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City lies to HUD; Lansing Mayor Schor should resign August 11, 2022
In a just-obtained November 17, 2020 email to HUD officials, former City Development Manager Donald Kulhanek seeks to trivialize the disaster of Tammie Arend's roof replacement by Scott Frederickson Construction of Bath, MI. He says a November 19, 2019 inspection revealed no water leaking and no evidence of anything wrong with the roof. That was a lie. Kulhanek attended that inspection along with building inspectors James Bennett and Steve Guel and the air inside the home was so moldy and bad that they had to come outside for air. We know this because Lansing resident Melissa Huber was present to observe the inspection and wrote an account. (In her account, Kuhanek is the one in a suit and Guel is the one in Carhartts.) She said that Steve Guel confided in her that there was clearly a problem but he didn't know where it was coming from.
In his letter to HUD, Kulhanek failed to mention that the roof did indeed leak initially, and the leak was not discovered until September 24, almost 4 months after the roof was replaced at the end of May 2018. Tammie came home to find a flood:
Frederickson came and repaired the caulking around the two chimneys, which stopped the leak, but the damage was done. Floors, ceilings and walls were soaked along with insulation inside the walls. City building inspector Dennis Graham came and was appalled at the quality of work, suggesting she might have to file a lawsuit. In early October, Frederickson’s son and a friend came to do repairs, but instead added to the damage, including breaking the shower door. It was a discontinued model, so the door could not be replaced. Tammie has not been able to use it since. She ended up doing most of the repairs herself, taking out a mortgage on the house to pay for them.
Tammie used fans and humidifiers and left windows open to dry the place out, but moisture levels remained high. In a September 20, 2019 email to Frederickson, she said
An independent inspection was done 12/13/2019 by Steeleman Inspections of East Lansing. The 30-page report said that an examination of the attic revealed ventilation problems. From page 24:
We don’t know if the Development Office was aware of the ventilation problem, but their inspectors should have checked the roof ventilation before payment to Frederickson was authorized. And they certainly should have checked it at the November 19, 2019 inspection when moldy air drove them outside to breathe. Yet in Kulhanek’s November 17, 2020 email, he does not mention it and says there is no evidence there is anything wrong with the roof.
Kulhanek then proceeds to discredit and denigrate Tammie. He apparently wants HUD to think Tammie is crazy and not to be believed; that the problems with the roof are a figment of her imagination. He says "We’ve also learned she received utility assistance in 2019. She’d had previous meeting(s) with HRCS and the Mayor’s Office, and met directly with Mayor Schor." Then he says "I came across the following email from an assistant city attorney which summed up Ms. Arend’s activities pretty accurately:"
This unnamed assistant city attorney didn't get her facts straight. The dead tree wasn't in Tammie's yard, it was in the next door neighbor's yard. She was not responsible for removing it and she was concerned that varmints were living in the rubble and that they could cause diseases, one of which was Leptospirosis, not leprosy. In fact, her dog did contract this disease and was kept at a veterinary hospital for a week. She spoke about the issue at a council meeting in 2015 and followed up with an email.
Tammie recollects nothing about the "strange email". Since she owns her home, she was unlikely to have claimed that someone bribed her landlord.
Kulhanek retired in July 2021.
September 24 will mark the 4th anniversary of the day Tammie came home to find her home flooded. In June of last year, when a plumber came to replace a failed water heater, he found that the chimney that vents the water heater and furnace was plugged with trash, which could only have been put there by the roofers. Tammie cannot afford the several thousand dollars to have it fixed, so she is without heat and hot water.
So while Tammie is struggling to survive with constant high humidity and mold, ruined furniture, no shower, no hot water, no heat and income totaling $803 a month in social security disability and SSI, the City of Lansing is lying to HUD, telling them there is no problem with the roof and that they should pay no attention to Tammie because she once received utility assistance, makes wild accusations, says her dog has leprosy and claims code officers pocket fine payments for code violations.
Summer is almost over. Tammie has survived 4 winters under horrible conditions, but never without heat. She has filed a lawsuit against Frederickson, but it is uncertain when or if she will get anything. Someone needs to get her into decent housing without delay.
And Mayor Andy Schor must resign. His Development Office and his City Attorney office were involved in this fraud; how could he not have known? I've been writing about this since October 2020, and I've emailed him directly about Tammie's plight. He's never said a thing about it. And you have to wonder - why did they do it? Why not just insist that Frederickson clean up his mess? Why protect Frederickson? What do they owe him? What has he got on them?
Previous stories on Tammie's situation:
Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com or call or text me at 517-730-2638. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.
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