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Michael Barth
"Vinsel, Lex (UTC)"
FW: Bldg 11-9 inspection
Friday, November 07, 2014 10:29:00 AM
image003.png

FYI
Michael J. Barth, M.C.P.

CodePros, LLC

mbarth@codeproswa.com
From: Mike Cohen [mailto:Mike@mcconstruction.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2014 4:28 PM
To: Michael Barth; Rodney Campbell
Cc: Yuchun Santory; Larry Hutchinson; Loren Cohen; 'Delbert Spicer'; marc.schoenberg@comcast.net;
'Rob White'; 'Thomas Leyrer'; 'Bruce Hopkins'; 'Carol Morris'; 'Bill Lynn'; Robert Fredrick;
DJohnson2@ci.tacoma.wa.us; Rochlin.kevin@EPA.gov; Blocker.Shawn@epa.gov
Subject: RE: Bldg 11-9 inspection

Dear Mike,
Because your reply brings up many issues that are beyond Rodney’s scope of work I am
responding to your email. I have spoken to Rodney to get to the bottom of this story, so am
in a position to respond to the direct points about the apparent miscommunication between
you two. I will then also reply to the other issues besides the issue surrounding the inspection
coordination.
I apologize if there was a miscommunication in scheduling this inspection. However,
Rodney’s email was certainly not intended to elicit the response that you sent back last night.
Per the standard operating procedures we understand for ordering an inspection in Ruston,
Rodney’s email was giving you notice of the time and date of a construction event that he
believed required an inspection. As with all the other times before that you and Rodney have
coordinated inspections, the date and time proposed was simply the date and time that he was
asking for. Certainly if a conflicting appointment interferes with the proposed date & time,
then we would work to coordinate our schedules. Based on your conversation with Rodney
prior to his emailed inspection request, Rodney understood that you had an inspection
scheduled for Monday morning in Port Orchard; however, you had not specified a time nor
had you predicted when you’d be available in Ruston. So Rodney’s email was simply starting
the process of trying to schedule this next concrete pour. Obviously as we enter the rainy
season, keeping the construction schedule on time is all the more vital, so it’s a bit frustrating
that a concrete pour costing $10s of thousands of dollars is contingent on one man’s
schedule, but we also understand that you desire to conduct these inspections in person, so we
have to accommodate the fact that you are a one man inspection team and have other farflung jurisdictions that you work for.
It is worth noting that simultaneous to building this parking garage in Ruston, Point Ruston is
building a parking garage in Tacoma. However, in Tacoma our construction schedule is not
at the whim of their municipal inspector’s schedule. For example, this past Saturday we were
operating two pump trucks and pouring about 8,000 square feet of 14” reinforced concrete
deck. 640 yards of concrete were pumped. But because it was Saturday, and because we had

 to coordinate about 60 concrete trucks over the course of the day, Tacoma’s inspector was
not available. However, Tacoma’s inspector required our structural engineer to review the
steel and other aspects of this pour and to sign-off on the work. Tacoma is also requiring our
private inspector to submit his typical private inspector reports (the exact same reports we are
doing on the Ruston job). This allowed the construction to proceed without a hesitation due
to conflicting inspector schedules. In Tacoma they have many inspectors, but they
understand that a construction schedule shouldn’t be hostage to their inspector’s schedule.
This is a system that the Town of Ruston should think about adopting. Our structural
engineers are top notch, as are the private inspectors, and this is a system that is accepted
under the building code and is a proven and proper way for a city to inspect a large job like
this.
As to your point about playing “verbal games”, I am not sure what you are referring to. This
is not a game. We are building a multi-million dollar project, a bulk of which will end up in
Ruston’s jurisdiction. The game playing seems to be played by the team that you are on. The
Town of Ruston is scrambling to keep up with this project and is apparently having you be
their messenger. It’s unfortunate that you are used as their messenger, but trust me when I
say that I am the last person to be playing games. I have a company to run and a project to
build. This is not a game. What feels like a game is when you respond to a simple inspection
request from our construction superintendent with legal arguments about what permits are
required and you nuance and define what Point Ruston is constructing with this project. What
also feels like a game is when our construction superintendent sends an inspection request
and copies the other people who have been regularly copied on every inspection request
(private inspectors, construction managers and a project executive), but your response adds
10 additional people including the Ruston Town Planner, Town Engineer, Town Attorney and
Mayor, as well as EPA officials, a City of Tacoma official, an outside legal counsel for Point
Ruston, and two additional Point Ruston officials. So it seems that if anyone is playing a
game, it is the Town of Ruston.
Furthermore, it is absolutely clear from the record that no building permit is required for the
construction of this parking garage. This has been Point Ruston’s position from the
beginning. And while EPA reminds everyone that they do not provide services to inspect for
building code compliance, occupancy issues or other typical local regulations, simply
because we do not have a building permit does not render this building anything less than
what it is: a parking garage. The lack of a local building permit does not change that.
Moreover, it is highly disingenuous to imply that Point Ruston has not engaged in the local
building permit process in absolute good faith. Point Ruston submitted an entire application
to the Town of Ruston, after having engage in a pre-application meeting with Ruston
officials. The Town of Ruston then took more than 120 days to respond with its initial
comments to the application, and in fact Ruston’s comments denied the application pending
significant alterations to the municipal zoning code and/or project proposal. Thereafter, Point
Ruston and Ruston officials, including yourself, engaged in a comprehensive discussion
seeking to find a path forward on this project, despite Ruston’s initial comments on the
application. This 5+ hour conversation led to an agreement that the disputed land use issues
would be worked through in a series of comprehensive settlement discussions while the
project would proceed with your on-going inspection. However, before this agreement could
be finalized, the City Attorney who negotiated it was fired and Ruston’s new City Attorney
informed Point Ruston that this settlement would not be entered by the Town. And ever
since, Ruston has initiated a series of orchestrated steps to combat this project, from
slandering us to local elected officials to lobbying EPA to withdraw its support of the

