Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "dan waters"

State may fine Dan Waters $2,500

2011-04-06T02:06:44Z

The state’s Fair Political Practices Commission will decide later this month whether to fine Dan Waters, a former city employee and son of former City Councilman Robbie Waters, $2,500 for his role in altering a permit for a business he co-owned.

FPPC staff argue that Waters, the former customer services supervisor at the city’s development department, disregarded the Political Reform Act by improperly interfering with the permit process for Oshima Sushi in Natomas. Waters co-owned LEWA Inc., a cigar business located at a patio at Oshima Sushi.

An FPPC report claims that Waters intervened in a permit process in order to improve the business environment for the cigar shop.

While staff is recommending that Waters be fined $2,500, the decision whether to fine him will be made by the commission on April 11.

Waters has already paid the $2,500 proposed fine even though the commission has not made its decision, said FPPC Executive Director Roman Porter.

The FPPC is holding onto Waters’ check, Porter said. If the commission agrees that it wants to fine him $2,500, Waters’ money will then go to the state’s general fund, according to Porter.

The FPPC investigation of Waters’ role in the Oshima permit is not related to Waters’ role in approving 35 building permits for a flood zone in Natomas in 2009.

Read the FPPC’s report on Waters here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Hall: The year in scandals

2010-12-22T02:45:51Z

Scandals shook Sacramento City Hall throughout 2010. A review of the past year in local politics shows city leaders in turmoil over debacles at the Community Development and Utilities departments.

The troubles in the development department prompted City Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy to declare in January that council members should find out what has “gone wrong” at City Hall. Before we ring in a new year, let’s take a look at the scandals that shaped city politics over the past 12 months.

Troubles with the feds
A scandal that began in 2009 involving the city’s development department and a Natomas flood zone continued full-throttle until the end of 2010. City employee Dan Waters, son of recently-retired Councilman Robbie Waters, gave permits to K. Hovnanian Homes to develop an area of Natomas that the federal government had defined as a flood zone, according to city officials.

City officials said Waters broke Federal Emergency Management Agency rules by giving the permits to the builder in 2009.

The crisis made waves all through 2010 as FEMA and the city wrestled with how to resolve the breach of federal rules. The City Council approved an expensive solution to the problem just weeks ago, at a Nov. 16 meeting. It will cost $350,000 in general fund dollars to correct the blunder and take several actions to follow FEMA rules.

Following the scandal, Waters was not fired, but was moved to a code enforcement job from a community development department position. Community development and code enforcement were separate departments at the time Waters was transferred in 2009. The departments have since consolidated.

A Dec. 1 Sacramento Bee story quoted anonymous sources to report that the city’s management was preparing to fire Waters. City spokeswoman Amy Williams would not confirm the Bee’s report, saying that the city does not comment on personnel matters.

What happened to $2 million?
The development department faced a second scandal this year that involved more than $2 million in fees. City Attorney Eileen Teichert and independent firm Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai encountered a number of issues relating to fees at the department when they investigated the problems with FEMA and the building permits for the flood zone.

Teichert received the information about the fees, but did not investigate the claims. Instead, Teichert handed over the information on fees to a third-party auditor, Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting, Inc., which conducted an audit of the department. The audit, released in October, said the department did not collect more than $2.3 million in fees from developers. The amount is a significant sum in light of the city’s ongoing budget woes.

The issue is likely to rage on at City Hall in 2011. Councilman Rob Fong has been pushing for the City Council to do a separate investigation of the problems at the department. He also has said he wants to find out if the City Council can get the money back.

Grand Jury rips Utilities Department

The Sacramento County Grand Jury claimed in a January report that the Utilities Department may have broken state law Proposition 218. The law says that utilities fees from ratepayers must correspond to the costs of delivering the utilities services.

Partly in response to the Prop. 218 issue, a citizens’ group placed a measure on the November ballot to roll back city utilities rates. But Measure B failed at the polls.

Mayor Kevin Johnson and Councilman Kevin McCarty both said on Oct. 13 that the Utilities Department should be audited. McCarty and Councilman Steve Cohn actively campaigned against Measure B.

Look for the next installment of our year-end review in the coming days. We’ll refresh you on the resignations and promotions of city officials in 2010.

Photos of Natomas homes by Kathleen Haley. Photos of council members by Brandon Darnell. Photo of Measure B sign by Suzanne Hurt.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Local media: Dan Waters to be fired

2010-12-02T02:28:32Z

The Sacramento Bee is quoting anonymous sources to report that city officials are now taking steps to fire Dan Waters, a city employee who was embroiled in a scandal at the Community Development Department last year.

City officials have said that Waters approved 35 building permits for a Natomas flood zone last year.

