WWA Info Exchange

Our church mission team,of which I am the leader, went to Cleveland last week to build a handicap ramp as part of the Nehemia Mission. We have done this for the last six years and this was the fourth ramp for our team. The mission director was out of town so the technical advisor ws in charge. He gave us a folder with the plans and address and said the material to start was already at the site. This is usual procedure, we started by laying out the location for the posts,and setting the posts in concrete. The second day we started with the stringers and braces, having only 1/2 day due to rain. The third day we were laying the deck flooring and things were going along well. Then we got a visit from the housing inspecter. It seems the technical advisor had not bothered to get a permit since it was in a fenced in back yard! The inspecter was polite when we explained that we were just workers for the mission and the mission handled all paper work. The inspector looked over the work and said it was one of the best she had seen, but we had to pull a permitt. She said there would be no problem just go down to the office with our plans and pay the 30 dollars. The home owner went with me and we went downtown. After three hours of going from room to room getting forms initialled the clerck would not even look at our plan. The clerk said we needed three copies and he would not copy them. Also our pictures of the site would not seve as a site plan. ( They always had in the past. ) So we can not continue until a permitt is issued. We returned from our trip to await the issuing of a permit. Once the paper work is right we hope to be able to complete the project. Out in the country we just build handicaps to state code and have no problems. After the attitude of the building department clerks I am seriously considering going to Hati for my next mission trip!

No good deed goes unpunished. For the one we built, we just worked quickly and in the dark

Glad I don't have fool with that kind of nonsense. Be glad they didn't demand a Environmental Impact Statement. They didn't, did they?

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I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)

Give some people an ounce of power and they think they control the universe.
I have those kinds of problems every time I go to our court house. Even renewing auto licence tags is not simple. I have asked to talk to a supervisor and it seems that EVERY ONE in the place is a supervisor!
I think building inspectors are the worst at trying to justify their jobs. I could go on for an hour telling you about the problems that Maurice Chandly had putting up a storage shed in his back yard a few years ago.

Rog

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Dont badmouth no strangers, they just friends you aint met yet.

An ounce of responsibility is worth a pound of State and Federal laws.

I spent most of my money on woodworking
tools and beer, the rest I just wasted.

Here in rural Skagit Co. the resident attitude is 'it's easier to ask forgiveness than it is permission'. I did get all my extensive remodel work permitted but simply forgot to call for a final. Until one day I get a letter that my permit was about to expire and I should file for an extension or call for the final. Well, I'm not done with everything yet so I called for a final inspection anyway. The inspector came out and saw that I was doing things according to code, Hoyle and the holy grail and signed everything off, even the shop that hadn't had more than an electrical inspection called for by my electrical contractor.

I'd heard a lot of horror stories about our county building dept. and their inspectors but I guess I lucked out and got someone with more than the usual dose of understanding.

It's an abomination how your were treated. Building codes and permits are indeed important to insure public safety. But in this case I should think since the inspector recognized that your work was, as you say, above the level of general practice she should have turned a blind eye to the project.

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Nullum Gratuitum Prandium

Cheers - Dennis

The housing inspecter was polite and helpful. A neighbor had called her (apparently a neighborhood feud) and she had to come and inspect. She could have cited us for starting without a permit. But she just said she was reporting "A pile of lumber " It was the building permitt clerks that were a PIA. Some people just have to excert their authority.

Dennis and Donald,
You are both right.
I told Moe to just build the shed and forget the permit. The worst that could happen was he might have to buy a permit after the fact but, he was worried and wanted to be "legal".
The inspector was not trying to be a hard case but, the permit clerks wanted exact measurements from fences and other buildings and approval from the city engineer. He could not put the building where he wanted it! He ended up having to pay $100.00 for an engineer to write a paragraph on the "tie down" specs, then got an increase on property taxes to boot!
A year later a tax person came around and took the building off of his property taxes because it was under the limit of square footage and was on skids (movable) and not subject to be taxed. We never did use the tie-downs as the building was plenty heavy and well protected from winds that might be harmful.
Sometimes common sense goes out the window when it comes to public employees and rules (laws).

