Blanche Fuller stands in front of an outbuilding that has stood on her property since World War II. The city of Powder Springs issued a warning citing 35 code violations. Fuller’s son, Dr. Dwight Frisbee, believes the code warnings are an excuse to take the building and convert it into a bike rental facility.
Photo by Anthony Stalcup
Photo by Anthony Stalcup
A city code officer issued the warnings to the owner, Blanche Fuller, 90, on July 30, and instructed her to repair the building - which sits at the corner of Old Lost Mountain and Powder Springs-Dallas roads - by Aug. 30. Fuller's son, Dwight Frisbee, contends the alleged violations are excessive and said the city simply wants an excuse to take the building and turn it into a bike rental and storage facility for the Silver Comet Trail.
But Vaughn said Frisbee's accusations are completely unfounded.
"If you read our short-term work plan, nowhere has it ever been discussed that we want to use that building for the trail," Vaughn said. "I'd like to know where (Frisbee) got that information. He had no basis for that claim. ... The bottom line is, we couldn't plan that - that's her property."
While Vaughn said she is not familiar with the violations, in her opinion, the building is in "pretty bad shape."
"I let code enforcement do their job," Vaughn said. "In (the Journal's) picture you can see the high grass. Because of West Nile, we have really cracked down in the city with high grass. If you look at the property, the picture sort of proved the case."
On Wednesday, the Journal reported that Tommy Westbrook - who has rented the outbuilding from Fuller for a T-shirt business, and who believes it would cost at least $40,000 to fix all of the problems cited by the city - said his repeated calls to Vaughn's office had gone unanswered.
That's not true, Vaughn said. Every call to her office is logged in, and there is no log for any call relating to the building, she said.
Pam Conner, the city's community development director, said Wednesday that any citizen may ask for more time or dispute a code violation.
Conner said residents can call the city at (770) 943-1666 and ask for code enforcement to discuss a plan for bringing a building up to code.
"We can work out a game plan for correcting the violations," Conner said. "But if the code requires work to be done, the code requires work to be done. The state has minimum building code standards that we follow."
Whether Fuller will actually be cited for the code violations has not been decided, said Lionel Postic, an assistant to city solicitor Randall Bentley. After a warning is issued, the code enforcement solicitor and the code officer decide what the next step should be.
Vaughn said, "We work with everyone. All they have to do is call us. And Mrs. Fuller has never once called us."
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Please do not take this information negatively. There are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes in government that the public never hears about unless some brings it to public view. Two examples of recent print is the "Dunn Deal" article and the article about the Cobb Chamber taking over Community Development. This goes on more than you would ever know. Remember, there were code violations that could not have been known unless officers were inside the business which is not open to the public.