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1994, 12-15 Attorney LetterVan Camp Cal. Bennion TRIAL LAWYERS W. 1707 BROADWAY SPOKANE, WA 99201 TELEPHONE (509) 326-6935 FAX (509) 326-6978 W. Russell Van Camp Irving H. Bennion Dustin Deissner * Bonnie Favor also admitted in Idaho Paralegals: Sally Eva Don R. Shaw :AS 'S.`2V o-iinF 10 Noisinio fi66L 9 1 33© &LNn093NVJ{0dS 03AI35.M 15Dec941323 Thomas L. Davis Code Compliance Coordinator 1026 W Broadway Ave SPOKANE WA 99260 re: Winston A. Smith - 3514 N Edgerton Rd Dear Tom: Mr. Smith brought us a copy of your December 2nd letter before he went to Georgia. He'll be back the first of the year. I am aware that the heating ducts and plumbing you and Mr. Myre directed he do or have done has been worked on and possibly is completed by this time. After I read your letter and noted you were unable to locate a permit, I attempted the same thing and came to the same conclusion, there was no permit for the parcel number your gave me. It was a couple of days later when I discovered that the Spokane County Parcel number you'd written in the letter does not exist. There is no such number and hence no property could be found using that number. I checked the correct one and there is a valid permit for the work that was done. I'm sure you know that by now, but we've not received any corrections letter from your office notifying the Court of the error and that a permit was issued. Mr. Van Camp does feel that a letter should be addressed to Judge Wilson telling her that probably someone in your office just made a little mistake and looked under the wrong parcel number, and that you'd found that indeed there was a permit. You might add whether the work had been inspected or not, and if it has if it passed. As you surely are aware the estimate of a couple hundred dollars that you and Mr. Myre made to Judge Wilson when she was there is turning out to be a little shy of actuality. Currently Mr. Smith's expenses have been somewhere over $2,500.00 just for part of the materials. 7itt There's quite a bit more that will have to be purchased and the stairs will be $855.00 just by themselves. I have found a specialty company that can obtain the variety of smoke detectors that you and Chief Chase say must be installed, and they estimate that they can do that work for not more than $3,000.00, and maybe a few hundred dollars less than that - a lot would depend on the labor involved. I do understand from the electrical companies that the new building code does require that type of electrical wiring and installation. However Mr. Smith was not aware that when he bought the residence at the start of the 1980's, and it had been there for some time then, that he'd be prosecuted for the house not being wired for smoke detectors in accordance with a code that wouldn't be enacted 10 or 15 years in the future. Now if we may, we'd like to make some reply to your one sided attempt to influence the Judge - viz., your letter to Judge Wilson of 11/28/94. When Mr. Myre was at Mr. Smith's on 11/21/94 he was there to look at the work done on the storage room along the east side of the house, and the plumbing modification in the main floor work area. You've written that very little progress has been made. You also estimate that only 20-25 sheets of drywall had been installed. I'm somewhat embarrassed pointing this out but that figure is rather like the estimate for the costs of all the modifications made earlier to Judge Wilson. The original bid is turning out to be least 20 and maybe as much as 30 times less than the actual cost. The estimate of drywall used is more than 60% incorrect. The parcel number is incorrect as set out in your letter to Mr. Smith. When I tried to look I found it doesn't exist. I'd think that in fairness to Mr. Smith, you should correct the impression sought to be conveyed to the Judge. The permit does exist. It's not Mr. Smith's fault that the County tried to find it under a non-existant parcel number. Not that fire safety items were being checked, and Mr. Myre never went upstairs into living portion of the house, but whatever he reported to you, you've concluded as constituting "virtually no life -safety corrections having been made"? What did Mr. Myre see or note as not having been done? He only looked in the storage room and the work area. Did he note any of what had been done and is there in plain sight? Your letter doesn't mention anything in that regard. I know you received a copy of our letter to Chief Chase two months ago, and I noted he has copies of your correspondence to Mr. Smith and between you personally and Judge Wilson. We are, of course, prohibited from directly contacting a Judge in an ex parte manner. In all events, I don't see anything in your letters noting that Chief Chase has chosen to never replied to the earlier letter on behalf of Mr. Smith. I have written again, and possibly he will reply. I would appreciate it if you would allow him to do that. Tom, this is the same trouble that we've had since at least the Fall of 1983 when I first came to work for Mr. Van Camp. We'd get a letter from the County, reply and ask to discuss resolving the matter, and never hear from anyone. Not by phone, nor in writing - nothing. Then in 6-8 months there'd be another letter from the County, almost a duplicate of the one before. We'd reply, ask the sender to contact us, and again never receive a reply or hear from anyone for another 8-10 months and it would repeat. I was two years ago that someone in your department, when I was there, said this case was a big mess because the buildings had been there since the beginnig of time (his characterization), so they kept shuffling it off to a new man every so often. He'd write a letter and they'd all try to forget about it and hope the whole thing would go away. Possibly Chief Chase feels the same way? I'd really like to get answers to the questions posed to him, and if you'd tell him it's alright to do that I'd appreciate it. Mr. Van Camp would also like to have a copy of the particular code provisions that the County now is seeking to apply to Mr. Smith's residence. With all that's gone on, and I have asked for them in the past, we really do feel we should see what the wording is of the provisions he is supposed to have violated. I didn't mean to get quite so wordy, but would appreciate it if we could have those copies asked for, and if you'd allow Chief Chase to reply to our letters. SHAW, JR., for W. RUSSELL V CAMP Attorney at Law