Building Inspectors Claim Their Slowdown Has Impact

County building inspectors continued their work slowdown Friday amid conflicting reports of how effective it has been.

A spokesman for the inspectors, who claim that they are overworked and deserve a raise, said the slowdown already has affected home builders, who are having trouble getting final inspections on houses as quickly as buyers are ready to move in.

Homes that have not passed final inspection cannot be occupied.

But William Eckles, manager of the county building inspection division, said he has not detected any effect. “I don’t see it yet,” he said. “It hasn’t surfaced.”

Spokesmen for developers said they were waiting until next week to see how much effect the slowdown would have. “It’s not affecting us at all,” said one.

The potential impact of the slowdown is significant, said Tom Mathews, who specializes in development issues in Supervisor Thomas F. Riley’s office. Most of the development in county territory is in Riley’s and Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez’s districts.

“The building activity has been at such a high rate during the past several months. . . . Sure it could affect developers, but it’s a matter of degree,” Mathews said.

Began This Week

Inspectors say they began their slowdown this week in reaction to the current labor negotiations with county government and to being overworked.

Richard Cerminar, supervising senior building inspector, said an inspector’s monthly quota of inspections has risen from 225 last year to 303 this year. This has forced inspectors to spot-check, that is, to inspect only a part of a building or development and assume the remainder comes up to standards.

“We’re so pushed now we don’t have the time to do the job properly,” Cerminar said. “We’re concerned with the safety of homeowners moving in.

“We’d like our raise, too.”

Cerminar said developers are feeling the pinch. “We have had one developer willing to put money in a fund for (inspectors’) overtime, but I don’t like that,” he said. “It sounds like we’re trying to extort money, and we’re not.”

He said he has been “flooded with calls” from developers asking why inspectors haven’t appeared as requested.

Cerminar cited as a typical case an inspector’s log that showed that he was assigned 26 inspections Friday but completed only 15.

Wants More Inspectors

He said the county needs about eight more inspectors to add to its force of 32.

Eckles said he did not know whether inspectors are making themselves liable for disciplinary action.

He said spot-checking is a justifiable procedure used in other jurisdictions as well.

“For example, walking a roof for an inspection, you’re looking for a pattern. Once you detect that pattern, then your method of inspection can be accelerated and you can spot-check various sections rather than walking every nail line and checking every nail,” he said.

Eckles said, however, that he cannot fault inspectors for resorting to complete inspections. “There’s nothing wrong with that method of inspection,” he said. “I hope they’re not out there nit-picking or anything like that.”

He said he could not say what effect a prolonged slowdown would have. “I’m just going to have to wait and see,” he said.