 CERCLA permit exemption for the parking garage. As the Mayor acknowledged to me when
we met on October 17th , Ruston has proactively thrown the book at Point Ruston because we
have filed legal claims against the City. As he explained, Ruston officials have applied
codes to our projects and proposals in new ways simply because “we have sued the town”.
Ruston officials are literally reinterpreting their own code in ways that they’ve never done
before in order to combat this project and punish Point Ruston for filing legitimate claims
against the Town. While this is a shocking abuse of power from any government, it is
unfortunately par for the course in our dealings with the Town of Ruston.
As to the payment of fees, while I understand that your contract with the Town calls for your
fee to be based on a percentage of the review and permit fees paid under the building code,
Point Ruston has a substantive dispute with Ruston’s fee structure, which we have
communicated to the Town. This was a significant part of the conversation that we had with
the previous City Attorney, which you were part of. Here, when a Town’s code demands the
fees under the UBC to be the baseline of the permit expense, and then allows all other Town
officials to charge their time by the hour against each project (at rates that include profit and
overhead), then this fee code is in contravention to state law. Yet, despite our disagreement
over the Town’s fee structure, we proposed to pay you for your inspections on an hourly basis
until such time as we resolve our dispute over the fee structure with the Town. We believe
this is only fair for you considering the time you are spending in conducting these reviews.
However, the Town has never responded to this offer, and we understand has not volunteered
to compensate you for your time. But let me reiterate, we are happy to pay you for these
inspections at your hourly rate. Please bill us.
Further, despite your claims to the contrary, we are building a parking garage. We are not
simply building a cap. The parking garage under construction will be used to serve the
parking needs of this development, and is being built in such a manner as to meet all
applicable codes. While you state that Point Ruston has failed to re-submit its application,
and claim that the August 7th resubmittal is incomplete, this is the first time that this has ever
been communicated to us. We have asked multiple times for a status update on our August
7th resubmittal, which has never been responded to. Furthermore, the claim that the response
to the Zoning Code issues is in some way holding up the Town’s review of this application
and interfering in your ability to approve this permit (at least the building code side of the
permit) is not accurate or factual. The Town Planner issued 95 page code analysis that can
only be summarized as fanatical. His review jumped across federal, state and local laws and
covered everything from SEPA to CERCLA to the SMA, ultimately concluding that the
parking garage application proposed by Point Ruston should not be approved. The gist of his
case rests on the fact that that Town passed new zoning ordinances during a special Council
meeting it called on December 23rd, 2013, which purport to disallow parking garages for offpremises uses in the Town. And while both the City Attorney and Mayor have now claimed
that these new codes do not apply to Point Ruston, the Town Planner’s 95 page memo spends
considerable time expounding on the idea that our application is in contravention with these
new codes. So again, you can talk about playing games and point fingers at my team, but in
the end the Town of Ruston has been clearly exposed as the bad actor here. We ask that you
conclude your building code review – and again, we will gladly pay you your hourly rate to
conduct such review – which at least will serve to complete the building code review of this
permit.
My team is trying to build a project. I have no interest in spending my time responding to

