BY DAVID PRESSLY
The Statesville City Council tells us its policy priorities through its annual budget-making process. This year, the City Council proposes to create a “revenue-generating Building Standards Department.” Many Statesville families will consider this budget proposal quite bizarre, since one has to walk less than 10 minutes down Center Street from the City Hall to the Iredell County Building Inspection Department for the identical service which our City Council proposes to duplicate.
Years ago, a previous City Council wisely gave the role and responsibility of building permits and inspections to Iredell County. Now, the City Council proposes to restore this redundant department with a housing tax this year of about $800,000 and $2 million each year hereafter to operate the new 15-person department. A 10-minute walk down Center Street will show us how ridiculous this proposal is.
The new Building Inspections Department is described as a “revenue generator.” Yet the N.C. General Assembly limits the fees charged by the building inspections department to the actual cost to operate the department. If there is additional revenue generated by the department, it cannot go to the general fund or any other municipal purpose. And when there is a downturn in our national and local economy and very little building, Statesville taxpayers still have all those 15 fixed salaries, trucks, and office space to pay for and maintain.
As a reason for creating additional city hall bureaucracy and the new city Building Inspections Department and as reflected in the October 23, 2023, fall retreat minutes, Ward 5 Councilman Joe Hudson “stated that the most complaints heard by the storm water commission are the gray area between where the city’s responsibility ends and the citizens begins. He feels Council should clear that up and it should be put in place as well.” Clear it up, really, $800,000 this year and $2 million every year thereafter?
City Council members know from their own data most building permits and inspections in Statesville are residential. Therefore, spending $800,000 this year and $2 million each year thereafter on a redundant city building inspections department is simply a housing tax on Statesville families.
Housing costs and Statesville city taxes impact most Statesville families. I know one family household living in Ward 5 which consists of three generations — parents, children, and grandchildren — living together not by choice but forced to live together by housing costs in Statesville. Most likely, there are similar families throughout Ward 5 as well as Wards 3 and Ward 6 in Statesville.
Call your City Council member and ask them to step out of their South Center Street Palace, walk 10 minutes north on Center Street, and explore the Iredell County building permitting and inspections office. If our City Council members say there are problems with the Iredell County inspections operations, ask the county administration to fix those problems, and don’t charge Statesville taxpayers a housing tax of $800,000 this year and $2 million every year thereafter.
Our Statesville City Council is so good at collecting taxes. Perhaps next year they will consider collecting our federal income taxes rather than leaving it to the IRS.
David Pressly is a former member of the Statesville City Council and former mayor of Statesville.
It is about control, not revenue.
Well said, Mr. Pressly. Between the Town of Mooresville recently starting their own building standards division and now the potential of Statesville doing the same, three different entities within the same county seems redundant and wasteful. A classic case of “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Years ago the city got rid of the inspection department not only because it was redundant but also the city didn’t have to worry about the salaries and benefits for those employees. The city also let the county take over the city school system.
It’s just more of Statesville chasing Mooresville. It was absurd enough for Mooresville to do so based on the flimsy excuse of location when most people call, email or use online forms rather than going in person and I expect there could have been an open conversation with the county to maybe open a small 1 or 2 man office in Mooresville if they honestly thought it was that important. But as stated above, it’s about control and, no matter the statutes may say, always about money.
Complete waste of tax payer resources and will do nothing but confuse things further considering the Mooresville situation already has since now no one knows who covers what thanks to the nebulous and seemingly ever changing “ETJ.”
I believe we could save the taxpayers a whole lot of money by having the engineers and architects inspect the commercial buildings they have designed. They could charge for this service. Who would know better where the critical points are in a building than them? They are ultimately responsible should a building fail. It would also be more efficient in the scheduling of inspections.
There is legislation addressing the option for third-party review and inspections. If this becomes a thing, then Statesville would more than likely lose some of their anticipated “revenue” to the private sector. Taxpayers would still be on the hook for supporting their department. There is also a question of whether our insurance rates would go up if design professionals could design and review their work. Look at Boeing!
You want the architects to approve their own designs? Great way to create rubber stamped shanty towns. I bet you also think the free market will solve everything. The reason we have building inspectors and code enforcement is because every single regulation has been written in blood. The blood of hard working Americans who were crushed, burned and mangled by the lazy, incompetent or the greedy. Mostly the greedy.
Most of City council members need to be voted out. Primary reason being, they want to rule you, not represent you. And while they’re at it, they want your money too! Let’s get some reasonable thinkers in office instead of the current clown show.
Thanks for addressing this subject. I learned much from your viewpoint. It’s always about money in Statesville.
Agreed, council members who voted yes don’t know what they don’t know. Many people with careers in the construction industry don’t understand the complexity and multitude of departments involved, ie: engineering, plan review, zoning, fire, utilities, back-flow, stormwater, flood management, erosion control, environmental health, ETC. It goes way beyond HR, Facilities and IT so how is the proposed budget feasible? Current staff will surely be tasked with new implementations. This is a case of government decision-making that appears to look good on paper but a disaster waiting to happen. There are a multitude of other reasons why the city creating a new department makes no sense but only the educated and informed truly know.
The circus continues its work!