Mr. Eriksen noted Ms. Maria Tomaras, owner/operator of Maria's Sunshine One Hour Cleaners, was on the telephone along with her daughter, Ms. Pat Giorgas to appeal the cancellation of her Fund issued insurance coverage.
Mr. Eriksen reviewed with the Council that Ms. Tomaras is the owner/operator of Maria's Sunshine One Hour Cleaners located at 1623 N Rand Rd in Palatine , IL . She purchased the facility from Mr. Hyo Bok Han, effective April 1, 2005. The facility had maintained pollution liability coverage with the Fund since June 26, 2000.
Ms. Tomaras failed to provide documentation that she obtained four (4) compliance program continuing education credits for calendar year 2005 and that the drycleaning facility had a compliance program site inspection during either calendar year 2004 or 2005. Based upon the failure to obtain the required CEUs and the failure to have a compliance program site inspection during either calendar year, the insurance cancelled May 29, 2006.
The Fund sent Ms. Tomaras, on May 23, 2005, a letter informing her that she must be participating in a Council approved compliance program and must meet the continuing education requirements. A subsequent letter was sent on October 11, 2005 reminding her that the facility must have a compliance program site inspection by December 31, 2005 if the last site inspection was prior to January 1, 2004. Ms. Tomaras noted in her appeal letter to the Administrator, dated May 5, 2006, that she had received the October 2005 letter from the Fund stating a site inspection needs to be completed before a certain date. She stated in her letter “After we received that letter, an inspector came to the plant about three (3) weeks after that. Once the inspector came, we had peace of mind that our inspection was completed, only to find out when it was too late that the inspector was not from the Trust Fund, but from the county.”
Mr. Eriksen stated the issue for Council consideration is do they wish to reinstate Ms. Tomaras insurance coverage to May 29, 2006 and reinstate the original retroactive date on the policy to June 26, 2000?
Ms. Giorgas spoke on behalf of her mother that they had never owned a drycleaning plant before. They had spoken to other friends who operated facilities and they were not aware of these compliance program requirements. The prior owner did not have proper documentation even though there was an Enviro-clean Compliance Program certificate at the facility. She thought they would get a letter notifying them of the CEU meetings so they could attend them. Subsequently, a site inspector showed up in the fall of 2005 and inspected their facility. They felt they had covered all of the requirements for calendar year 2005. Since then they have obtained the necessary CEUs by attending various ISFA sponsored meetings and had the facility inspected by a compliance program inspector.
The Council discussed the issue at length and on a motion by Mr. Bredenkamp and a second by Mr. Kim, on a roll call vote of 5-0, voted to reinstate the insurance coverage to May 29, 2006 and retain the original retroactive date of June 29, 2000. It was noted that this was a one (1) time exception and further non-compliance would result in cancellation of the insurance policy. |
