Building service needs improvement

With a new management structure in place and more changes soon to come, with himself pushing for better efficiency and a culture change, and with a new working partnership with local contractors, County Administrator Roman Gastesi had high hopes that the days of really bad reviews from folks trying to pull permits in Monroe County would soon be behind him.

And while he admits things have improved, they are not near where he wanted them to be at this juncture.

In internal emails, Gastesi has opined that his frustration levels with the permitting and code enforcement processes in the county have begun to reach critical levels.

Shortly after Gastesi first took over the administrator duties about four years ago, he held a series of town hall meetings in an attempt to hear from the local populace and get their opinions on what was bad and what was good about Monroe County.

When he visited the Lower Keys, he was inundated with complaints about the lack of efficiency in the building and planning departments, where he was told it sometimes took months just to receive a simple permit to replace a broken window, or it took weeks to get an inspection on a simple job like replacing a piece of broken fence.

He was also inundated with complaints about the lack of interaction, and compassion, from code enforcement personnel in dealing with simple problems.

And he promised to address those issues.

Portions of the leadership in the Growth management Division, under whose purview all of those unflattering functions reside, have changed, including the installation of new Director Christine Hurley a couple of years ago.

“We’ve just hired a new assistant building official, and we want to give him ample opportunity to try and fix some of the problems,” said Gastesi.

“We put Christine in place a couple of years ago, and while she’s had her hands full putting out old fires that were still burning, she’s making strides toward turning the culture in the division from one of complacency to one of customer service,” he added.

But he admits the agencies still have a ways to go to get where he wants them in terms of taxpayer interaction.

“The number one goal has been to get proper leadership. We’re on the right track,” said Gastesi.

Almost daily, Gastesi’s email is flooded with complaints from folks trying to work with the county’s building department and feeling as though they’re getting nowhere, or from folks who are trying to work out issues with code enforcement and feel as though they’re being stymied at every turn.

That led to Gastesi berating the Growth Management staff a few weeks ago.

“Seems like some GM folks need a kick in the (posterior) or a new job. Lethargy seems to be culturally embedded among some GM Division folks,” he wrote.

Gastesi’s email was prompted by an email exchange between himself and an Upper Keys business owner who has been trying for over a year to work on permitting issues to reopen a burned out restaurant.

“Here’s a contractor waiting to spend cash, hire subs, help us get the tax revenues enhanced and we continue to impede,” he wrote. “Do I need to call a general meeting of (Growth Management) folks and explain that my patience is waning and that I’m considering firing all of them and privatizing their jobs?”

Gastesi hastened to say last week that privatization of the county’s growth management functions is not his number one choice to fix the issues.

“I really have no desire to go into privatization with growth management, but I do feel at this point that it’s prudent to learn about it,” he said.

The administrator had a meeting last week with a Ft. Lauderdale firm that provides growth management services for the city of Westin, Fla. and other municipalities.

“I’m on a learning curve. There are no concrete plans to privatize. If it’s something we’d even want to consider it’s an issue that would ultimately have to be decided by the Board of County Commissioners,” said Gastesi.

Gastesi said that some of the things that frustrated him three years ago continue to frustrate him today.

“We don’t have a great record on turn-around time for permits. We have inconsistencies with what fees are charged and the costs for those fees,” he said.

The administrator said he gathered some of his information by doing “secret shopping.”

“I called two different offices twice each on different days,” he said. “I got four different processes and four different costs for the same application. We have to cut back on that. Our contractors and residents need to know when they walk in what the correct process is and how much it’s going to cost.”

County building and planning officials have held a series of contractor summits in the last few months to iron out issues between the two groups.

“And I still have contractors tell me they can’t get work started because they can’t get the permits off the table,” he said.

Immediately after the town hall meetings, Gastesi began a push to change the culture in the county’s code enforcement department from “one of coercion to one of compliance.”

“Our ultimate goal is compliance with the code. We can do a better job working with the property owners, helping them through the process, making code proceedings less intimidating, and just basically showing a little more compassion,” he said.

The first step was to rename the Code Enforcement Department the Code Compliance Department.

But that hasn’t entirely changed the entrenched culture, Gastesi said.

“We still have to work on things like aiding compliance. Instead of mailing a notice of violation, let’s call the property owner and try to work things out before it becomes official. Let’s get out of the car and knock on the door and talk to people. Let’s tell them what the issue is without handing out sometimes arbitrary deadlines for compliance of something that could easily be solved with a friendly hello and conversation,” he said.

He says that privatizing building and code functions would be “the absolute last step I would take. But we have to improve customer service. We have to polish our image. We have to get the job done efficiently.”

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