Rog

_________________
Dont badmouth no strangers, they just friends you aint met yet.

An ounce of responsibility is worth a pound of State and Federal laws.

I spent most of my money on woodworking
tools and beer, the rest I just wasted.

And why do you feel that public employees deserve your special scorn? I don't find them to be especially different on the plus or minus side in comparison to a wide variety of employees of private companies, ranging from the various utilities to car dealerships to retail stores and so on.

It's funny how much people complain about the government and taxes (spelled "Tea Party"), but are the first to bitch when a pothole in front of their house isn't fixed, or the feds don't rebuild their town that sits in the flood plain and gets wiped out every couple of years. Before you piss and moan about "regulations", think about how much of your day is simplified by the existence of the government and all it's rules. Start at breakfast, the fact that you can pretty much count on not being poisoned by your food. Stop for gas on the way to work? It's regulations and state testing that let you assume that when the pump says it delivered a gallon of gas, it really a is a gallon (and that it's gasoline of the advertised octane, not some random CRUD). And it goes on like this hundreds of times a day - your assumption that you live in a functioning society comes from the regulations that define behavior. Yes, some are annoying, some are even wrong. But just try living without any, or a government to enforce them.

drstrip,
You are absolutely correct with what you say and it is true that people in the private sector can be just as annoying. That is exactly my point. Some folks regardless of employment can be a pain just because they want to and have that little bit of power to make things a lot more complicated than necessary. It doesn't really matter if it is a 'rule', 'law' or 'company policy' common sense should inter into a given situation.
Case in point......
We took my mother out for a birthday meal at "Montana Mikes" restaurant which is noted for real big servings of food. She just wanted a hamburger and I knew that a 80 year old, 95 pound woman could not eat one of their "normal" hamburgers so I ask the waitress for a child's size hamburger. I was refused the order because "company policy" said that they could not serve a child's meal to anyone over the age of 14. I explained that I would pay the price for a normal hamburger but please give her the smaller one. It was not money involved, it was the fact that she could not possibly eat a 1/2 pound hamburger and it would be wasteful to give it to her. I ask to speak to the manager and the waitress stated that SHE was the manager!
The out come was....Mom was served a large hamburger and we cut it into one quarter sized pieces so she could eat it. She managed to eat one fourth of the hamburger and the rest was thrown into the garbage.
Now where is the common since in that policy?

Rog

_________________
Dont badmouth no strangers, they just friends you aint met yet.

An ounce of responsibility is worth a pound of State and Federal laws.

I spent most of my money on woodworking
tools and beer, the rest I just wasted.

Frustrating when you can't get what you want when you want it. Even more when someone reminds you that you haven't followed the rules. Important to realize that in many places, the job is so compartmentalized and regulated that ANYONE can step in and do it. Those who read The Caine Mutiny might recall Keefer's analysis: "the military is a master plan, designed by geniuses so it can be executed by idiots." I recalled that phrase many times after getting out of the fly and fight end into the delay and demand world of administration. I used to remind the folks I worked with that though there was often no good reason for a regulation, it must be followed.

In a free economy the bad apples can be discarded as discovered. In a command economy or with a union, all that counts is adherence to the party line.

DR-



While I agree with the basic thought of your opinion (both private and public employees can be rude and unthinking). There is an important difference between the two: Government rules are imposed on us, usually on a one size fits all basis for which there is no alternative. We can accept or reject private sector conditions based on our requirements.

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Jess
my gallery
more photos

Great words of wisdom, Jess.

We hold 'purchasing power' over the private marketing sector. In principle we're assumed to hold the power of consent over the government. That seems to have gotten lost somewhere.

_________________
Nullum Gratuitum Prandium

Cheers - Dennis

I don't think it's been lost. Keep in mind that those in elected office were put there by a majority of those who bothered to vote. And they in turn appointed the leadership of the regulatory agencies.

If I can borrow a cliche' - "Be careful who (what) you vote (wish ) for, you may get it".

_________________
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)

I think you might want to re-think this. Though the activist heads come from the spoils system, the inertia comes from the civil (!) service.

No argument about inertia. Holds true in large corporations also. Ask me about Boeing someday.

_________________
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)