When Waters granted the Natomas permits to K. Hovnanian Homes, he violated federal flood regulations, according to city officials. Waters’ action carried a high price tag: The city is paying up to $350,000 to correct its violations of federal flood rules and comply with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Bee reporter Ryan Lillis cites anonymous sources to report that the city gave Waters a dismissal letter last week.

The Bee did not report whether other employees face disciplinary action in relation to the scandal.

City spokeswoman Amy Williams would not confirm the Bee’s report. “We do not comment on personnel matters,” she wrote in an e-mail Wednesday.

The department is facing other upheavals in addition to the problems from the 35 Natomas permits. In another scandal, an audit said the department did not collect more than $2.3 million in fees from developers.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina did not return a phone call Wednesday afternoon. Phone messages left with Waters’ city phone number Wednesday afternoon were not returned.

City Councilman Rob Fong recently told The Sacramento Press that the city should take further action against Waters and others involved in the troubles at the Community Development Department.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fong: Clean out development department

2010-11-19T03:03:50Z

Sacramento City Councilman Rob Fong said in an interview Thursday that further actions should be taken against city employees, including code division employee Dan Waters, who were involved in the recent scandals at the city’s Community Development Department.

Waters approved 35 building permits in a Natomas flood zone last year. Officials with the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency say that Waters’ action to give the permits to K. Hovnanian Homes broke federal regulations. The City Council agreed earlier this week to pay up to $350,000 to correct its violations and comply with FEMA. The violations related to 38 permits – Waters approved 35 of them, according to city spokeswoman Amy Williams.

Waters, the son of outgoing City Councilman Robbie Waters, is still employed by the city. He is a customer service supervisor at the city’s code division with a base salary of roughly $62,278, according to Williams. Specifically, he works in the neighborhood code compliance section, she said.

In an interview, Fong commented on the FEMA violations and the department’s other major scandal: an audit that says the department failed to collect more than $2.3 million in fees from developers.

“If I were running that department, they wouldn’t be working for the city of Sacramento anymore,” Fong said.

He noted the City Council cannot fire city employees. Under the city’s charter, firing is conducted by the city manager’s office.

Fong said the department’s troubles need further investigation beyond the audit. The audit calculated the fee problems, but it did not name names.

Fong also said he thinks there are other people responsible for the department’s messes in addition to Waters.

“My strong suspicion is there was some other folks involved in the chain of command,” Fong said. “And I think we need to figure out how far that went.”

He declined to name any names himself, saying that the city does not have evidence to show who was responsible and how they were involved in the department’s problems. He said he recently directed city officials and the city attorney’s office to provide a framework for how the City Council can investigate the people who were involved in the incidents at the department.

In response to questions about Waters, city spokeswoman Williams said: “We cannot share details about personnel matters. The City Manager’s Office is aggressively reviewing the audit report with the Community Development Department and Labor Relations, and we are investigating to determine if disciplinary action or further investigation of any employee is warranted.

“All disciplinary action necessary will be taken when appropriate,” she said. “Disciplinary actions are the responsibility of the city manager.”

Williams noted that the city transferred Waters to a different position last year. “Under the previous administration, Dan Waters was reassigned to Code Enforcement last calendar year,” she said. “As part of the consolidation efforts to save money, Code and Community Development Departments merged, and code became a division where he now resides.”

The local media has reported that Waters was temporarily suspended last year.

Meanwhile, Waters’ work at the development department is also being investigated by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, according to reports in The Sacramento Bee.

Vina said at an Oct. 12 City Council meeting that the FPPC had concerns about the city’s development department, although he did not mention Waters’ name.

FPPC Executive Director Roman Porter was unavailable for comment Thursday.

Waters did not return three phone messages left by The Sacramento Press Thursday afternoon.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fixing FEMA violations costs city $350K

2010-11-17T06:07:05Z

The Sacramento City Council agreed on Tuesday night to shell out as much as $350,000 in general fund dollars to correct past violations of federal flood management laws.

City officials have acknowledged that Dan Waters, a Community Development Department staffer and the son of outgoing City Councilman Robbie Waters, broke Federal Emergency Management Agency rules when he provided 35 building permits to a developer in a Natomas flood zone last year.

Councilman Waters recused himself from the vote on the “corrective action plan” Tuesday night, while the eight other members approved it.

Fong said that it was important to support the action plan to send a message to FEMA to ensure that the city is in compliance with federal rules. However, he noted that the $350,000 is a significant amount of money to pay.

“It’s a really hard thing at this time in our budget life,” he said.

Nancy Ward, a regional administrator for FEMA, complimented city staffers for working with the federal agency. “I, certainly, from a federal agency perspective, have gotten the true meaning of the word ‘partnership‘ from this city in terms of their hard work and their tenacity ... in humoring FEMA through its challenging program requirements.”

