The Building Department

Kind of timely considering the comments yesterday regarding the Building Department.

What follows is the story of Randy Richard. This is pretty much word-for-word from a document he sent us this week. We're guessing there's another side to the story, but his is pretty gruesome.

There are some city councilors and other city officials who read this spot from time to time. If you have any ideas for Randy and want to get in touch with him, e-mail Save Fitchburg, and we'll hook you up with him.

In the meantime, settle in (this is pretty long) and check out Randy's experience. It's not a pretty story.

My name is Randy Richard and I am 27 years old. I was born and raised
in Leominster and am a schoolteacher at Sky View Middle in Leominster. I
am also a licensed real estate agent working for a family owned company at Alpha
Real Estate in Fitchburg.

In March 2003, I bought a
condemned HUD house on Pacific St. by the college. The house was a mess. I
completely rehabbed it with my father by personally doing all the work that we
could do. Going through the permit process was an absolute
nightmare. I could never go into the office and have a question
answered. I always walked out with a fear of not knowing the correct
information. The worst was having to schedule the inspections. You
would think a city the size of Fitchburg would have a schedule book to keep
things in order. I would have to call the electrical inspector the morning
of the day that I wanted him to come by. Somewhat hard to do being a
teacher who tries not to miss work especially not knowing if he would even be
able to go that day. I even had to have my mother make a couple of
appointments because I couldn’t know for sure when he might get there, so I
couldn’t even plan on a day ahead. After having the permit process be such
a nightmare and having to have my mother attend the final building inspection
with Mr. Gallant himself, she said that he didn’t even go into the house to
check it out. He simply looked at the outside and said, looks fine.
That’s my first dealing.

I then bought a three-family on Hartford
Street in October 2004 and completely turned the building around, the former
tenants were moving out shortly after, busted by the local drug task force on
North Main Street in connection with the largest ecstacy bust in this
area. I didn’t need to pull any permits but it speaks to the quality that
I’m trying to bring into the city. I’m a well-educated (Master of
Education) young professional who is eager to improve real estate and achieve
financial success.

My next interaction with the Building
Department was with a building that I was going to purchase at 311 Daniels St.
in Cleghorn in March 2005. I figured that I would be doing the city a favor by
converting a building which was housing a small photo studio with 75 percent of
the building not being used. I was intending to create brand new
apartments with garaged parking and not even having to change the outside of the
building at all. I did all my research and knew that eventually I should
be able to do this because it had the proper zoning and all other requirements
would have been satisfied. I simply needed to get the permit process
started to show the bank that the mortgage would not be in jeopardy because the
value of the property would easily double. I had a signed purchase and
sales agreement so I was very serious about this. When I went to the
building dept. they had me write my letter telling them what I wanted to
do before I could actually receive my permit. You have to wait till they
respond to you in writing before you know that you can proceed. This is
where all the problems begin. There is no protocol on how to handle these
letters. If you ask how long you can expect this to take, the answer is,
Mr. Gallant is very busy working for both Fitchburg and Westminster (Do people
know that he doesn’t even work in Fitchburg full time, how much does he make in
Fitchburg, let alone Westminster?) and it might take a week or two. They
took five weeks to get my response back to me telling me that I need to take up
the matter with the Zoning Board of Appeals. How could they not just tell
me that at the beginning and save me five weeks. I called the zoning board
of appeals and the next meeting that they have is another three weeks
away. I could not take the chance that it might not go through and had to
let the seller sell the building to another offer that was received after
mine. I had a purchase and sales for $132,000 and figured the complete
project would cost me $150k and the building would be worth $220k. I
figure I lost out on about $70k because the city could not work at even a
respectable pace. I’m not expecting miracles, just a reasonable matter of
time. Even two weeks would be fine.

Fast forward to March
2006. A friend of mine runs a successful booking agency working with bands
and musicians. He asked me if I might like to work a few hours on the
side. So I said I’m a teacher, absolutely!! I wrote my letter to the
building dept. to seek the proper permit to do so. Here is the timeline
that involves this transaction.

March 31st. Dropped of
letter and paid fee. Asked Peggy the secretary how long I should expect
this to take. Told that she can’t say, Mr. Gallant is very busy. I
insisted that I needed a ballpark idea so I know if it goes too long to give a
phone call and find out what’s going on. Told it should be a week to a
week and a half.

April 24th. Decided to give them a full
three and a half weeks to see if any progress could be made. Called and
talked to Peggy on the phone and she seemed irritated with me that I was
questioning about why it was taking so long to get a response. Said that
she was digging out the letter now and that he would be responding to it
tomorrow with the rest of the letters that he needed to write.

May 12th. Called the Mayor’s Office due to the fact that the
Building Department was of no help when I contacted them. Talked to his
assistant Rob and told him what was going on. Rob said that he would let
the mayor know and call upstairs to the Building Department. and tell them to
get on the ball.

May 19th. Went into the Mayor’s
Office because I hadn’t heard back at all. Said that I was through waiting
and would just like to get a refund back because I was deciding not to do
business in this city. Rob said that Mylott was disappointed the first
time he had heard about this and would be notified again and Rob would call the
Building Department again to tell them to just refund my money.

May 26th. Still no response. Went into the Mayor’s
Office for the second time to voice my displeasure at being completely ignored
by both the building dept. and the mayor. Rob insisted that I was in the
right and that I should expect a call from the mayor or the building dept.
should definitely get my refund back on Tuesday after the holiday because he had
spoken to Mr. Gallant 15 minutes prior to my arrival and that Mr. Gallant told
him he was going upstairs at that moment to take care of the matter.

June 2nd. Still didn’t get my refund back, a letter from the
Building Department, or a phone call from the mayor or Building
Department. Because I knew that I wouldn’t receive it by Friday, June2nd,
I scheduled an appointment with the Sentinel and Enterprise. I went home
to check my mailbox after work, nothing, drove to the Mayor’s Office. Rob
sees me and says that nothing must have happened. I informed him that
nothing has changed and that this is the last straw. I was through dealing
with the mayor’s office because even though they are supposed to help tax paying
citizens, they ignored me just as much as the Building Department. I spent
45 minutes with S&E and informed them that this needs to be addressed
again. Last year they ran a story about the unfriendly atmosphere at City
Hall. I don’t care how friendly or unfriendly they are, I just want the
services that they are suppose to provide to be delivered in a reasonable time
frame.

I can’t wait to see what is going to happen in a
month or so when I go to apply for a permit to finish my basement into living
space. I’d imagine that they can’t possibly be more negligent than they
already have been. Maybe they’ll see my name and just want to get me the
hell out of there and give me what I want. We’ll see I guess.