 these types of emails from Town officials. But when accusations as egregious as the ones
you’ve made in your email are leveled at my team, I will spend the time to set the record
straight.
I suggest you and the rest of the Town staff focus on permitting this project. If you have
responses to the August 7th re-submittal then please send them my way. Remember, this
parking garage has been designed by one of the top architectural firms in Seattle and
engineered by the leading post-tension structural engineer in Seattle. Your comments were
simple and we responded to them all. The most technical of them all was your application of
the code wherein you state we need to adjust the lot lines of our parcels. And while we do
not agree with your application of that code, as you know we told you we would comply with
your comments. So if we’ve missed something, then let us know. But we expect, and need,
your review to be done. This building was designed properly and is being built properly. I
would assume it’s among the larger building projects you’ve ever been involved in, and I’m
certain that it is the biggest building project that Ruston as a government has been involved
in. So why don’t we try and find a more efficient way to permit and inspect this project, and
this building, and quit wasting everyone’s time with the superfluous emails and arguments?
We expect a level of service from our municipal government. Ruston is failing in every
respect. Please help right their ship. You are the only one with the sophistication and knowhow to be effective. I’ve always enjoyed working with you and hope that you’ll be able to
take this response in the constructive manner it was intended and move forward with this
project.
Sincerely,
Michael Cohen

Mike Cohen
Managing Partner, Point Ruston, LLC
O: 253.752.2185 x208
C: 360.280.5050
mike@PointRuston.com
www.PointRuston.com
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From: Michael Barth [mailto:mbarth@codeproswa.com]
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 5:33 PM

 To: Rodney Campbell
Cc: Yuchun Santory; Larry Hutchinson; Loren Cohen; 'Delbert Spicer'; marc.schoenberg@comcast.net;
'Rob White'; 'Thomas Leyrer'; 'Bruce Hopkins'; 'Carol Morris'; 'Bill Lynn'; Robert Fredrick; Mike Cohen;
DJohnson2@ci.tacoma.wa.us; Rochlin.kevin@EPA.gov; Blocker.Shawn@epa.gov
Subject: RE: Bldg 11-9 inspection

Rodney,
As we discussed on-site earlier today, before you sent the e-mail below, I cannot be there early
Monday due to previous commitments, so I’m unsure why you would specifically request 8:00 a.m.
knowing that it was not at all possible. As we discussed, I will be there for the observation as early as
possible on Monday. Based on my schedule for the day, it will most likely be about 11:00 a.m. or so.

It may also be timely to remind everyone that we’re not at all interested in playing verbal games.
Please remember, Point Ruston still has not obtained a building permit for this project, nor have
they paid the required plan review or building permit fees. The City of Ruston is bending over
backwards to help you with this project as we perform observations of construction of the remedial
cap in an attempt to assist Point Ruston’s ability to be able to use portions of the cap as structural
components of a future building upon the approval and issuance of a valid building permit.
The building permit has not been approved because Point Ruston has not made efforts to submit a
complete application re-submittal following the May 13th and June 9th plan review comment
letters. A portion of the building comments had been re-submitted for review on August 7th , but
not all of them, and the City had been promised that a re-submittal for the remaining issues,
including the Zoning Code issues, was forthcoming. To date, no other re-submittal has been
provided.
So while the City is honoring your continued requests for observation of construction of the
remedial cap, it is disconcerting that Point Ruston appears to be making no effort to obtain approval
of the required building permit, and is equally as disconcerting that you’d send an e-mail requesting
a specific timeframe that you know is unavailable, particularly after verbally stating that the
timeframe is not at all critical on Monday. Please also recognize that the City does its best to
perform next day service and generally does not provide time specific inspections, (even for people
who do have a valid building permit). To date, the City has been extremely accommodating in
adjusting our timeframes and shifting our workloads in order to observe construction of the cap in a
manner and time that best facilitates the timeframes that you suggest.
Michael J. Barth, M.C.P.
Building Official, City of Ruston
mbarth@codeproswa.com
360-801-0543

From: Rodney Campbell [mailto:rodney@pointruston.com]
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 3:14 PM
To: mbarth@codeproswa.com

 Cc: Yuchun Santory; Larry Hutchinson; Loren Cohen; Delbert Spicer; marc.schoenberg@comcast.net
Subject: RE: Bldg 11-9 inspection

Mike,
Per our discussion onsite we would like you to perform another rebar inspection Monday 8am (113-14). Please confirm if this time works for you.
Thanks,

Rodney Campbell   Project Superintendent
POINT RUSTON
5219 N. Shirley St. #100
Ruston, WA 98407
C: 253.365.5248
F: 253.752.7083