HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-EBE-2026-08-18City of Ithaca Board of Electrical Examiners Meeting Minutes - 08/18/26
In Attendance:
Rob Fell-deWalt (Director of Codes)
Chris Accardo (Elec. Inspector)
Monroe Makowsky (Elec. Inspector)
Board members:
Robert Sparks
Tim Hayes
Max Paskin
Items Discussed
(1) Scheduled, open meetings (Rob Fell-DeWalt)
-Per City requirement, the Board will have to have announced, public meetings. The Board
plans to integrate this into the cycle of licensing reviews
-Rob F. brought up the question of whether there is a minimum required number of
meetings, Chris A. has emailed City Attorney for clarification
(2) Discussion of Licensing review
-The Board discussed the City adopting the ICC Exam. Monroe M., who has taken the exam, gave
his impressions and experiences of it. The board continued their agreement that the City will use
the ICC Exam
-Relative to minimum requirements for licensure, Max P. and Robert S. expressed concern that the
City Code change requiring licensure or having worked under an individual with licensure may
prevent electricians who work in jurisdictions without licensure from working in the City. Chris A.
pointed out that the implementation of this policy was to limit subjective judgement calls on part of
the Board, as there needed to be some kind of metric for supervised work, and create transparency
around qualifications, and the Board agreed. It was discussed that this will be reviewed later with
further discussions around graduated licensure (residential licenses, HVAC electrical licenses,
etc), where it may make more sense to have different requirements.
-The Board discussed the question of whether reciprocity would continue given the changes to
examination, although no determinations were made. It was discussed that potentially we would
move to reciprocity with individuals who have taken the ICC exam and hold licensure in other
jurisdictions; reciprocity with jurisdictions that will be reciprocal with Ithaca; or no reciprocity. At
this time reciprocity remains as described in City Code.
-The Board decided to do license reviews via OpenGov, and would convene in person at the end of
the review period in person to discuss any disagreements.
The board has agreed on the following Schedule for review:
First week of February
First week of May
First week of August
First week of November
(3) Technical Discussions
-Discussion of the expiration date of 210.8(F)’s exception #2’s came up. Upon review of 2026 NEC
for clarification, found that the same date is shown for expiration of exception. Chris Accardo has
reached out to Fritz Gunther of NY Electrical Inspection Agency and will reach out to other
resources for clarification.
-Discussion of situations where an additional riser is added to an existing service for new service
equipment, and whether alterations would need to be made to the existing equipment regarding
emergency disconnecting means. It was determined that the existing equipment would need to
have an emergency disconnecting means and service disconnecting means must be grouped, as
the entirety of all equipment is acting as the singular service equipment, and have partial
emergency disconnecting means creates more confusion to first responders.