Several reforms in the policies and procedures of the city's plumbing board will be implemented following the Batavia City Council meeting Monday, where no council members raised any major objection to the plan.
After the meeting, City Manager Jason Molino said the next step is for he and his staff to meet with the plumbing board -- which currently consists of one master plumber and two city staff members -- and work out a plan for implementing the reforms.
The reforms include ensuring state laws regarding open meetings and public records be followed, that better records be kept and filed on applicants for plumbing licenses, and that a third-party company be found to fairly and unbiasedly administer plumbing exams.
The city must also continue looking for a new part-time inspector of plumbing -- a job candidate who can also share code enforcement duties.
If no such candidate can be found, then the city will need to have one of its current code enforcement officers be certified to perform plumbing inspections.
Councilman Bob Bialkowski said that's the one part of the plan that makes him the most uncomfortable. He would much rather have an experienced plumber performing inspection duties.
Three plumbers and the city's former plumbing inspector, Barb Toal, spoke during the public comments portion of the meeting, well before the city manager's report came up for council discussion.
The plumbers made general statements about the importance of plumbing regulation with regard to public health. Toal spoke more to the point of the report, questioning its accuracy on meeting notices and minutes and how exams were administered.
Toal's speech was delivered rapidly and was somewhat disjointed. She seemed to blame the lack of minutes and the fact no tests were administered for some period of time on the fact that the board has not been able to operate as a full, five-member board.
The city has traditionally found it difficult to meet state requirements to have a journeyman plumber on the board.
"There has not been a full plumbing board for a full year, so therefore there have been no meetings, no minutes and no business conducted,” Toal said.
Later in the meeting, council members discussed the fact that the board only needs three members present to conduct business.
Toal also criticized the report for claiming that meetings were not advertised with proper public notice in accordance with state law.
"Planning board meetings for last four years are on the third Wednesday of every month," Toal said. "What a surprise? How is the meeting not legal? How does management not know what’s going on?"
As for not administering tests, Toal said applicants were told that without a full board, the board couldn't write a test for them to take. She said they all understood the situation.
One of the speakers wasn't a plumber, but a customer of plumbers.
City resident Paul Passamonte discussed his own difficulty in finding a locally licensed plumber at a reasonable cost. It's the same topic Passamonte covered in a letter to the city last week.
Passamonte wrote that after hiring a contractor from Buffalo for a room addition, the same contractor offered a bid for the plumbing work. He said it would cost $3,200, but the contractor wasn't licensed in Batavia.
After obtaining the list of 31 licensed plumbers for Batavia, Passamonte said a surprising number didn't even live in Genesee County, and the ones who did usually didn't return his calls. Only four ever acknowledged his calls and only two showed up and gave bid estimates -- one for $5,200 and the other for more than $12,000.
When the plumbing report came up on the council agenda for council discussion, Councilwoman Rosemary Christian had her hand up first.
She wanted to know why, if the board had been meeting for more than a decade without proper meeting notices and minutes, why that problem wasn't caught earlier.
City Manager Jason Molino said that part of the issue is that the board wasn't being required to file their documents with the city clerk's office. The board was only dealing with the plumbing office, so there wasn't any additional oversight.
"I can’t give you an answer for why this has gone on for a period of time, but we’ve identified it and now we need to correct it," Molino said.
Councilman Bill Cox suggested that when a person files an application to take a plumbing test, the application should be logged in the city clerk's office and the applicant should receive a formal letter of acknowledgment in a timely manner. The rest of the council concurred.
That was the one additional reform added to the city manager's proposal.
Council President Marianne Clattenburg praised the report as thorough, well documented and factual.
"It's not emotional," she said.
"I think we also have to keep in mind what the plumbing board is all about and how it benefits the city when we have a fully functional, fair plumbing board and a competent plumbing inspector," Clattenburg added. "It is ultimately about serving the citizens of the community. It really isn’t about serving one interest."
After the meeting, Molino said the reforms should make a big difference in how plumbing business is conducted in the city.
"The recommendations, I don’t think are monumental, but in terms of significant change, they’re important," Molino said.
Photos: Christian, Molino and Bialkowski.
As a taxpaying citizen I
As a taxpaying citizen I believe I should have a say, gonna say anyway, I want the building inspector to also be the plumbing inspector. Dont they get taught all aspects of building systems when they get their education? I have met many well rounded building/repair specialist that would love to go round and just look at things to make sure they meet code. I am just tryin to tell you what we can do to save money here instead of friggin raising taxes and fees on us every time you need to get ur friggin raises.
Mr. Owens took quite a bit of
Mr. Owens took quite a bit of liberty in what he alleges I said at the city council meeting on August 9. I made no comments about price quotes at the meeting. As I was leaving, Mr. Owens followed me out into the hallway with a tape recorder in hand. I stated that any comments made outside the public meeting were off the record. Mr. Owens took it upon hiself to disregard my statement. Thus, Mr. Owens is a person who cannot be trusted. I believe that his sole purpose in journalism is to try to outflank the staff of the Batavia Daily News. I won't have anything to do with him and I urge others to treat him the same.
Paul, A) I did not use
Paul,
A) I did not use anything we discussed outside of the meeting, because you really didn't say anything of interest or even seem to understand what just happened at the meeting. That said, there was nothing preventing me using any of that because you spoke with me freely before ever saying you wished the conversation be off the record. You don't get to unilaterally decide something you already said is off the record. I have to agree to it and I never did. Just like you telling the Daily News photographer that he couldn't use your picture. You notice, he continued to write down your name and you continued to give him the spelling. You appeared in a public building at a public meeting. The Daily News has every right to use your picture if it wishes; if it didn't (I haven't checked) it was only because the editors felt they had more newsworthy pictures and limited space.
B) What I did quote from was a letter you wrote to the plumbing board, which you knew I obtained three days before the meeting. Most of the information in this article about your situation comes from that letter, which is what the article states. A Council member also referenced the letter during council discussion.
You're welcome not to have anything to do with me, but don't come here and lie about our conversation or how I obtained my information. We never had an offer the record conversation (when you brought up "off the record" is about the same time I walked away from you and I had several minutes of entirely on-the-record information you said before that), and as far as that conversation goes, I didn't use one word of it any way.