Office of Community Renewal Ronald Barney Shoddy workmanship, verbal abuse, waste of HUD funds Malone, New York
Ronald Barney is the coordinator for the Office of Community Renewal in Malone, NY which is a local venue for Federal HUD dollars. He allowed an incompetent carpenter, Jack Nichols to perform shoddy workmanship in my parents home under the auspices of HUD. He refused to do anything to assist my parents when the work looked horrible claiming the work was good and my parents had to accept it. My father is a retired contractor with 40 years of building experience. I heard Ronald Barney tell my father that he had to accept whatever the carpenter did as correct work, and when my parent challenged this, Ron Barney ordered the carpenter off the job and then lied to the entire Town of Brandon village board, claiming my father removed the carpenter. When I spoke up and said the man had lied, he started an arguement with my father . He kept shouting "Are you questioning my integrity?" over and over. When my father stated yes, because a liar can not possess integrity, he walked out, and the board made empty promises and did nothing to alleviate the problem. Supervisor Mike Lawrence called the carpenter on the phone and took his side in spite of being informed by the code enforcement officer that Jack Nichols was "impossible to work with". When the carpenter was allowed to return, Jack Nichols verbally abused my parent and accused him of theft and trying to injure him because he tried to reinstall an electrical fixture with the wires 'hot'. The Town Supervisor Mike Lawrence labeled my father a chronic complainer over this single incident and failed to act in the issue, as was his duty. When my father found another carpenter to finish the work, Ron Barney was required to inspect the work to close the HUD contract and he was deliberately antagonistic to my father in his home ,hoping to use it as an excuse to discredit him. The work that Jack Nichols did was so shoddy my parents are now faced with having to pay to have a reputable carpenter redo the work and will have to take Nichols into small claims court in hopes of recovering the cost of a very expensive fixture he ruined because he did not know or remember how to reinstall after he had removed it to to his crummy work. On 10/6/09 I filed a written complaint with the Albany NY Office of Community renewal. I have not received any response from the individuals they told me would be responding to the complaint as of 11/9/09. Gail Hammond is the head of that office and she did notheing except to put it back in the hands of the town supervisor Mike Lawrence and the local office who have done nothing to correct the situation, instead they have ignored my parents and tried to manipulate them into losing thier temper through provocative statements so they can claim the fault lies with my parents. This is a phenominal waste of HUD dollars and is directly attributable to a total lack of internal controls and accountability at both the local level and the Albany New York level. Their refusal to act appropriately has allowed a carpenter to abuse my parents and drag a remodeling job supposed to be competed in three months, for nearly a year-over 11 months. In addition the work is so bad it needs to be redone. The final insult is that Jack Nichols required my parents to remove all items from any room he was supposed to be working in, and they are 83 years old, so I was the one who did all the packing. They have lived with their house packed into two rooms for nearly 6 months because of this Jack Nichols. NEVER GET INVOLVED WITH ANYTHING HUD HAS A HAND IN_THEY DO NOT MONITOR EFFECTIVELY HOW THE PROJECTS TURN OUT FOR QUALITY CONTROL.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Dave
United States of AmericaHUD home rejuvanation contractor, program, city, HUD all corrupt,
#2REBUTTAL Individual responds
Mon, January 11, 2010
Explanation of complaint: January 11th 2010 Deceptive business practices of Spokane contractor DR Construction. Misrepresentation of business, breach of contract, working without signed end date, risking homeowner and family health and safety. Inflating prices of labor costs and material, failure to provide work acceptable under manufacture and home builder guidelines. We have written documents and pictures to support our claims against all parties of mismanagement of the HUD rehabilitation program. Claims include: 1. Violation of our rights under the contractor and home owner contract. 2. Violation of ours rights concerning City of Spokane. 3. Breach of contract concerning D R construction. 4. Conflict of interest concerning City of Spokane, Kiemle and Hagood, and D R Construction. 