When Leelanau County officials travel to Lansing on Feb. 26 for a "compliance conference" with officials of the state Bureau of Construction Codes, they might run into Gary Groesbeck, the supervisor of Lapeer County’s Almont Township.

Groesbeck said he has some insights to share about the Bureau of Construction Codes (BCC) with Leelanau County building official Robert Meyer, county administrator David Gill, and the county’s attorneys.

Almont Township, like Leelanau County, is appealing a recommendation made by BCC director Henry Green that the state Construction Code Commission withdraw authority for enforcing building codes and conducting inspections from the local building inspections department, and turn those responsibilities over to state inspectors.

Almont Township is several steps ahead of Leelanau County in the same process. Leelanau County was informed of the state’s intention to shut down the county Building Inspections department in January.

“But our process with the Bureau of Construction Codes has been going on for close to two years now,” Groesbeck told the Enterprise.

Groesbeck said that Almont Township underwent a “Performance Evaluation” conducted by BCC officials nearly two years ago; then he and other Almont Township officials went to a Construction Code Commission meeting in Okemos similar to one Leelanau County officials attended in January.

“We expected that they’d accept the fact that we’d already corrected the handful of problems they uncovered when they did the performance evaluation, and that we’d done their dance for them,” Groesbeck said. “But it was a kangaroo court – and so we appealed. But we’ve found that the (BCC) bureaucracy up there is out of control and there’s no real oversight. And we’ve also found that they’re willing and able to break a local government’s budget when you challenge them. I don’t know what drives this guy.”

Groesbeck was referring to BCC director Green, who has headed the state agency since 1989. Green is also a founding member of the International Codes Council.

Among other high profile accomplishments, Green led an investigation into construction issues related to the collapse of the World Trade Towers on Sept. 11, 2001. He is also a past president of the National Institute of Building Sciences and has won numerous awards from various building industry associations.

Green was out of his office early this week and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Groesbeck said he met with Green for a compliance conference last year. The Almont Township construction code office has remained open for business throughout the two-year process – just as Leelanau County’s Building Inspections office has remained open since January. Now, the Almont Township supervisor and a township attorney are slated to attend a hearing before an administrative law judge in Lansing to formally appeal the bureau’s recommendation that the township’s construction code office be shut down.

That hearing is set for Feb. 26 – the same date that Leelanau County officials are slated to meet with Green and his staff for a “compliance conference.”

Units of government closer to home – among them Antrim County – have also had their encounters with the Bureau of Construction Codes.

Antrim County building official Robert Massey said he was hired to replace a building official who was fired for alleged wrongdoing more than two years ago – and Antrim County is still feeling reverberations from the performance evaluation conducted by the BCC.

“We went through a period where everything was watched very, very closely by the state, and all of the inspections were extremely strict,” Massey said.

Although the state withdrew Antrim County’s authority to enforce the building code and conduct inspections, Antrim was able to work out an arrangement that eventually led to the reinstatement of the county’s authority to run its own Construction Code (Building Inspections) office, Massey explained.

Meanwhile, in Manistee County, county administrator Thomas Kaminski said that the county hasn’t had its own Building Inspections department for many years. Most inspections are conducted and most permits are issued by state officials working in Manistee County, Kaminski explained.

“But we have heard on the street from builders and contractors that the state inspectors can be very slow and sometimes don’t do a very good job,” Kaminski said.

That’s why Manistee County is currently exploring the possibility of establishing a joint Construction Code Office with neighboring Benzie County, Kaminski explained.

Leelanau County Building Official Robert Meyer said he had been doing everything in his power to comply with Bureau of Construction Codes guidelines since bureau personnel conducted the performance evaluation here in November 2007. Meyer noted that, early this week, one of the county’s two mechanical inspectors, Scott Earl, had voluntarily resigned from his job with the county. Both of the county’s mechanical inspectors had come under fire in a lawsuit filed by owners of The Homestead resort that was settled last year, and both were subsequently involved in inspections that state inspectors found to be faulty.

County attorney John McGlinchey said he planned to accompany Meyer to the “compliance conference” with the Bureau of Construction Codes on Feb. 26.

Late last month, McGlinchey also filed a formal appeal of the Construction Code Commission’s decision to withdraw code authority from Leelanau County.

The commission’s decision was “not supported by competent evidence, was made upon unlawful procedure resulting in material prejudice to Leelanau County, was arbitrary and capricious, and was otherwise affected by substantial and material error of law,” McGlinchey wrote in the appeal.