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Building department faces another inquiry
By MATTHEW WAITE, Times Staff Writer PORT RICHEY -- The Port Richey Building Department investigations continue, and so does the political infighting that has divided the council. Council members voted Tuesday night to conduct their own investigation of the city's building department, making theirs the sixth involving the building department since 2000. At its next meeting, the council will start selecting its own investigator to look into longstanding allegations of misdeeds in the troubled department. Yet to be decided is how much the council will spend on the probe, what will be investigated, what time period the investigator will look at and what the council members will do with the information once they get it. On Tuesday night, much of the fight between the council members was over who and what were going to be investigated. Two council members, Bill Bennett and Mayor Eloise Taylor, said that if they are going to investigate, the probe should run up to the present. Two others, Phyllis Grae and Pat Guttman, strongly disagreed. (Council member Dale Massad wasn't there Tuesday night). At one point, Grae called for a vote of confidence in Bill Sanders, the current building official. The vote failed when Taylor and Bennett voted against it. Grae, who said Sanders was sent "from Heaven," was angry. "You sit here as smug as you are and don't give this man a vote of confidence," she said. "I think it's disgraceful." Taylor said she has received complaints about the building department and that they need to be looked into as well. She wouldn't say what those complaints were -- City Attorney Paul Marino challenged her to "lay them on the table" -- and said she didn't know whether they were credible. "I don't think we should simply look at the past," Taylor said. Complicating matters for the council is the fact that the Department of Business and Professional Regulation already is looking into building department allegations, and Sanders pointed council members to state law that might prevent the city from investigating him. Under state law, known as the "building code enforcement officials bill of rights," the city has to give Sanders "written notice of sufficient details of the complaint in order to be reasonably apprised of the nature of the investigation and of the substance of the allegations made." After council members said they were going forward with their investigation, Sanders said, "It puts me in a terrible position." Sanders said DBPR investigators are looking at former building official Ralph Zanello -- the DBPR won't acknowledge an investigation until it makes a finding of probable cause -- and the council can't look at Zanello while that goes on. "That leaves me as the target," Sanders said. He said he would hire a lawyer and defend himself. "There's nothing I've done that will come anywhere close to willful violations." Bennett later said, "I don't think Mr. Sanders has anything to worry about," but an investigation should be completed. In other council business Tuesday: The council voted unanimously to again contact state and federal agencies for help regulating gambling boat traffic on the Pithlachascotee River. But getting to that unanimous vote wasn't easy. The gambling boats were on the agenda after the council agreed last meeting to view a videotape from one of the gambling boat companies, Paradise of Port Richey. Paradise officials say the tape shows their rival, Stardancer Casino Cruises, scouring the bottom of the river and damaging a sand bar with its boats. Grae and Guttman both questioned why the tapes weren't delivered to City Hall before the meeting, then accused Taylor of having a "hidden agenda" because she delivered them. Neither Grae nor Guttman watched the tapes when they were shown. Taylor shot back that who brought them or why didn't matter, just what was on the tapes. And she said the council majority -- Grae, Guttman and Massad -- were putting their "heads in the sand and ignoring it." "We have an obligation to protect our waterways, and we haven't done it," Taylor said. It wasn't clear Tuesday night what the city was going to ask the agencies to do. The two gambling boats are in the midst of a lawsuit in Pasco Circuit Court over bottom dredging. -- Matthew Waite can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6247 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6247. His e-mail address is waite@sptimes.com.
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