5. Misallocation and mismanagement of our loan funds through Kiemle and Hagood. Our family received a $35,000.00 low interest home loan through the HUD rejuvenation program. The program is facilitated by Spokane Kiemle and Hagood (K&H) property managers. K&H encouraged us to hire DR construction (DRC), both K&H and DRC stated that the contractor had crews of skilled workers and the work would be done in 6 weeks. The work started on our house September 4th 2009 and to date is far from complete. On September 29th 2009 we began to voice concerns to K&H that the HUD contractor D.R. Construction (DRC) was doing defective work inside our home. We contacted Spokane city building permits and on October 12th 2009, the shower that DRC installed was inspected. The inspection cited several areas in the shower that needed to be corrected to pass city code. The drywall and shower work was so terrible; we had to stop DRC from working on our house. One of their crew, Aaron told us " I am not a drywall installer, DR is paying my tuition." This contractor is using students and apprentices and telling consumers they are skilled workers. They did not know how to install sheetrock or install a shower. This contractor charged us $5,000.00 for sheetrock job and $5,000.oo for the custom built shower. After 80 days, the shower is still not functioning. K&H inspected our house on October 20th 2009. They supported that the work done by DRC was fine and there was nothing wrong with it, K&H required us to let DRC continue their work. K&H insisted that we pay for the work that was done, and be removed from the program, meaning that we would not be receiving the remainder of our loan to finish our house. At this point of the process our house was a shell, no kitchen, no bathroom, no bedroom, we were living in an old, small motor home in our back yard. We had given DRC our extra cash for upgrades, and no way of getting a home loan with the house in such disrepair. In the contractor and home owner contract states that all repairs or code violations to be started within 7 days of the infraction. Also, if the contractor could not do the repairs another business would complete the repairs at the original contractor expense. K&H REFUSED to let another contractor bid on our house. Through the beginning of our complaints and currently, K&H continue to threaten us with arbitration. Ours rights to have another contractor has been continually ignored. Do to mismanagement of the process by K&H, the health and safety of our family has been in jeopardy. Our family has suffered without basic living necessities since October 12th 2009. Do to the actions of K&H, and the City of Spokane they managed to stagnate the work on our home from October 12th until December 2nd 2009. After three weeks of calls, written complaints, and email pictures of the defective work to K&H, HUD Olympia, and City of Spokane Community Development. We had a meeting on October 23rd with Michael Aldofea, Director of Spokane City Community Development, and K&H. The meeting wrote up a resolution contract including a gag order on us. We were not able to speak with the contractor or the 3rd party inspector. We were ordered to stay out of the work area while the workers were on site. These violations against our rights were imposed because we saw shoddy workmanship being covered up, and we found out the workers were students. Under stress and unable to pay for the repairs on our own, we felt helpless and had to comply. The resolution agreement stated that Spokane would hire an independent inspector and all parties would adhere to the official report on the construction work performed on our house. Also, the parties unanimously agreed that the shower would be the first priority to be repaired and completed. The inspection was done on November 24th 2009, and concluded, if fact, many areas of defective work performed by DRC. Including drywall applications and, of course, the shower. The inspector gave a detailed report on fixing the drywall applications and shower repair. K&H told us that DRC would bring in crews and have us in our house by Christmas. On December 2nd 2009 DRC started back to work on our house. Immediately breaching the good faith of the contract and stated that the drywall would be their priority, not the shower. When we complained to K&H, their response was "the contractor has the right to follow their means and methods of construction." DRC brought in one guy to repair and finish the drywall, not the crew we were guaranteed. DRC took 10 working days to finish the drywall. It is now 121 days since the program has started the rehabilitation of our home. Our family's home is still a shell. No hygiene facilities, no shower or bathtub, no kitchen, no living room, no bedroom. The Spokane development rehabilitation program number one goal is to protect the health, safety and security of the homeowner and their family. The program facilitators completely failed in managing the process to be fair for all parties. currently we are shoping for legal representation