Manager answer’s a few more questions, Councilor Elliot needs to share information

Sometimes I get in the bad habit when listening to someone speak or reading an article by someone I think has an agenda, of letting my personal bias towards this person interfere with what the person is trying to ask or inform me about and tune them out.

However, last night at the City Council meeting, during the motions segment, when Councilor Elliot was reading his comments (insert you own” who wrote that speech Lyle, Campy or Doyle” joke here) a couple of things he mentioned caught my attention and after closely listening to his comments I think he and we deserve to have these issues addressed and answered.

At one point in his speech, Councilor Elliot mentioned emails he had in his possession that indicated in his view that the City Manager or his Assistant at the time Andy Sheehan over ruled or interfered with the Building Commissioner on an issue involving the LHA and North Common Project.

I have always thought it was odd that the former Bldg. Commissioner never ordered a cease and desist decree, especially when in his 19 page report the Manager at one points mentions:

At this time Camacho, introduced or reminded LHA, that failure to comply with his order to obtain permits would result in a Cease and Desist order.

If it is true that either the Manager or his Asst. interfered, I have concerns about why that occurred.

I am also concerned about why the Councilor hasn’t brought these emails forward sooner to share with his fellow councilors, nor informed anyone where these came from, or if he turned them over to the Inspector General’s Office which he is advocating to come to Lowell and look at this issue. Has he contacted them about his allegations?

I would like to see him release these emails and have them published in the SUN or slipped them to a blogger to post(hin…hint) and I urge him to do so sooner than later.

If these emails exist, the issue of the Manager / Assistant to the manager interfering or over ruling the Building Commissioner is a valid one and deserves an answer. The council should have been made aware of this earlier and those emails should be made public.

I was surprised that a councilor did not ask to see those emails or the Manager did not respond to those statements last night at the meeting for all those watching to hear his answer.

So again flip-flopping on my post about the Manager staying off this BLOG I asked about those emails and a couple of other questions:

What emails were Councilor Elliot referring to last night, saying you or Andy Sheehan interfered or over ruled the Bldg. Commissioner ?

Why wasn’t a cease and desist order ever issued by Mr. Camacho?

Why hasn’t the city called in State Electrical / Bldg Inspectors because it seems that is what Rodney is looking for.

Here is his response:

Gerry,

I’m not sure what e-mails Councilor Elliott was referring to in his remarks last night. Having not made them available to all to read, I can’t answer why Councilor Elliott is interpreting them to suggest either I or Andy Sheehan interfered. My direction to Mr. Camacho was consistently that he should get the issue resolved, and generally to do so in as cooperative manner as possible with LHA. My January 2009 letter to LHA was clear that I supported the Commissioner’s position that permits were needed.

It is unclear why a cease and desist was not issued. My letter of January 2009 to the LHA warned of this possibility and Mr. Camacho at various points indicated that he would head down this road but it never came to pass. It certainly isn’t a desired outcome and we prefer to find other options. I assume Mr. Camacho, on his own or through discussion with others, determined that there were other options to gain compliance. Unfortunately, it is also apparent that such options were not exercised.

The discussion at the Council level has been progressing from wanting a third party to take a look, without a clear understanding of who that 3rd party should be or what they are looking at. The Council voted to get the report first then decide. Then the discussion went to having the IG and HUD take a look at the report and plan for compliance and provide feedback, the Council voted to request I send the report to the IG and HUD which was done along with two calls into the IG’s office. Only in the last week has Councilor Elliott begun suggesting his interest is in having someone do the actual code inspections, while simultaneously acknowledging the that inspectors did their jobs in inspecting and identifying violations. The Inspector General’s office does not have jurisdiction to conduct code inspections, sign-off on permits or Certificates of Occupancy, which was stated a few times last night. Councilor Elliott has not provided any specific information about why he thinks the critical issue is the current inspector’s, who were not involved in this matter in 2008 through mid-2010, ability to perform the inspections properly.

Bernard F. Lynch | City Manager

This is another he said / he said issue and Councilor Elliot now MUST NOW after making these statements (accusations) in a public setting, release these emails to his fellow councilors and the public so we may validate his claims or discard them as a mis-interpretation.

The question is will he?