Rob’s Work

BY ROB LAWRENCE
Special to the Daily Press

CITYWIDE — There might be a few kinks in City Hall’s plans to regulate massage parlors.

The new state law, created by State Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach), regulating massage therapy in California is creating questions and confusion as to how it will affect City Hall’s strict laws that were imposed last summer.

“Some parts of the ordinance would conflict with the Santa Monica municipal code,” Deputy City Attorney Ivan Campbell said.

“The state law may permit, or may not contain, regulations as tough as what we have on the books here, that’s something we need to discuss,” Campbell added.

Generally, city municipalities must obey state law, but there are conflicting reports coming from Sen. Oropeza’s office.

“The way I understand it, if Santa Monica has a stricter law than our new state law, anyone wanting to become a licensed masseuse in Santa Monica must comply with Santa Monica’s law,” Ray Sotero, communications director for Sen. Oropeza, wrote in a statement.

This is contrary to what Sen. Oropeza wrote in her statement: “The new rules formulated by the MTO (Massage Therapy Organization, which is a non-profit statewide organization created by the bill to certify massage therapists) would be standard across the state and will supersede local laws.”

The bill, which became law on Jan. 1 and goes into effect in September, will create a statewide standard for obtaining a massage therapy license.

In the past, a masseuse seeking certification would have had to obtain a license from each city they wished to practice in. That may not be the case anymore and Gary Hunt, a local masseuse at The Massage Company, is definitely excited.

“We’ve been campaigning to try and get a state-run organization, so we can get licensed by the state, so we don’t have to pay individual license fees,” Hunt said.

Hunt has been frustrated about individual city licensing fees and he is glad that it could be over with.

“The cities want to make money from us, this is why massage therapists are irritated, it’s taking money from us, it has nothing to do with safety,” Hunt said.

According to Oropeza’s statement, the purpose of the state law is to crack down on crime organizations using massage therapy as a front for prostitution.

Hunt argued that stiffer regulations wont have an effect on illegal massage parlors.

“If you’re into prostitution you won’t want to be licensed at all,” Hunt said. “It’s really only affecting the legitimate therapists. If you’re going to do something illegal you’re going to keep it as underground as possible.”

The Santa Monica Police Department enforces the laws regarding massage therapy, and the department is not concerned about new laws, which may make it easier to obtain a license.

“The main focus is going after criminal organizations, not just criminals, that is the most effective way to attack,” SMPD Sgt. Robert Almada said. “I don’t think the new laws will prevent us from doing that.”

February 09, 2009
By Rob Lawrence
Special to the Daily Press
CITYWIDE — There have been many victims of the ongoing economic crises, however, City Hall and Santa Monica College have recently been able to capitalize on a falling demand in private and commercial construction as well as a drop in labor and materials costs.

“We had a problem in the last five or six years, until just recently, the construction costs were going up tremendously,” said Greg Brown, director of facilities planning at SMC.

Brown said that Phase 1 of the college’s new $77 million Student Services Building came in $3 million under budget due to cheaper materials.

“Our budget has been tight and it has been hard to complete our projects under budget,” Brown said. “The savings will just guarantee we can complete all of our projects.”
City Hall is also seeing similar trends brought on by heavy competition in publicly funded construction.

On Sept. 25, 2007, City Hall had six contractors bidding on a citywide street light project. The final bid accepted was 12 percent below their initial estimate. Then on Nov. 11 2008, on a similar project, 12 contractors bid and the awarded contract was 30 percent below their estimate.

“We have doubled, in the amount of bidders, and it looks like our projects are coming in anywhere from 10 to 30 percent below the prices we were getting previously,” Lee Swain, director of public works, said.

“It simply means we can do more projects with the same amount of funding,” Swain added. “The more competitive the bidding market is — it’s more ideal to get projects done. You can get more work for the same dollar.”

While City Hall capitalizes, contractors cringe”The year is not looking good,” said Refaat Mina, president of Minco Construction, which is currently working on Phase 1 of the new SMC Student Services Building.

“When the housing market went belly up all of the private contractors came to the public sector,” Mina said. “These guys, who come from the private sector, are bidding really, really low. They are bringing the prices down.”

However, the transition from private and commercial to public projects isn’t without its complications. Swain and Mina both agreed that it is imperative for contractors to be educated on the strict guidelines that go along with federally-funded projects.

Regardless of the added red tape, President Abeer Sweis of SYN.THE.SIS, a residential and commercial design and construction company in Santa Monica, had no reservations when she expressed she would “love” to work on public projects.

Abeer has seen her business drop “very sharply,” about 75 percent in the last three months.

“There’s really no new projects being generated, at all, and the ones that are — people aren’t really ready to move forward,” Abeer said.

Les Cho, supervisor of building and safety for City Hall said, in a period from July 2008 to February 2009, there was a 23 percent decline in permit requests for single- and multi-family homes compared to the previous year.

Abeer said her high-end clientele don’t feel confident in the future of their jobs, and the stringent credit market hasn’t helped either.

“It’s pretty extreme,” Abeer said.

A concrete problem

The situation at Bourget Bros. Building Materials seems to be getting worse every day.

“With the recession, there are reductions of prices that are coming out daily,” John Bourget, president of Bourget Bros. said.

Bourget said most of his items are selling at 15 percent below their value. In addition to falling product values he said his transactions have dropped 25 percent.

“Competition is getting so fierce that everyone is trying to sell products at a lower price,” Bourget said. “A lot of them are cutting prices, like the bigger guys, but the little guys have trouble keeping up with them.”

Bourget blames the falling prices on the bad economy and how it has affected the upper stratum of society that populates the Westside and who he and many others in the business rely upon for new projects.

“Those type of people have to have a lot of money coming in to pay their expenses and they’re all worried,” Bourget said. “It’s cut into our industry, in our area, for the first time in 15 years it’s starting to hurt.”

Business is so bad at Bourget Bros. the company is at the “threshold” of beginning to lose money. Bourget became sentimental at the thought of what he will have to do to keep his company afloat.

“You have to cut labor and cut inventory, you got to tighten, you have to get smart,” Bourget said. “You got to do what you got to do to survive.”

If there is any other silver lining it is that not all of the private contractors in the Santa Monica are feeling the pinch.

Craig Bradley, owner of Bradley Construction and Design is surviving and flourishing in the private and commercial construction business by doing things the way he always has.

“I’m a member of what I call the 5 o’clock club,” Bradley said. “I get up at five and I’m ready at six, and people like that.”