball.com/Extreme Web Design_files/frame.htm We will bring this issue back at the next meeting for further discussion and a decision. New Business: Paul stated there are two bills before the Senate that would do away with the equity studies necessary for municipalities to raise their Occupational License fees. Please take a look Senate Bill number 1002 and House Bill number 0373. Next Meeting: Our next meeting will be March 24, 2005 from 1 pm in the Commission Room, Sanford. Hope to see you all there. Meeting adjourned. Respectfully submitted by: ________________________________ Date: __March 1, 2005___ Tracy A. Morgan Occupational License Administrator City of Cocoa Beach PO Box 322430 Cocoa Beach, FL 32932-2430 Phone: (321) 868-3298 Fax: (321) 868-3378 E-Mail: [email protected] Web Site: www.CityofCocoaBeach.com |
| CENTRAL FLORIDA CHAPTER FEBRUARY 24, 2005 MEETING |
| PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR CHAPTER THROUGH SUGGESTIONS AND ATTENDING YOUR CHAPTER MEETINGS WHENEVER POSSIBLE |