It had to happen some time...

it's just a really bad mix with the person assigned to review my stuff at the building deptartment. I may have to ask for a different reviewer. We met at the site on Friday for the meeting from hell. I have terrible chemistry with Jeff, the guy at the building Dept who is reviewing my stuff. This is typical of my experience with the Martinez Building Dept...

So we meet at the site on Friday to talk about how to make it ADA accessible and the engineer and the Build Dept make suggestions. I incorporate them into my visio and ask Jeff if I can send him a copy. He (with his as usual totally unhelpful attitude) says, "I don't like to get this stuff thru email." I finally talk him into (after much hemming and hawing about it) giving me his email adress (which is on his f*cking regular business card, so it's not a secret) and send him the stuff on Sunday night when I get home and can redo the visio. This is the email response I get back from him:

"Rachael, got your plan and in review the ramp @ front door as drawn doesn’t comply nor does the bathroom. The plan also doesn’t scale. please draw plans with detailed dimensions for these area’s.

Thanks, Jeff "

So not only does he NOT say what specifically needs to be fixed (doesn't scale to what?), it is clear they, once again, cannot agree on what is compliant. What he really wants, and what is not required, are expensive professionaly drawn layouts. I think he is going to be an obstruction until he gets them.

I am not sure if it is better that I had all really nice government employees all along until now, or if it is more annoying that I know how unusual (and hence, uneccessary) it is to be so unfriendly to small business. I've already paid thousands of dollars for address specific permits and licenses and I feel really stuck now. And really it all boils down to one young (and I would guess really new to his job) guy who seems like maybe he is trying to avoid work by throwing up arbitrary road blocks.

I am going to ask David to work with him, because I don't have time to get in a major pissing match and that would really stress me out. He seems to be more comfortable talking to and working with men, so maybe that will make things go smoother. If not, I will ask for a different person to work with. But frankly the first time I went in there the other guy wasn't any more helpful, so I suspect the problem is systemic.

On the positive side, Stein and I will get started on salumi tomorrow and I will get to teach a sausage making class at DVC tomorrow night! Which is also my 41st birthday :) YAY for getting older!