Residents seek role from embattled Inspections Department

Fixing Leelanau County's broken Building Inspections Department has become a top priority not only for the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners and county administrator David Gill – but also for many residents of Cleveland Township.

The former head of the department, Robert VanDyke – who was fired last week by Gill – had been slated to appear Tuesday evening before the Cleveland Township Board to discuss two building inspection issues of special concern to township residents.

Cleveland residents have been trying since 1995 to force a property owner in the Scenic Mountainview Estates subdivision to complete his home construction project and clean up junk around his worksite. VanDyke’s apparent inability to resolve the issue and work effectively with the county Prosecuting Attorney’s office to take action against the property owner has been cited as one of the reasons for VanDyke’s firing.

Cleveland residents are also hoping the county Building Inspections department can play a role in forcing the owner of Sugar Loaf Resort to get moving on a plan to redevelop and reopen the resort, which has been closed for skiing since March 2000.

In a letter to Cleveland Township supervisor Tim Stein, the president of the Sugar Loaf Village Association, Pat Flynn, wrote that “If the owner (of Sugar Loaf Resort) does not start positive action immediately the township and county should seriously consider condemning the building and having it removed.”

Her letter asserted that the lodge at Sugar Loaf Resort presents a health and safety hazard to local residents. Homeowners had also called on the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department to take action against the owner of Sugar Loaf Resort.

“He (VanDyke) called me the other day to ask if he should still come to this meeting,” Cleveland Township supervisor Tim Stein announced Tuesday evening, “but I told him he didn’t need to come under the circumstances.”

The exact circumstances leading to VanDyke’s firing last week remained unclear this week following a discussion Tuesday morning among members of the county board and Gill, who is now temporarily managing the Inspections department.

What is clear is that on May 30, on the advice of the county’s corporate counsel, VanDyke suspended occupancy permits for all of the condo units at the BayView condominium complex in Suttons Bay after an engineering report indicated that furnace and water heater installations in the condo units might be dangerous.

Two working days later, on Monday, June 4, Gill fired VanDyke. On the following day, Gill rescinded VanDyke’s suspension of occupancy permits at BayView.

County officials have consistently denied that issues related to the BayView project played a significant role in VanDyke’s firing.

The Leelanau Enterprise, meanwhile, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the county, calling for the release of VanDyke’s personnel records as well as personnel records of the two Leelanau County mechanical/plumbing inspectors involved in issuing permits for the BayView project.

At the county board’s executive committee meeting Tuesday morning, Gill said he’d been much busier than he wanted to be in managing the Inspections Department. He recommended that the county advertise for a replacement for VanDyke.

“We should start immediately on the process of identifying a replacement,” said county board chairman and District No. 6 commissioner Robert Hawley. He suggested that the county board’s Inspections Subcommittee should schedule meetings to solicit public input on how to improve the inspections department and consider a replacement for VanDyke.

The subcommittee held a series of meetings earlier this year, but few people in the construction trades showed up to offer comment, apparently out of a fear of possible reprisals from Inspections Department personnel.

District No. 5 commissioner David “Chauncey” Shiflett said he viewed a shake-up in the Inspections Department as “a public relations opportunity to involve the community, contractors and property owners” in deciding how the department should be run. Shiflett said the county could consider closer collaboration with Grand Traverse County’s inspections department, and possibly privatizing the department or some of its functions.

“The union is not in favor of privatizing,” Gill told commissioners. “And there has been a lot of finger-pointing and ‘C-Y-A-ing’ by different inspectors,” he added. He said the department in some cases had relied too heavily on “outside engineers” and the practice of “over-inspecting” certain projects. In addition there is a thick stack of “violation notices” in the department that need to be processed, Gill said.

District No. 3 commissioner Will Bunek, who chairs the inspections subcommittee, urged Gill to “get an ad out there” as soon as possible, seeking a replacement for VanDyke. He also agreed to set up additional meetings of his subcommittee to solicit public input and consider major changes for the department.

“If things do not change over there (in the Inspections department) there will be other people leaving the department soon,” Gill told county commissioners. “If problems are not corrected by individual employees, they will be gone,” he said.