Sacramento City Manager Ray Kerridge came to town with a mission: “Get the Customer to Success.” While he deserves credit for streamlining a Byzantine development process, Sacramentans now are wondering about the flip side: The “customer” has become synonymous with the “developer” – not the public.
That downside became obvious in Natomas.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency found that Natomas levees don’t meet minimum 100-year federal flood protection standards. That means that new home construction has been banned since Dec. 8, 2008 (unless homes are elevated 33 feet above sea level, about 21 feet in Natomas). That’s a de facto building moratorium until levee upgrades are completed.
That didn’t stop Dan Waters, a city customer service supervisor (and son of City Council member Robbie Waters). An outside investigation, presented to the council Tuesday, revealed actions that can only be described as outrageous:
• City code does not allow building permits to be transferred from one site to another. Yet when the developer wanted to switch 35 permits (15 of which had expired) to 35 new lots in the high-risk flood zone, Waters prepared permits “so that construction could commence.”
• The city’s computer system flashes a FEMA alert for lots in this high-risk flood zone, so city staff know to apply the proper restrictions. Waters overrode the computer system to issue permits without the FEMA requirements.
• A city inspector “expressed concerns that this violated FEMA regulations.” Waters told a supervisor that FEMA had approved the permits – which was not true. That supervisor, according to Assistant City Manager John Dangberg, relied on the false information (without doing any further checking). He told the city inspector to proceed.
Dangberg said Wednesday that Waters believed he was “bringing the customer to success.” And Assistant City Attorney Sandra Talbott said Thursday that Waters believed he had authority from higher management – though the investigation concluded that management appeared not to have “actual knowledge about this permit activity.”
Something is terribly wrong when staff believe they can ignore laws and regulations to “get the customer to success.”
As of December the developer had completed and sold 10 homes. Did the lender tell these families that they were buying homes in a high-risk flood zone without FEMA- required elevations?
Of the unfinished homes, 23 are just slabs; two are partially done. City officials have asked FEMA to allow these 25 remaining homes to “be completed, sold and occupied.”
If FEMA agrees, city officials want the council to modify the city building code to backdate these 35 permits before the Dec. 8, 2008, FEMA elevation requirements took effect – a bad precedent.
Waters has been moved to code enforcement, after serving a one-week suspension without pay, a slap on the wrist. No heads have rolled in the development department. Business as usual.
We attempted to talk directly to Kerridge, but he referred inquiries to Dangberg. Someone needs to be held accountable for the Natomas permitting violations. If it’s not Waters or his immediate bosses, then it must be the city manager.