August 30, 2007
Soul Discretion
Our city needs to add more teeth to an ordinance that will protect the taxpayer from shoddy developers. As a representative for the taxpayer I’m on the committee, made up mostly of members in the building industry, who will make recommendations to the City Council. One of the developers stated that he’s losing sleep over the wording of the proposed ordinance which says the city has sole discretion whether or not to accept and sign off on a completed project. It’s easy to relate his anxiety to the struggle man has with God. Whether in this life or the next, many resist the fact that the Lord has Soul Discretion
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Gail;
-----We have a mutual friend who purchased a new home several years ago. All of the paperwork, permitting, and inspections were properly completed before the developer was allowed to sell that house to our friend. After moving in, our friend began discovering some major problems with it. When they tried to go after the builder, they found the builder bankrupted and unable to remedy the flaws. Anyone with a sense of justice would then think the county would be liable for the remedies. The county inspected the home, in essence assuring the buyer that it was free of such flaws. But it was not. But of course the county would not remedy the flaws! First, they are government; you have to ask them if you can sue them; they won’t say yes. Second, these construction permits are not about quality of the product. They are first revenue raisers and control devices. Then they are quality assurance, if they wish to take time to exercise that responsibility.
-----A neighbor of ours had the “expert” head of the land use department locate and permit a leach field for his septic system, which failed to perform. Another party, who I know very well, had the same “expert” and his dad determine the location of his leach field. This party used to play on the piece of ground when he was a child. He told both again and again of the groundwater that seasonally surfaced in the location they were choosing for the leach field. But they were the “experts,” they didn’t listen. After a few years of stinky sewage rising to the surface, this party hired a friend in the dirt construction business to quietly relocate the leach field to where he had told the “expert” to put it years earlier. Problem solved.
-----This same party moved his gas hot water heater more than six feet. That, of course, required another inspection by another “expert.” This time it was the state “expert.” This party had wrapped the hot water heater with fiber-glass insulation. After the scheduled inspection date, he went to the state inspection office to get his “sign-off” sheet. The “expert” had rejected the project because no flammable material was allowed within six inches of the heater. When queried about exactly what flammable material he was referring to, the inspector asked, “What is that stuff you have wrapped around the heater.” Incredible! This “expert” did not even know what fiber-glass insulation was!
-----”That is fiber-glass insulation,” the party exclaimed in surprise, “you don’t know fiber-glass insulation is inflammable? My goodness! I put it inside the interior walls of my addition as an optional firebreak suggested by the building code itself! And you are giving me grief for wrapping my hot water heater in it?!”
-----When asked if he would sign off on the project now, the “expert” refused since he did not personally know whether fiber-glass insulation was flammable or not. “My God!” the party proclaimed in exasperation, “The state requires someone stupider than I am to inspect my work!”
-----After a few minutes of talking the inspector down off the ceiling, this party made a deal with him. “You go out there tomorrow,” he said, “and you hold a lighter to that insulation to see if it burns. I will tell my wife that you are coming. You hold that lighter to that insulation all day, if you have to. And if it runs out of fuel, my wife will get you a box of matches. We have plenty of matches. You hold fire to that insulation all day. If it does not burn, sign off on my project.”
-----The next afternoon, when he returned to the state office to get his sign-off papers, this party did not really expect to learn that the “expert” had actually held a lighter to his insulation. But he had! He actually had gone out there and had held a lighter to that insulation to learn if fiber-glass does not burn! In disbelief, the party asked his wife that evening if the “expert” really had come out and exhibited his idiocy. She confirmed it! He had!
-----If permitting processes were about quality first these kinds of reports would not exist, inspectors would actually know what they were doing, “experts” would actually be experts, building permit fees would not be extraordinary, and you would not have to have a building permit to built anything larger than 120 square feet. But this kind of incompetence and deceit is what you get with man at the helm of government. Don’t mistake my next statement, I do not believe man’s governmental efforts should ever resemble anything like a theocracy. But I am thoroughly convinced that, with man, God is making a demonstration to all His creatures in heaven that none of His creatures were created to govern themselves. His demonstration is aptly underscoring the fact that governance is for God alone. That is why the City having sole discretion whether to sign off on a project bothers me. It is interesting that you related the builder’s anxiety over the City’s desired control to man’s struggle with God. That is exactly what a struggle with a government having sole discretion becomes, a struggle with god. A government must have some responsibility to the citizens - some accountability. In fact, a lot of it. The media thinks it is that accountability. Should we laugh, or gag? I agree that builders must be held accountable, but so also must governments. And that is what has not been happening. Our governments are out of control already, and the City wants more?! No laughing! It should make us all gag!
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