Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, left, and Sen.
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The tragedy, which happened during a birthday party, was followed by news that the builder of the apartment complex had paid out $26.5 million to settle claims of construction defects on various other projects.
But the agency that licenses and regulates California’s construction industry was not aware of the company’s track record, and had neither the mechanisms nor requirements to collect such information.
Early in the morning of January 16, 2015, the fifth-floor balcony at the Library Gardens apartment complex on Kittredge Street collapsed, killing Olivia Burke, Eimear Walsh, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster and Lorcán Miller, all 21 and from Ireland, and Ashley Donohoe, 22, of Rohnert Park; Donohoe and Burke were cousins.
In a statement emailed by her attorney’s office, Jackie Donohoe said she hoped the new law would lead to “changes to the building codes and require stricter standards for balcony construction”. “My colleagues in the Legislature and I are deeply grateful to Jackie Donohoe, Ashley’s mother, and Aoife Beary and her mother, Angela, for their testimony on behalf of SB 465 and their courage in sharing how their families’ and friends’ lives have been forever changed by a preventable construction failure”.
“These tragedies are repeat catastrophes that can be prevented”.
Requires California’s Department of Industrial Relations and the Division of Occupational Safety and Health to transmit information to the Contractors State License Board (CSLB) about any actions taken against CSLB licensees. Contractors will now have to tell the state whenever they’re convicted of crimes related to their work.
Minister Flanagan also thanked California’s public representatives – especially Senators Jerry Hill and Lonnie Hancock who sponsored the bill, and the members of the state legislature’s Irish Caucus.
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“This bill is an important step toward preventing another tragedy”, Brown said in a statement, after signing the bill in a private ceremony with Irish dignitaries and the family of Rohnert Park’s Ashley Donohoe, who fell to her death when the rotted fifth-floor balcony gave way from an apartment building at 2020 Kittredge St. “Most importantly, contractors who build defective structures must be required to publicly disclose their settlements”, she said.
