STALL! STALL! AND STALL SOME MORE!

Does this sound like a PLAN OF ACTION to you?

If you are Butch Hansen or Mark Ceminsky and the topic is the hiring of a Building Official, it apparently DOES!

This struggle has been on numerous Town Board agendas, even back to over a year ago!

IN A NUTSHELL, Hansen and Ceminsky appear to have a very strong desire to continue to hire Darrel Gilmer, the current (and now outgoing) Building Official.

This in spite of the fact that Gilmer was very delinquent in providing a list of open permits to the Board as requested. (This had been done before his tenure so Town officials -- PC and TB--could keep track of the status of approved permits.) This request was brought up repeatedly by Supervisor Lu Barfknecht, over and over, asking Where Is It? Meeting after meeting went by and no updated list appeared.

This in spite of the fact that Gilmer had submitted documents that had multiple addresses for the same permit number!

This in spite of the fact that Gilmer overbilled the Township almost $7,000 in one month, a fact that was caught only by Supervisor Lu Barfknecht. (Then Hansen and Ceminsky tried to keep her personally out of the audit process of this account with the Treasurer and Ceminsky. She was having none of that!)

This in spite of the fact that other firms vying for the job had much more up-to-date methods of reporting permit activity and were well-staffed with people to call on for various inspections.

How did Hansen and Ceminsky continue to get this put off month after month? 

By coming up with a series of new objections, month after month, to the latest version of the contract. You should note that this contract was thoroughly reviewed by the Attorney early on at the request of the Board to ensure that the Township was protected. Yet Hansen and Ceminsky continued to find "problems" with the contract that they hadn't brought up at the last meeting and continued to ask for new versions for the next month and the next month, thus keeping the Board from closing this out.

By Ceminsky claiming, even though the candidate firm was to sign a contract that included septic inspections, that he had researched and found that the principal used to have a septic certificate but had let it expire. Hello! Remember the staff of people besides the principal? 

By asserting that if the firm under consideration were sold, the Township would be stuck with whomever bought it. The Township is NOT and this was already handled in the contract in front of them that they repeatedly objected to.
In fact, Ceminsky made incorrect assertions on this point, was told they were incorrect, and asked to be shown where the item was covered in the contract. Which he was. A few minutes' of discussion later, he repeated this with the same incorrect objection!

Hansen objected on the topic of subcontractors that might be hired by the firm. The Clerk very politely pointed out to him the section "on page 4 at the bottom: Subcontractors." Now, how does one suggest that he has thoroughly reviewed a proposed contract and then go on to object that there is missing information for a portion when that portion is right there in front of him? I've heard of Selective Hearing before....


Eventually, rather than let this get put off until the April meeting (when the Board might be different) Barfknecht called for a Special Meeting of the Board on the topic of hiring the Building Official. In my mind, Hansen and Ceminsky are responsible for this extra expenditure of taxpayer funds.

At that Special Meeting, Supervisor Palmquist stated that he was "tired" of all this [nonsense] and asked Hansen and Ceminsky WHY they were so dead set on having Gilmer as Township Building Official.

The Board approved the new contract with Inspectron by a vote of three Supervisors. What did your representatives Hansen and Ceminsky do?
                                  THEY ABSTAINED!

Perhaps NOW we can have a Building Official who does not insist that he wants to talk only to Hansen and Ceminsky! What was that about anyway? THE BOARD hires him on behalf of the residents. He is answerable to the entire Board.

Perhaps NOW we can have a Building Official who understands that he does NOT have Zoning authority. One who will not, without any compunction or apparent understanding of the implication of his statement, say to a public official that "80% of the time, what happens on site is not what is on the approved permit application" [that has gone before the Commission and the Board, who DO have zoning authority.] This is how unapproved structures not provided for under the Ordinances can get built anyway.

Perhaps NOW we can have a Building Official who wants to do the right thing professionally and is not punished by the changing political winds, as I view what happened to one individual in the past.

Looking for the Township to BUILD a good relationship with its new Building Official!