Just when we thought the dust had cleared, another lawsuit raises it's ugly head over the City of St. Helens.  Bad enough that we have former employees suing the city, over wrongful terminations, bad enough that we have an old Mayor that has been accused of profiting at taxpayer expense, and a new Mayor accused of sabotaging fire rescue equipment, we now have 13 people suing our City for Building and planning hanky panky.

13 people in the Hankins Subdivision are of the opinion that the City is "screwing them over."  They have accused the city of ignoring law, performing either non existent or fraudulent inspections, and denying them their right to lawfully object.

What happened? The allegation has been made that a Contractor friend of our former Mayor applied for a permit to build a 1200 square foot accessory storage building on property that he owned on Wagner Avenue in St. Helens.  According to neighborhood allegations, instead of building a 1200 square foot garage he constructed a 3,200 square foot building. This building came complete with kitchen, one and half baths and an upstairs apartment.  A building with it's own water and sewer hookups, completely apart from the house that it was supposed to be an accessory to.  On top of this, it was alleged that our former Mayor personally supervised the electrical work.

According to the petitioners, the City told them that the building was legal, and that all the necessary permits were in order.  The objecting neighbors felt that they were denied the opportunity to object to the permit issued, and that the city helped protect the builder.  They seemed to be sure that the man who built the  building knew what he was doing.  He was a well known contractor, friend of the past Mayor, and it was obvious that he had constructed numerous homes, apartments and accessory buildings in the city of St. Helens.  He should have been familiar with building  laws and requirements.

One of the neighbors noticed that there was additional construction starting to occur. Curiosity got the better of her; she asked the builder what he was doing.  He told her that he was building an additional apartment for his grand daughter…

All of this in a garage; is this a great country or what? 

Can you believe it, the neighbor lady was not happy for him?  She kept on uttering words like "fraud" and "deception."  Not only was she upset, but the adjoining neighbors were as well.  They were tired of being stone walled by the City.  They were tired of being put off by both City Officials and the City Council.  The City Attorney allegedly taking the side of the contractor also offended them. They hired an attorney, and their lawyer pointed out that this building should not have been permitted under existing building codes, development codes, or the City's comprehensive plans. 

What do we now have?  We now have a number of angry people, another law suit, and another reason to think that perhaps, our City isn't always doing what is right by all. 

I have asked this before.  How many law suits can we afford?  How many unfeeling uncaring Council people can we elect?   Our last election found our two City Council incumbents running unopposed.  It would seem that no one wants change?  Do you really think that this sort of thing should be allowed to continue?
I really don't think we need more  law suits; do you?

There is only so much money to go around, and I really would rather it not come out of my pockets.

13 people in the Hankins Subdivision think the City is screwing them over.  They are now screwing back.  Can you really blame them?

Bill Eagle