Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 27, 1995 TAG: 9508280001
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Long
Sitting next to Thomas Jones' brick home is a new vinyl-sided house.
It was built for his daughter, Luvenia.
The problem is, she can't move in because the house is in a tug-of-war between the contractor and town officials.
It's just one of many problems that have plagued a state grant program for which Rocky Mount qualified in 1993. A state police investigator is reviewing those problems to see if any wrongdoing took place.
Jones' new house - financed through a Community Development Block Grant - sits on her father's property in the Tank Hill community off North Main Street.
The keys to the house were supposed to be given to Luvenia Jones days ago, but the town has changed the locks on the doors, said an employee of the company that built it.
Bobby Doyle, office manager for J.B. Michael Co. Inc. of Salem, contractor on the project, said one of the company's employees arrived at the house about two weeks ago to deliver a stove and a refrigerator and discovered that his key didn't work. A town police officer told him the locks had been changed.
"It's amazing," Doyle said. "I've never seen anything like this before. What am I supposed to tell this lady when she calls and asks why she can't move in? The house is finished, the power has been turned on, and it's ready to go."
The town tells a different story.
An inspection of the home found work that was incomplete - and some that violated federal building standards required by the project, said Town Manager Mark Henne.
Because the town withheld $12,000 in payment to J.B. Michael until the work was completed correctly, the contractor would not install appliances in the $24,000 house, Henne said.
"We had to force them to do it," he said.
The town changed the locks so it could keep control of the situation and so the contractor couldn't repossess any items from the house, he said.
The Franklin County building inspector now has approved the work on Jones' home, but Henne said he is awaiting final word on rehabilitation work done by J.B. Michael on another house. The owner, Frances Hurst, became so angry over the quality of the work that she wouldn't allow J.B. Michael employees to set foot on her property.
The town is withholding about $4,000 for the work on Hurst's home - work that totaled close to $25,000.
Henne said the town may use some of the money being held on Luvenia Jones' home to fix Hurst's problems.
Doyle said J.B. Michael is considering legal action against the town.
The situation has made heads spin.
"It's crazy," said Henne.
"It's a mess," said Hurst.
"We've never had problems to this extent," said Alan Jones, a community representative with the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the agency that governs the grant program.
Meanwhile, although other Tank Hill residents have complained publicly for months about the rehabilitation work done on their homes, Thomas and Luvenia Jones said they chose to remain silent.
"You can't fight the system," Thomas Jones said. "Besides, everybody's lied so much that I don't know who to believe."
\ When the town received the $976,000 grant for Tank Hill two years ago, it sounded like a great idea: Taxpayer money to help lower-income residents fix their deteriorating homes and to improve water and sewer service to that neighborhood. And, in a few cases like Luvenia Jones', new homes are built when rehabilitation work on dilapidated houses would cost more than $25,000.
But what has ensued is a comedy of errors that has prompted a finger-pointing contest among contractors, architects and town and state officials.
Among the problems cited are an improperly vented bathroom; lack of a pressure relief valve on a water heater; an improperly fastened pipe under a kitchen sink that burst and flooded the kitchen; insulation blown into a bedroom from a gap in a roof; and shingles dropped off a roof that cracked the molding above a front door.
Personality conflicts between homeowners and project officials have made matters worse.
But many Tank Hill residents who qualify for the program say they just don't understand what's going on.
Some project officials say they don't understand, either.
To date, problems with the Tank Hill project include:
Mattern & Craig, the Roanoke engineering firm hired by the town as consultant for the project, issued change orders amounting to several thousand dollars that weren't signed by the firm, Henne or the homeowners, a violation of project regulations.
Contractors in some instances worked without county building permits.
The town of Rocky Mount bounced a $12,500 check to one contractor because it hadn't deposited enough grant money in the right account, according to Henne. The check later cleared.
Renovations have been delayed for months because contracts did not match bid specifications, something residents said they were kept in the dark about.
Complaints about rehabilitation work started last winter. One of the first residents to voice concern was Hurst.
