LAKE COUNTY >> With the only building inspector for the county out sick, inspections have become an even more desperate task and are being completed by volunteers and on-call workers.
District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown has been conducting inspections since last week when he became an established volunteer. As of Tuesday, he said he will have completed 60 building inspections around the county.
“I’ve cleared my calendar, I’m doing building inspections every hour of every day,” Brown said.
During the course of his work, he has encountered a number of issues further delay the process.
“I’ve been out to do inspections and they weren’t ready, I’d get all the way to Lower Lake and turn around to go all the way back to Upper Lake and that happens all the time with these guys,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of things that we need to do to get work done on both sides.”
County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson said there has been a lot of effort by various departments since the issue came to light. She especially wanted to commend Brown for all the work he has put in with inspections.
“I think it’s important to note what Supervisor Brown is doing in the past few days since all of this has started,” Huchingson said. “This is truly a village coming together, but we still have a long way to go.”
District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon is trying to get his paperwork through so he can be certified as a volunteer for building inspections and help speed up the process.
Community Development Director for Lake County, who also oversees the Building Division County, Bob Massarelli said they have made some progress since last week when the issue was discussed at the Board Meeting.
So far, they have hired a part-time plans examiner, two building inspectors who will start once paperwork is finished, and an interim chief building official. The utilization building inspectors from Lakeport and a self-certification pilot program for roofing has been adopted.
For the pilot program, the county will hold a 90-day period in which homeowners who are having roofs built can have their roofer apply for a permit to self-certify it so they do not have to wait for the county to do so. The county can inspect it at random if this is done and if the roof does not comply, the contractor who applied for the permit will not be allowed to apply for any other self-certification processes for construction.
“One of the areas we spend a lot of time on for inspection is the roofing. It’s a bit time consuming and it’s also an area where we feel that we can save some time,” Massarelli said. “We want to run a pilot program to see if self-certifying can be successful.”
If the program is successful, Massarelli said he would be working with the county to put together a permanent ordinance for roofing. This is only one of the options for inspection, homeowners can still get their projects looked at in other ways if they choose to do so.
“I want to emphasize that it is the homeowner’s choice to do this. There is no preference and we are not urging people to go one way or another, it is completely up to the homeowner,” Massarelli said.
Tuesday night the county held a job fair for positions in the Building Division and had a total of 13 qualified applicants for that department. Already, the county has appointments set up for those who qualified and will be able to get them started by the end of this week at the earliest to help out. At the same time of the job fair, they also held a town hall meeting to update those who came on where the county is at in the process and to get more ideas from the community.
With these processes being conducted, the county is looking to cut waiting time in half for those who are building. If this recruitment goes unsuccessful, the county will continue to look and do the second round in hopes of finding qualified personnel for the position.
“We take this issue very seriously. We’ve been working for several weeks trying to get ahead of this issue,” Massarelli said.
