Jacksonville construction company Northstar Consultants Inc. left an 89-year-old widow in North Little Rock with an uninhabitable, incomplete home that has dozens of code violations, and now the company is without a license because of it.
The Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board met Wednesday to discuss the company’s application to renew its license and was presented with a 2-inch stack of papers that detailed Northstar’s history and four complaints submitted since 2011 that allege poor workmanship, failure to pay a contractor, project abandonment and other grievances.
Northstar owner Robert “Drew” Walker told the board that he hasn’t been affiliated with the company in years and didn’t know that his former business partner - Northstar President Marcus Dupree - was constructing homes under the company’s name.
“I’m trying to get out,” Walker said. “This is a nightmare for me. … I feel like I’ve been taken advantage of.”
Dupree had submitted the renewal application without Walker’s knowledge, Walker said.
Dupree is also who contracted with Gretchen Madison, 89, to demolish and rebuild her small home in North Little Rock.
Ten months later and without a finished home, Madison has filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court against Northstar, Dupree, Walker and Walker’s mother - Jacksonville Water Commissioner Joy Kinman - who checked a box on Walker’s original license application that indicated she wasn’t related to him. The suit seeks more than $520,000 in damages.
Dupree wasn’t at Wednesday’s meeting and didn’t return phone calls or an email seeking comment for this article.
Walker, 28, was attentive throughout the meeting, making eye contact with board members and sitting upright.
“I was not involved [in building Madison’s home,] but was not opposed to helping Marcus fix the mess he made,” Walker told the board. “I’m a third-generation contractor. It’s the right thing to do. Since we are in the process of getting sued, I don’t see where they are going to allow me to come in and fix the deficiencies to get it up to code or whatever needs to be done. At this time, I don’t think there is a reason to keep my license.”
The six-member board unanimously agreed. Board member Billy Bunn wasn’t satisfied with Walker’s explanation, telling him that as owner of the company he had the responsibility to know what his business was involved in.
“You are the type of person that this board is to protect the general public against, and for you to sit there and say you know nothing and smile,” Bunn said sternly. “If there was something I could do to you or this board could do, we’d do it. This is a disgrace for you to do this to this lady and then come here with the attitude you’ve got.”
‘SHE WANTS HER GARDEN BACK’
Until last year, Madison had lived at 420 Freda Road in North Little Rock since 1964. Her 900-square-foot home sat on a little less than an acre, and she took pride in her garden, where she grew vegetables to can.
When her family discovered a leak under the home that caused mold and other water damage, an insurance company provided just enough money to destroy and rebuild the house. Northstar Consultants was the only company to enter a bid that came close to the roughly $60,000 price.
“Marcus knew she had this insurance claim. He got real interested then. He said, ‘we will work within your budget,’” said Madison’s son-in law, Todd Parsley.
Madison signed a contract with Dupree in September that said the home would be completed by Nov. 2, at which point the total price of $55,972 would be due. November came and went, and while Madison had paid in full, the home wasn’t finished.
Parsley wrote a change order to the contract that stated that the home had to be finished by Feb. 8 or Northstar would pay $100 for every day after that date that the job was not completed. Dupree signed the order.
“To this date, the project is not completed,” licensing board attorney Vicki Pickering said.
“The house has no plumbing fixtures, the electrical system is incomplete, there is no air conditioning, no cabinets, no appliances, the flooring is not complete, the front and back decks are not compete.And there are numerous code violations on the project,” Pickering said.
Code violations include improper installation of wiring, gaps in window framing and a foundation that isn’t level, among dozens of others, according to Pickering.
Madison’s lawsuit seeks actual, compensatory and punitive damages in addition to statutory damages over alleged violations of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Madison is living with her daughter and son-in-law in Cabot, and she constantly worries about the possibility of her home not ever being completed, Parsley said.
“She can’t believe that people just lie. She’ll tell you it’s hard for her to even come up with something bad to say about [Dupree]. Even after all he’d done to her, she was taking him pecan pie and jelly,” Parsley said. “Now she just can’t stop talking about how she wants to get back to her garden.”
THIRD-GENERATION CONTRACTOR
Walker, now a manager of Chili’s in Jacksonville, was 22 when Northstar Consultants Inc. was registered with the Arkansas secretary of state’s office in 2007.
A year later, he applied for the company’s contractor’s license and became both the experience and business law qualifier, meaning he had to be involved in day-to-day operations for the company to keep its certification.
But not long after that, in February 2009 and again in 2010, Walker submitted requests to the licensing board that his license be placed on inactive status.
Until recently, he hadn’t had any more contact with the board, records show, but Dupree submitted renewal applications for Northstar in November 2011 and again in February of this year.
“The only thing I can take from this is I feel that the board isn’t doing a justice to me personally,” Walker said. “If you go and get a driver’s license, you have to be present; you have to sign it. They are saying an officer [of a company] can sign anything for anybody.”
He doesn’t talk to Dupree often and is upset with him, Walker said.
He was best man at Dupree’s wedding in October, just a month after Dupree had signed the contract with Madison, but that doesn’t mean they are close, Walker said.
“Jacksonville is a very tight knit community. He has a prominent name in Jacksonville. I know his family. Just because you know somebody doesn’t mean you are best friends,” he said.
Walker’s mother, who owns a Jacksonville-based construction company of her own, said she’s never met Dupree and is confused why she was included in the suit filed against her son.
In a phone conversation Wednesday, Kinman said she doesn’t remember marking a box that said she wasn’t related to her son, whom she adopted.
“I gave a reference five years ago, which the statute of limitations is run on. I don’t even know how I’ve been drawn into this,” she said. “I don’t remember marking that box. Obviously I read it wrong. I did fill out that application. He worked for me since he was 15 years old. We taught him every aspect of construction.”
Madison’s lawsuit alleges that Kinman asked neighbors Lucille Cook and Patricia Young to fill out references for Walker. Both did, and Cook wrote that Walker “oversaw and did most of the work” when building her large, custom brick home in 2003, the suit says. At the time, Walker was 18.
“When contacted, [Young and Cook] asserted they are friends of Kinman and provided the references at the request of Kinman,” Madison’s lawyer, Victoria Leigh, said in the lawsuit. “[They]asserted that Dave Kinman of Kinman Homes constructed their homes, not Walker. They further asserted they have never even met Walker, but only know of him because of his mother.”
Joy Kinman said that isn’t true and that her neighbors were likely confused because they know Walker as “Drew,” not Robert - his legal name.
“I built hundreds of homes through my grandparents and parents,” Walker said. “I could have asked anybody for a reference.”
In addition to Northstar Consultants, Walker owns tanning salons - SunRays in Cabot and Bronze Bombshell in Jacksonville. The secretary of state’s website lists Northstar and SunRays as not being in good standing.
After last week’s licensing board decision, Walker said he’s not ruled out reapplying for a licensing contract in the future and said Northstar’s reputation won’t stop him from doing that if he decides it’s what he wants.
Dupree is listed as owner of two companies: Dupree Enterprises Inc., doing business as Getsynkd, and RAA Inc., also known as luvfreak, which is identified on Dupree’s Facebook page as an online adult store. A Google search for Getsynkd delivers results identifying the company as a Web-services firm, but clicking on www.getsynkd.com yields a page that advertises a free video for making money while sleeping.
Neither of those companies is listed in good standing with the secretary of state’s office.
Arkansas, Pages 17 on 07/28/2013