THE SOUTHLAND FIRESTORM: CONSUMER IMPACT : Agency to Hunt Unlicensed Contractors : Rebuilding: State board says it will turn up the heat on unscrupulous companies. Its critics warn homeowners to look out for themselves.

The state Contractors Licensing 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 will try to provide other assistance to help consumers weed out unreliable companies during the current 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, under state law it becomes 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 board sent employees to every disaster assistance center in the fire zones to answer property owners’ questions about hiring contractors. It has also 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 number.

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 give no more details about the timetable before then.

The hearing will be televised on the Legislature’s Cal Channel, carried by 61 cable 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.

The consumer committee is examining the board’s performance in the wake of its own investigation of complaints about the agency and a Times 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 Oct. 6, board officials promised to begin investigating all complaints and to improve the timeliness and accuracy of information available over its toll-free consumer inquiry phone system regarding the status of contractors’ licenses.

But Steffen said Thursday that the board still requires consumers to submit written requests to obtain 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.”