Lawyer

Here's an exerpt from an e-mail the lawyer sent me today:

Erica,
We have been pulling every document that potentially applies. Also, made numerous attempts yesterday to get us before the Board ASAP, however, the earliest is Aug 6th. (BTW, in talking with secretaries for Benefield, Ladner and someone else, they all thought Richard Herrin was "so nice," the "one we all rely on for the Code," and similar remarks.) Ladner's secretary told me, in so many words, that if Richard Herrin said it then Ladner believed it.

Ladner is the supervisor for our district. He refused to meet with us, saying that Herrin is the expert and he only cared about Herrin's opinion. I said that our next step would be to bring it in front of the Board of Supervisors, to which he replied that there's no telling what the other supervisors might rule. i.e., don't count on his support, regardless of our arguments.

Next steps - we get an opinion regarding our "enclosure" from the surveyor and we meet, yet again, with Richard Herrin. Either Richard will say "wow, I had never seen that document from FEMA that clearly shows that your foundation is not an enclosure", or the lawyer will be correct and Richard will say "I don't care what your piece of paper says, your foundation is illegal." After that, we go in front of the Board of Supervisors. And then on to court. If it goes to court, the lawyer will be suing for damages - that's how ridiculous he thinks the code office is being and board of supervisors might be.

So, either we go to the meeting and Richard is "nice" and reasonable, and the lawyer fees were a big waste of money, or we go in front of the Board of Supervisors, who are reasonable and who realize that their "highly trained expert" isn't so smart after all, or we go to court and the lawyer earns his fees.

In the meantime, we have hit the jackpot - we were randomly selected to receive a Katrina cottage. Not sure what we would do with that. We haven't decided for sure, but will probably decline it. But if our building is stopped for another couple of months, we might need the cottage. We would have it for 2 years and then would have the option of buying it.