State Agency to Hunt Unlicensed Contractors : Rebuilding: Licensing board is sending covert teams to affected areas, but critics say homeowners can’t rely on them.

The state Contractors License Board, which has come under fire for not adequately protecting consumers from unscrupulous contractors, said Wednesday that it is sending covert teams into fire-damaged areas of Southern California to identify and cite unlicensed contractors who solicit work.

The board said it would try to provide other assistance to help consumers weed out unreliable companies during the emergency, but critics of the board said victims of the wildfires that have razed hundreds of Southern California homes in the past 10 days should rely on their own investigations for protection.

Despite efforts in the past month to improve its performance, the agency charged with regulating and disciplining California’s 275,000 licensed building trades contractors still does not provide consumers with timely, accurate information about disciplinary actions against contractors, said Richard Steffen(, chief consultant to the Assembly’s consumer protection committee.

To help fill the information void, he said, the committee will soon issue its own booklet of advice to consumers on how to avoid being victimized by unscrupulous builders.

Tips on hiring and conducting background checks on contractors will also be aired Tuesday during the committee’s televised hearing on the adequacy of California’s system of licensing, regulating and disciplining contractors.

The license board, Steffen said, “can provide important services, but asking it to police 275,000 licensed contractors is just not realistic.”

Though working as an unlicensed contractor generally is a misdemeanor, state law makes it a felony, with punishments as stiff as a $10,000 fine and 16 months in prison, during a period in which a disaster or state of emergency has been declared.

Mickey Matsumoto, the license board’s chief deputy registrar, said that in addition to the investigative teams, the license board also sent staff members to every disaster assistance center in the fire zones to answer property owners’ questions about hiring contractors and has set up a toll-free line--(800) 962-1125--that fire victims can call for information.

Matsumoto said the board also plans to make contractors’ disciplinary histories available to consumers by phone. “We are not resisting this,” he said, “but it takes time because it means changing the software” for the toll-free phone line.

The board’s timetable for upgrading the phone information system and for implementing several other regulatory and licensing reforms is to be delivered to the consumer protection committee at Tuesday’s hearing. Matsumoto said he could not discuss the timetable further before then.

The hearing will be televised on the Legislature’s California Channel, carried by 61 cable-TV companies across the state. To broaden access to the committee, people will be able to testify by closed-circuit television from studios in Santa Monica, San Diego, San Jose and Modesto, Steffen said.

Dimension Cable Services in South Orange County is the only Orange County cable company that broadcasts the California Channel.

The consumer committee is examining the Contractor License Board’s performance in the wake of its own investigation of complaints about the agency and a Times Orange County Edition investigation of regulatory loopholes that allow contractors to conceal lawsuit awards and arbitration judgments from the board and from clients who based hiring decisions on the license board’s incomplete records

After an eight-hour public hearing on Oct. 6, license board officials promised to begin investigating all complaints and to improve the timeliness and accuracy of information available over the board’s toll-free consumer inquiry phone system about the status of contractors’ licenses.

But Steffen said Thursday that the license board still requires consumers to submit written requests to get details of disciplinary actions against any contractors they may be thinking of hiring. It can take weeks for the board to respond to such requests.

“We are not satisfied with the improvements they have made to their 800 number information system,” Steffen said. “The information that consumers need to make informed choices is not coming out fast enough--especially in the face of people’s needs after these fires. That information should be available over the phone, and it isn’t.”