While exercising the other day, I watched a code compliance violation hearing on one of the local TV stations. It?s a station that shows local city government meetings ? one of those stations that no one watches unless they?re stuck on a NordicTrack and desperately need distraction. It wasn?t entertaining, but it was certainly educational.
Here?s the case. A plumbing contractor installed a new soil line from a house to the street. He dug under the sidewalk and put a cleanout T between the sidewalk and the street in the planter area, and then hooked up his new 4? pipe to the sewer riser. That, according to the city attorney, required an additional permit because he was working in the public right of way.
This is what I learned. First, the contractor made a big mistake by having the homeowner get the permits. Gang, that?s just plain dumb.
Second, the contractor got sideways with a neighbor because he put the bucket of his trencher down on the neighbor?s property. Big mistake. Don?t mess with the neighbor?s place without permission, you never know who?s cranky and who isn?t. The neighbor was cranky and responded by calling the city and filing a complaint. The head of the permitting department got involved, sent the inspector out and the inspector issued the code violation complaint.
Now, the plumbing contractor had done the entire installation correctly and the plumbing inspector had signed off on the job. No one cared about that, it wasn?t the issue. The issue, as it turns out, was that the city attorney and the permitting department were miffed that they hadn?t collected more tax dollars on the job. The statements they made, the questions they asked, their whole case in the courtroom boiled down to that. Not one word was said about the contractor?s work on the job. Nope, the whole thing was about the nit-picky additional permit for working in the public right of way.
How did that permit get missed? Drawings of the job were made by the contractor. He gave the drawings to the owner, who took them to the permitting department to get the permit. The owner didn?t know all the details and if you think the person behind the desk will ask the right questions to make sure the correct permits are obtained, think again. As a result the contractor had to defend his actions in the courtroom. And pay for an attorney to be there with him. And I might add this all happened in a courtroom with a judge who knew little or nothing about either the code or the work that was done.
I don?t know how the story ended, I can only exercise for so long. But the one thing I do know is that the plumbing contractor lost money on that job. And it wouldn?t have happened if he?d taken the time to obtain the permits himself to make sure they were done correctly.
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