The plan includes several steps the city must take. In Natomas, four partially built homes, one completely built home and a multi-car garage must be torn down, according to a city staff report. Two fire-damaged homes will receive private flood insurance paid by the city, said Department of Utilities spokeswoman Jessica Hess. The Community Development Department must also have a certified floodplain manager on staff, according to the report.

“We clearly made a very, very serious mistake,” Tretheway said.

Read the report and all the steps the city must take here.

Photo by Kathleen Haley.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City staff seek building code changes

2009-11-10T05:27:54Z

The Sacramento City Council soon may be asked to amend city code to legalize a longtime practice that helped bring about the suspension of the Facilities Permit Program.

In the next few weeks, city staff want to ask the council to allow FPP construction projects to start before building permits are issued — as long as a business has a written start-work authorization from the building division, said David Kwong, the city's Planning Division director.

Staff is working with the city attorney's office to learn if the practice and the building code amendment would be legal, Kwong said.

"What I'd like to do is vet that form with the city attorney's office, make some tweaks and take that to the council," said Kwong, who is also serving as head of the Community Development Department, which oversees the planning and building permits divisions.

The department's director, Bill Thomas, and department supervisor Dan Waters, son of Councilman Robbie Waters, are on paid leave while the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the city and an outside law firm hired by the city look into the department and home building permits approved for the Natomas flood zone despite a ban.

The FPP is intended to speed approval for tenant improvements or renovation of commercial and industrial buildings involving businesses that already have established relationships with the city, Kwong said. If the change were approved, the FPP could resume within about two months, he added.

The city suspended the FPP on Oct. 27 after questions about the program arose in relation to the Nestlé Waters North America water-bottling plant. A stop-work order had been posted on the plant's door Oct. 23 while Councilman Kevin McCarty and other city officials inquired into plant construction.

That's when city officials learned that Nestlé and contractors had begun the first phase of construction work without a formal building permit or start-work authorization. A building inspector who coordinates the FPP had given verbal approval only.

A Nestlé official said at the time that the company had complied with the city's building laws.

The city attorney's office, led by Eileen Teichert, determined the practice was not legal, and that allowing construction to start without a building permit violates city and state codes, Kwong said.

Teichert was out of town and not available to comment.

The use of start-work authorizations rather than building permits for some commercial construction predates the FPP in Sacramento.

"We found there was a common practice dating back to 1992 or 1995," Kwong said. "It seemed like an acceptable practice for 14 years, and they went forward with that."

The practice is used in other cities and was incorporated into the FPP when that program was brought to Sacramento from Portland about four years ago, said Kwong. "It's not something we invented," he said.

As planning division director for four and a half years, Kwong was not involved in building services until three weeks ago.

Sacramento City Manager Ray Kerridge, hired in 2004 as an assistant city manager in charge of development, brought Thomas with him from Portland after developers criticized Sacramento's development application and building permit processes as laborious and confusing.

The two have developed programs to speed the application process and encourage development in Sacramento.

Kerridge began his career in Portland as a building inspector in 1979. After becoming manager of commercial inspections, he developed Portland's Facilities Permit Program and the Commercial Combination Inspection Program.

Portland's FPP was designed to match one building inspection team with a building or group of buildings. That team would do all plan review, permitting and inspections of interior tenant improvements to speed improvements or renovations. Phoenix was the only other city in the country known to have a similar program when Portland's began in 1998.

In Sacramento, an inspection team may be replaced by one building inspector certified in several areas, Kwong said.

According to the city of Sacramento's website, "The FPP facilitates a rapid approval process for tenant alterations and improvements of commercial and industrial facilities, (including) minor tenant improvements, including maintenance, repair and minor alterations; and major interior tenant improvements and remodels. This includes tenant improvements to new and existing structures.

"The FPP is available to owners of commercial and industrial buildings, building management companies, and/or their tenants. The program best serves customers who have on-going interior tenant improvements and where facility maintenance, upgrade and renovation is frequent. A good example is a large shopping center with multiple tenants."

As a newcomer to Sacramento, Nestlé would not fit the program. However, Buzz Oates Real Estate Co., which is leasing the warehouse to Nestlé, or Panattoni Construction, which is overseeing the work, would fit the program as established customers, Kwong said.

Nestlé is the building permit applicant. Panattoni received a start-work authorization for the plant renovation's second phase on Oct. 7.

This is the first time the City Council has been asked to weigh in on the FPP.

State building codes must be reviewed to see if FPP practices would be in violation, or to align new city code with the state. City staff also will look for precedents in other cities and counties that use the start-work authorization form, Kwong said.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.