By Daniel Pye<br><a href="mailto:pyed@gnnewspaper.com">E-mail Dan</a>
The Tonawanda News
April 22, 2008 12:10 am
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After 19 years as the top man at the building department, Supervising Building Inspector Michael Hazen will be hanging up his hat Wednesday.
On Thursday morning, Carl Heimiller will take on what Councilman John Bargnesi called one of the most thankless jobs he’s ever come across.
“You never get to be the hero,” Bargnesi said to Hazen. “The better he does his job, the worse he is.”
But the goal of the department is to keep residents safe, no matter how much those residents may want to cut a corner to make a construction job quicker or cheaper. In his 34 years of service to the town’s building department, Hazen took enforcing the safety of town residents to heart, Bargnesi said.
Heimiller said the job’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, but he’s willing to take on a role that’s not always popular because it’s necessary. After 14 years in the department, Heimiller said the job won’t come with a lot of new responsibilities.
“There are just more administrative duties, budgeting and that sort of thing,” Heimiller said.
In other business former Councilman Raymond Sinclair commented that the board’s recent move to charge a fee for water improvements was a step in the right direction. But he cautioned the board not to be tempted into taking that money to fix other surprise problems.
That won’t be a problem since the fee, which went into effect this month, is a dedicated source of funding, said Councilman Joseph Emminger.
“That money has to be used for water projects,” Emminger said.
A water-related project has set back the full opening of Sheridan Parkside’s golf course, which will have the first nine holes open today.
“Construction work caused some damage, but we’re looking to have a full 18 holes by the middle of May.”
Contact reporter Daniel Pyeat 693-1000, ext. 158.
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