BRADENTON BEACH – Bill Palmer, the city’s new building official, began work on March 5 and has laid out a timeline for the order of business as he steps into his new role.
“My initial focus as building official will be reviewing the permits we have in backlog for storm-related repairs so people can get back into their homes and then work on new construction permits,” Palmer wrote in an email to The Sun. “Once that is all caught up, I plan to review the building department forms and checklists. After that I plan on creating standard operation procedures (SOP) for the department.”
The city is under FEMA review for its post-hurricane practices under previous Building Official Darin Cushing, including the absence of standard operating procedures.
“Bill Palmer is doing a lot of reviews. He’s moving things through as quickly as humanly possible,” Mayor John Chappie said at a March 6 city commission meeting. “He’s doing a great job.”
Palmer has issued 38 permits, mostly storm-related, he said.
“There are 143 total uncompleted applications,” Chappie said. “So when a project is brought forward by an applicant, they have a big application and they have to fill out a lot of things that have to be done to make an application complete. If it’s not complete, it doesn’t go to the building official. All of the applications that are sitting in the queue right now, everyone has been emailed telling them what needs to be done. It doesn’t go anywhere until it’s a complete document so the building official can review it.”
Chappie said that Palmer has requested that the city continue to pay M.T. Causley, the contract employer for the previous building official, for a few more weeks to assist in reducing the backlog, which is nearly all hurricane-related.
“We all talked about the overlap that’s going to be necessary with M.T. Causley as we make the adjustments, as he goes through these plans reviews and these permits that are backed up to get things done,” Chappie said. “He’s competent. He knows his stuff.”
“He hasn’t issued any new construction permits so far, and once he gets caught up, he wants to review the building department forms and checklists, then he will be starting on SOPs, which is one of the things that the department never had by the previous building official or officials,” he said.
