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The city's inspection services manager calls the lack of a fine an oversight.
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 3, 2001
TAMPA -- An anonymous complaint in April alerted city officials to a pool being built behind a new home under construction at 3608 W Corona St.
The owner, Lynne McCarter, had never applied for the $197 in city permits needed to install a pool. It would be late June before she did apply.
Normally, that's a violation the city punishes by tripling the fees.
What happened in this case? The city canceled its investigation into the complaint, and no late fees were added.
McCarter is the girlfriend and top aide to Steve LaBrake, who runs the city's business and community services department, which oversees home inspections, among other things.
Earlier this week, federal and state investigators began an investigation into whether McCarter and LaBrake used their influence to obtain a cut-rate deal on the construction of the home on W Corona Street.
A city official on Thursday said it was an oversight by city inspectors that caused the investigation to be dropped, and no late fees to be levied.
John Barrios, who works for LaBrake and manages the city's inspection services department, said the inspector looking into the pool violation handed the case off to another inspector, who was looking into a complaint about the drainage system and who, in turn, handed the case off to the residential review division.
Along the way, Barrios said, nobody remembered to note in the computer that a fine should be levied.
"Both the inspection side as well as the permitting side failed to put in an appropriate comment under the address to indicate the triple fee," Barrios said. "Basically that fell through the cracks. The mechanism basically didn't follow through."
LaBrake couldn't be reached Thursday, and McCarter declined comment.
McCarter is paying Ryan Construction $120,000 to build the Corona Street house, far less than other builders charge.
Ryan Construction has received more than $1-million worth of business through LaBrake's department in recent years for work on low-income homes, some of it through the non-profit Tampa Hillsborough Action Plan (THAP).
On Wednesday, Ryan Construction filed notice it intends to build five more single-family homes for THAP.
THAP also paid McCarter $18,750 to provide 150 "welcome bags" that the non-profit group gives to first-time homebuyers. City codes prohibit employees from using their jobs to profit in private deals.
Along with probes by the FBI and the FDLE, the city attorney's office is also looking into LaBrake's and McCarter's dealings.
City Council member Bob Buckhorn said Thursday that LaBrake should be suspended from his job while the investigation unfolds. But there's been no indication from Mayor Dick Greco or other ranking city officials that LaBrake or McCarter will be suspended while they are investigated for wrongdoing.
"I think (suspending LaBrake) is the only way we can conduct an investigation that's even remotely respectable," Buckhorn said, noting LaBrake's presence might have a chilling effect on his employees when they are questioned.
"If he's there, they're not going to talk."
- Christopher Goffard can be reached at 813-226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com. Staff writer Jeff Testerman contributed to this report.