Someone knew about NOLA permit and inspection problems

The boss man knew!!

LINK

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The same questions now dogging the New Orleans building inspectors who were assigned to the doomed Hard Rock Hotel project — namely their whereabouts and qualifications during those inspections — were on the table for a hastily called Sept. 16 meeting where senior building officials dressed down their subordinates.

The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate had just broken the news of an expanded federal criminal probe into the city’s Department of Safety and Permits. Top building official Larry Chan led the special meeting, urging city inspectors to follow 5-year-old policies that he had just reissued.

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Chan implored them to use a mobile app the inspectors were supposed to be using to upload time-stamped photos of their site visits, recording their location. Many were not.

“Some of y’all use this, some of y’all don’t,” he said.

“How do we know you were out there [at the job site]? I mean, I know you have GPS in the truck. That doesn’t mean you physically made an inspection,” Chan admonished them, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by WWL-TV.

Chan went on to press his inspectors repeatedly to avoid working on commercial building projects if they held only residential inspection certifications.

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So it looks like the boss man knew the underlings weren't doing their jobs. Seems like he was going to try to get it straight... but...

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Whether his directive took hold is unclear. Later that same day, Chan and a permit analyst, Richella Maxwell, were escorted out of the building.

The next day, Sept. 17, Mayor LaToya Cantrell would place both Maxwell and Chan on emergency suspension, “based on an ongoing investigation into your involvement in the alleged illegal issuance of city permits,” according to letters to both employees from Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño.

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A federal investigation into the city agency dates back years. It netted a guilty plea from a former building inspector, Kevin Richardson, just weeks after the Hard Rock collapse. Richardson allegedly received at least $65,000 in bribes and, in turn, bribed an unnamed permit analyst. WWL-TV has confirmed from multiple sources with knowledge of the probe that Maxwell is the analyst.

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So it looks like Maxwell is an (as of now) unindicted co-conspirator, and the boss man may be taking the fall for allowing that to happen.

Looks like some of the other supervisors knew of issues too...

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Willis, the head building inspector, pushed his underlings over their failure to use an app to take photos at construction sites and pass or fail the work being done.

“So, if you make an inspection and take the pictures, it should automatically be on my computer. ‘Fess up right now, because we can tell you who's not doing this,” Willis said.

On the recording, some of the inspectors can be heard grousing that the app didn’t always work. One said he tried it briefly but stopped using it entirely. That’s when Smith, the head of Safety & Permits, jumped in to say those technical issues should have been reported.

“We say, 'Oh, you know what? I had a problem with the app today so I'm not going to use the app anymore.' That's bull****!” Smith said.

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The only way you get this kind of culture in a work environment, is by allowing it to fester for years and years. Clearly, the workers didn't give AF what their bosses were telling them to do, and the bosses don't seem to have the clout to force them.

This is what generational rot looks like.