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Was The Home Improvement Board Undermined To Make Way For A New Public Sewer Authority?
To the Editor,
What the Rockland County Legislature just did to the county’s home improvement licensing structure deserves far more scrutiny than it is getting.
This was presented as reform. It looks much more like political demolition.
According to the reporting, the new law strips real authority from the Home Improvement Licensing Board, reduces it to an advisory body, and hands meaningful power to county officials and appointees instead. It also removes long-standing competency safeguards from the licensing process. That is not a serious effort to protect consumers. It is a serious effort to remove independent oversight from people with actual expertise and place it in a more politicized structure.
The public is entitled to ask an obvious question: why would any responsible Legislature weaken an expert licensing framework unless that framework had become inconvenient to someone with influence?
Honest contractors have to meet standards. Skilled tradespeople have to earn their credentials. Homeowners assume that when the county licenses someone, it means something. This vote sends the opposite message. It suggests that standards are negotiable, expertise is optional, and independent boards are expendable when powerful interests would rather deal with politicians than professionals.
Even worse, the reporting suggests this measure may have been tied to broader political bargaining involving the proposed sewer authority. If that is true, then consumer protections and professional standards were not evaluated on their merits at all. They were traded. Rockland residents should be furious at the possibility that licensing law was treated as a chip in a backroom negotiation.
This is the kind of maneuver that destroys public trust. It reinforces the belief that in Rockland, rules are for ordinary people, while the connected class gets a different system entirely. The Legislature had every opportunity to strengthen enforcement against bad actors without gutting the role of the expert board. It chose not to. That choice speaks for itself.
The legislators who reportedly voted for this should explain, clearly and publicly, why they believed weakening independent oversight and competency safeguards was in the public interest: Douglas J. Jobson, Paul C. Cleary, Jay Hood Jr., Itamar Yeger, Lon M. Hofstein, Alden H. Wolfe, Philip Soskin, Toney L. Earl, Raymond W. Sheridan III, Beth J. Davidson, Will J. Kennelly, Jesse M. Malowitz, Moshe Hopstein, Aney Paul, Joel Friedman, and Dana G. Stilley. Thomas F. Diviny was reported as the sole “no” vote.
Rockland does not need less accountability dressed up as modernization. It needs public officials with the backbone to protect standards, not dismantle them.
Sincerely,
Yan Tsirklin
