by Carrie Bartoldus
Denial of Permit Breaks “ Camel’s Back”
Astoria, Ore – After traveling all day the Moore family returned from their Christmas trip to a freezing cold home, the furnace had broke. After a week of miserable weather and trying to repair the faulty oil heater, Mike Moore made the decision to convert to gas. He contacted NW Natural Gas company and they ran a gas line to the house.
Next, Moore contracted with a plumbing company to run the gas line into the house for his new gas furnace. When the plumbing company went to the Clatsop County Building Department they were in for a big surprise; permits could not be issued to that residence.
Mike’s wife, Jennifer Moore, then went to the building department and explained that she needed a permit for the plumbing company to install a gas line for a gas heater. The clerk started filling out the paperwork, but when Jennifer Moore gave her the address the clerk stopped writing. “She slammed the pen down and said, ‘That house belongs to Richard Lee! We will not issue a permit to Richard Lee or any of his properties.” stunned, Moore exclaimed, “ I couldn’t believe it.”
Jennifer Moore began sobbing in the building department office. “It was freezing cold,” Moore said, “I hadn’t had heat for over a week and two of my children were home with strep throat and this woman is telling me that she wouldn’t be giving me a permit because my home is owned by my step-father? What am I supposed to do? What’s my next step?” Moore said she appealed to the clerk and the response she received was, “That’s not my problem.”
Finally, after much discussion amongst themselves the staff went into another room leaving Moore in the outer office. They told her they would, “see” if they could do something. While she was waiting for their response another staff member arrived on the scene and saw Moore’s distress. After Moore explained to him what was happening, he joined the others in the back room and according to Moore could be overheard ordering them to give her the permit.
The clerk, who had originally refused Moore the permit, returned to the front desk and told her that if a representative for the plumbing company came back they would allow the plumbing company a permit. “They told me,” Moore said, “that they were standing by their decision not to issue Lee permits on any of his properties.”
When Lynda Lee heard what her daughter had gone through merely because of her relationship to Richard Lee she said, “that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back!” Lee added, “At no time ever have we been notified that permits were being suspended prior to this incident. We still have never been given a written notification that permits have been suspended.”
There has been no indication of any permit or land use violations taking place at the address that the Moore family live at. There appears to be no reason for the Building Code Department to recognize that address as a house belonging to the Lee family.
Clatsop County Commissioner Richard Lee and his wife Lynda filed a Tort Claim Notice with the County. The notice alleges an appearance of “unlawful and unwarranted” treatment against the Lees. (see related story )
NorthCoastOregon contacted Ed Wegner, director for Clatsop County Planning Division and Building Codes Department about this and other issues. “We’re not going to comment on these issues” said Wegner, adding that he had discussed the permit issues enough already.
Clatsop County Manager Scott Derickson was also contacted and asked whether County Staff can talk about specific Richard Lee development conflicts.
“We actually don’t know what issues are going to be brought up in the possible lawsuit.” Derickson said. “When the lawsuit is filed we will know the scope and what we can and can’t talk about.” He also added that they have an obligation to play it safe for the benefit of County tax payers.
Related Articles
District Attorney and Commissioners Trade Staff Accusations
Letter From Scott Derickson to Ed Wegner and TDS Staff
No comments:
Post a Comment