2017 Directory

14 WYOMING ARCHITECTURE .17 | www.aia-wyoming.org Government Advocacy Committee Advocating for the OUR Profession BY MARK KUCERA, AIA Committee Members: Mark Kucera, AIA, Chair Charlie Van Over, AIA Lyle Murtha, AIA Colleen Nelson, AIA Mike Potter, AIA Cornelius Kinsey, AIA T he Government Advocacy Committee has plenty of issues to look into. We have reviewed and acted on many of the items brought forward and continue to be involved in many ongoing issues. Lyle Murtha, AIA received notification issued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation of a tax reform outline intended to guide House and Senate tax writing committees in their drafting of tax reform legislation. That frame- work does not explicitly preserve the historic tax credit, and envisions that most business tax credits will be repealed. There are many historic buildings across Wyoming that have taken advantage of this program and this tax credit has assisted in preserving our limited, but rich history of buildings. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has been a leader in defending this tax credit in the past, as well as the Alliance for Historic Wyoming. The AIA Wyoming Government Advocacy Committee also chose to lend support by endorsing a form letter of support sent to our US congressional delegation. We have expressed our support of this credit. We reviewed Senator Pappas’s bill which would eliminate dual jurisdictions for plan review which we supported. We also reviewed legisla- tion brought by the States surveyors that carries a penalty for destruction of survey monuments during construction, which we support. In September, two items that could potentially affect the AIAWyoming membership were presented to be discussed with the members. The first item is Professional services tax which was introduced in the last legislative session but defeated. It has been reported this is again being proposed and a bill is being drafted to tax profes- sional services. If written, this type of tax could result in damaging impacts on small businesses. Engineers and architects contacted to date are against this type of bill. The second item is the possibility of public entities competing with the private sector for professional design services by producing designs and construction documents “in house”. If public entities develop resources to produce designs and documentation there could potentially be a negative impact on the private sector and small business. Senator Pappas responded to the first item stating “there is no committee sponsored bill repealing exemptions at this time, but there is still one more meeting to go (Dec 4th & 5th). Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that a bill draft could be entertained at that time, as there would not be the required notification and public comment opportunity. However, there could be a bill being drafted by an individual legislator that I am not aware of.” The second item regarding direct competition by Public entities with the private sector is currently being researched and findings will be presented to the chapter. Mike Potter, AIA who is a member of this committee and AIA Wyoming’s representative for AIA’s State Government Network (SGN) re- ported that SGN held its annual meeting in St. Louis earlier this summer. There were several topics discussed with the most apparent interest being in encroachment by interior designers/ decorators and professional licensing. Several states have seen a push for interior designers to be certified and licensed to do interior design work in commercial buildings. These efforts have been successfully defeated by local and state AIA components, but more states are seeing legislation being pushed. Removal of Professional licensing is also being pushed in some states. Wanting to express why architects should get involved in what happens to the profession, Mike also shared an excerpt fromThe Archi- tects Journal publication. In the last iteration the possibility of employing someone other than the Architect as the initial decision maker was adopted. I never understood that since with the Architect as the IDM we knew that no decision by the Architect as IDM would likely ever implicate the conduct of the Architect – the same cannot be said of an IDM who isn’t the Architect. When I asked why change was made the response was “many times the Architect doesn’t feel comfortable in that role”. Guess what Architects . . . . if you want to be respected as the leader there are times you must step forward, sit on the hot seat, and lead. No one will afford you the respect that role carries unless you are willing to carry that role . . . . . period. The relationship between a vendor selling a prod- uct and a purchaser on the other hand is defined entirely by the contract. It is not a relationship based on confidence or trust – it is merely an arms’ length transaction . . . for the Architect, one more thing the Owner must buy to accomplish the project. As an Owner I don’t place implicit