BRADENTON BEACH – Following the Jan. 21 resignation of Building Official Bill Palmer, city commissioners held a special meeting on Jan. 27 and appointed Robert Perry, of Tew & Taylor, as acting building official for up to six months.
“With the unfortunate resignation of the building official, we are presently without a building official,” City Attorney Erica Augello said. “The city is under contract with Tew & Taylor. They do have several options, and they’ve sent someone here today who could act as the acting building official.”
Augello suggested commissioners put a time limit of six months on the appointment.
“That way, you could determine whether you want to hire another in-house building official, or if you would like to continue with this person as your contracted building official. It’s completely up to you,” she said.
Commissioner Ralph Cole asked if the city could try to find a permanent building official during the time Tew & Taylor is under contract.
“If you decide you want to have a full-time employee like Mr. Palmer was, then the commission could go ahead and interview people and hold public meetings,” Augello said. “You would then appoint a building official via your charter and the appointed acting building official would step down.”
She noted the contract with Tew & Taylor would remain in place for building department services.
“There is a difference between someone who can act like a building official and someone who is an appointed building official,” Augello said. “Every city can only have one appointed building official. While Bill (Palmer) was unable to perform some of those services, they did pick that up. But, if he had to make any determinations on ordinance passages or interpretations of the building code or your land development code, Tew & Taylor didn’t have the authority to do that because they weren’t the building official.”
Mayor John Chappie suggested discussing the options further at the next city commission meeting on Thursday, Feb. 4.
Perry then spoke to the commissioners
“We’re catching up pretty quickly,” he said. “There are a few people working around town without permits, so we’re going to get that tightened up. There’s a lot of unlicensed work that’s happening right now that we’re tightening up on, so the plan is maybe stop by job sites, check permits and check licenses and insurance.”
Perry said a team of three people will be working for the city: a full-time plans examiner, an inspector and himself.
“I think Bill was so busy in the office he couldn’t do all the hurricane damage,” Perry said. “It was just too much.”
Perry said he used to work the entire west coast of Florida for 3 ½ years and is familiar with small building departments up and down the coast. He suggested the commission consider a contract where Tew & Taylor manages the building department, as has been done in other cities.
“Another thing I want to mention is that we do building department services,” Perry said. “We do certain contracts where we take over the whole building department and then we do a 90/10 split where we take 90% of the fees and 10% goes to the city for admin use.”
He said his company would handle permit fees and scheduling.
“What we’ll do is we come in, perform those services and it’s hands-off; it’s an enterprise fund. No money comes out of the city,” Perry said. “It’s pretty much like having your own building department but you don’t have to worry about the fees coming out the general fund. In my opinion, a building department enterprise fund is the way it should be run.”
“Just know that we can help you with that if you want to go that way,” he said. “Or, if you hire somebody here, we can just supplement you on as needed basis. I’ll help you find somebody. I’m not here to make every dime I can. I’m just here to help you try to run this place properly. “
City commissioners unanimously approved a motion to appoint Perry to serve as acting building official for a period not to exceed six months.