When her home was inspected by a team of project officials in June, several violations of federal building code standards were found.
Alan Jones of the Department of Housing and Community Development, who participated in the inspection, called the work "shoddy."
But Doyle of J.B. Michael said the company was thrown off the job by Hurst and thus did not have ample time to complete the work.
Now, almost a year after work started on the Hurst home, a list of items is being rebid for another contractor to do.
The town was given a 60-day extension by the state after it exceeded the deadline for completion of the project. About 15 jobs have been finished, while others are in dispute. Contracts on 10 jobs have not been bid yet.
Henne said he believes the state will "give us enough room to get this ship back in the water."
\ Town Councilman Arnold Dillon calls the Tank Hill project "a bureaucratic nightmare."
Involved with the program are: Henne, the Town Council, the town's Housing Board, several employees of Mattern & Craig, representatives of the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the county building inspector, contractors and subcontractors.
Several inch-thick documents list program guidelines. But all the paperwork and people involved couldn't prevent the project from being bungled, Dillon said.
"To the people on Tank Hill, the program was a dream. But it's turned out to be their worst nightmare," he said. "Because of the bureaucracy of this program, taxpayers' money has been wasted."
For instance, Hurst's home was supposed to be treated for termites, according to the original work order written by rehabilitation specialist Nick Brash of Mattern & Craig. But an exterminator found no visible problems with infestation and filed a report indicating treatment was not necessary. Mattern & Craig then issued a change order deleting a $450 cost for termite treatment from Hurst's contract.
Later, after Hurst questioned the decision, state officials made sure her home was sprayed, and the $450 was added back into her contract.
Town officials and Mattern & Craig project employees haven't seen eye-to-eye throughout the Tank Hill work.
Mattern & Craig is set to be paid $104,000 for its work on Tank Hill - 11 percent of the grant money the town received.
Mattern & Craig defends its work and said personalities and politics had a lot to do with problems.
Mike Daugherty, a Mattern & Craig engineer, said people who qualify for the program sometimes expect more than it can deliver. The grant program - which uses federal money - involves nuts-and-bolts work, not cosmetic improvements, he said.
Daugherty said he's still a believer in the program, and thinks that homeowners do benefit, even when setbacks occur.
He said checks and balances such as on-site inspections and tight bid specifications prevent projects from going awry.
However, Daugherty said Rocky Mount has final responsibility for the success of the program.
The project's design plan does specify that the Rocky Mount Town Council has "ultimate responsibility" for the administration of the project.
Dillon is the only member of Town Council who has visited homes on Tank Hill, according to residents.
But Dillon and Henne said the town - population 4,000 - has limited resources and can't be expected to prevent many of the problems with the project.
"Why are we paying Mattern & Craig $104,000?'' Dillon asked.
Macio Toney, a town resident who serves on the Housing Board formed when the grant was awarded, said he believes Mattern & Craig - a company that received high marks for its work on a recent grant project in Smyth County - did not monitor the Tank Hill project as closely as it should have.
"What works somewhere else might not work here," Toney said.
He also said the Housing Board pushed the company to use local contractors, but Mattern & Craig wanted to use contractors from outside Franklin County who have worked with the company before on rehabilitation projects.
"They may have considered it a slap that we were trying to tell them what to do," Toney said.
Daugherty said outside contractors were needed because the company was having a hard time getting local contractors to bid on the work.
Now that most people in the community know about the problems with the program, contractors have showed an even greater reluctance to bid on the remaining jobs, Henne said.
In an effort to get the work done in a reasonable amount of time, Henne has asked STEP Inc., a local anti-poverty organization, to bid on the jobs.
State police got involved after County Sheriff Quint Overton heard some of the complaints and sent one of his deputies - who is also a licensed contractor - to inspect one of the houses. Overton was not happy with the report the deputy brought back. In June, Henne, Rocky Mount Police Chief Butch Jenkins and Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Hapgood met and decided to ask for the investigation.
"I'm totally disappointed with the project," Henne said, "but we're going to see this thing through."
by CNB