Editor, The Independent:
In the early 1990s, I was in real estate and I purchased five or six homes to rent or remodel and flip.
Even though I owned them, I had to get a builders license to work on them. John Archer was Owosso’s building inspector. Since he was also a contractor he knew that most of the rules were nonsense and difficult to meet.
At that time you didn’t need any permits or inspections. Under the ruse of shoddy roofing, the first permits and inspections were created. Since residents won’t pass an increase in city tax base, our city councils got creative and scammed its residents by mandatory permits, inspections and fines that will grow into a big source of revenue for cities throughout our county.
Cities didn’t want to face the wrath of the residents, so they started with landlords and have since moved into commercial and residential.
In 2001, I created a restaurant storefront where Kolache Kitchen is now. Because the seating was for over 15 customers, I had to put two handicap bathrooms in. I have never seen both bathrooms used at the same time – a $10,000 cost, $5,000 having been wasted.
From the restaurant, I had to put doors into a room and a steel door connecting to my garage for supplies to be dropped off and picked up – never used, wasted $2,000. Also, $1,500 for hard-wired exit signs and fire extinguishers – never used but accepted as safety items, more waste.
Approximately three years ago a plumbing inspector showed up. He told me that I had to have a special backflow protection valve installed. He explained to me that if I had an open valve (water turned on), with a hose attached, with the other end of the hose in a bucketful of poison and a huge blow out in a major water line occurred, that poison could be sucked into our water supply. Really!
That’s why I don’t like the expansion of government.
Roger Snyder, Owosso