Hilary:

Thanks for the sympathy. The City is a hastle. The rules are always changing and the city employees can't even keep up with the changes. It is that much more difficult for you or I? Your experiences unfortunately are fairly typical. I live that way. The time eaten up dealing with all the "back and forth" is a killer too.

Thanks again and Stop by,

Martin Lide
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Hilary Smith 
  To: emca@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 12:05 PM
  Subject: Re: *EMCA* sidewalk: I am the builder


  At 09:37 PM 2/12/2002 -0600, you wrote:

  Thank you for a very detailed, factual account of your dealings with the City of Houston. I had a similar experience with city certified contractors. The city required that we put in a new sewer line: a perfectly legitimate requirement since I knew the little line behind our house frequently backed up when I lived here in the 70's. But, of course, we had to use a city approved contractor and engineer. The engineer drew up plans for a line that was at least twice as long as it needed to be.

  This means that, if I hadn't noticed it, the contractor would have dug up twice as much of Bomar as he did, or, more likely, he would have charged me for the extra work without doing it, probably splitting the excess charge with the engineer and maybe the city inspector. When I pointed it out by phone to the engineer (who almost never returned calls from me or our builder) he said not to worry, that he would be here when the city inspector came and would make everything all right. A friend put me in touch with an e-mail group or small web site maintained by people who had similar problems, and emboldened by their experiences, I finally got him to make the changes by threatening to have his license and his green card revoked.

  I attribute many of our problems with city contractors and employees with a contracting and hiring policy that is more concerned with correcting social evils than getting the work done by someone who can do the best job for the lowest cost.



  (Mr.) Hilary Smith
  712 Bomar St.
  Houston TX 77006-1316
  713.523.0559
  Fax: 713.523.3928
  Website: http://pws.prserv.net/hilary