BRADENTON BEACH – Police Chief and Public Works Director John Cosby responded at a Feb. 20 commission meeting to allegations made by former Building Official Darin Cushing that he was pressured to approve permits by city staff.
“Cushing is claiming that certain staff members, or the whole team, that he was being pressured into approving major developments or homes,” Cosby said, adding that he spoke on behalf of senior management staff, not the mayor or city attorney. “There was nothing to approve. The building department was not accepting any plans or any permits of that caliber.”
“We in some way had a building moratorium that was never approved by anybody because we were not issuing anything and we were not accepting anything for review,” he said.
Cosby said the allegations represent the first time his character been called into question in his years in Bradenton Beach.
“The thing that I’m most upset about, I have been here for 37 years. My integrity has never, ever been called into play,” Cosby said. “This man has made accusations that he was being forced to do things that don’t exist. The bad part about this is he knows they don’t exist, because he’s the one that told them, the clerks, to put things on the back burner.”
The city never got information they requested from Cushing about numbers of permits completed or in the queue, he said.
Cosby said the city found inaccurate permits and permitting clerks said they had received no guidance from Cushing.
Cosby said Cushing approved permits for air conditioning units without the state-required elevation in flood zones, and those approvals are now causing turmoil among contractors.
“We could see that there was a problem,” Cosby said. “We kept asking him if he needed help and he responded that everything was under control.
“At every meeting Mr. Cushing would state that this was supposed to be his retirement job and he shouldn’t be working this hard,” Cosby said. “One day he made that comment, and I said maybe we should get a new building official.”
Sandpiper, Pines Trailer parks
After the hurricanes, Cushing told the emergency staff that the trailer parks were uninhabitable, because of FEMA guidelines, they had substantial damage and “had to go.”
Cosby said he looked at mobile homes at Sandpiper Resort Co-op.
“Water had come in through the door and all they had to do was mop up the water,” Cosby said. “This didn’t seem right to me.”
“They’re considering selling because they’ve been told that it’s done,” Cosby said. “I thought we needed to reevaluate this, so we did.”
Cushing and Steve Gilbert, the retired city building official called back into service by the city, took another look, Cosby said.
“Cushing then said the Sandpiper was “good to go,” so the city started the process of issuing letters that they could repair their trailers under the 50% rule,” he said.
“He told us the same thing in the beginning, about the Pines, ‘It’s no good.’ He brought up the FEMA rule,” Cosby said. “He said no, we can’t move forward with this.”
Cosby said he asked Cushing to get that message to Pines residents.
“Then we had the meeting at city hall. The people from the Pines came,” Cosby said. “The next day he tells city staff, ‘Everything is OK, we’re going to say that they’re not substantially damaged.’ ”
Cushing declined to comment.
Related coverage:
City outlines ‘deficiencies’ in Cushing’s work
Former building official alleges pressure to condemn properties, threats
