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"Behrens said he has done nothing wrong"

From: JP -- venfl.com
Date: 04/03/08
Time: 06:10 AM

Comments

Couple of corrections and comments about Hackett's article in today's Herald-Trib.

Tammy Vellucci is Mike Vellucci's sister, not his wife. I was under the same mistaken impression for a time as some city employees had made the same wrong assumption. [correction -- see below]

Mike Vellucci's mentioned legal troubles were in Collier County (Naples, Florida) and in Rhode Island, not Lee County.

"Behrens said he has done nothing wrong and has only sought to make sure a building complies with city regulations."

Perhaps a more truthful statement would have been if Hans Behrens had stated that he had done nothing, right or wrong, but even that would be a bit misleading. That quote above is one HUGE pile of fecal matter from Behrens. Behrens did a lot of things wrong in ignoring his staff's complaints, which in turn allowed the situation to get uglier and uglier. The fabricated story that Behrens told to me when I first started making inquiries was and is still enraging -- Behrens denied any complaints had been made to him by his staff, when the written record that I received through a public records request clearly and indisputably shows otherwise.

"My job is not to be a policeman," [Behrens] said. "When you deal with difficult people, you try to bring them into compliance."

Actually, Behrens' job is quite a bit like that of a policeman -- he is empowered with enforcement of laws and codes for the main purpose of public safety,

"When you deal with difficult people, you try to bring them into compliance."

How? By osmosis? Tea leave reading? By showing them the stain on your thumb leftover from where you have been sticking it?

What neither the Herald-Trib or this web site has reported (yet) is that this situation with Tavern on the Island is anything but an isolated incident. This is just one in a chain of total failures of management in the Building Department.

more coming soon...

NOTE: Part of the above was based on disclaimer information voluntarily provided by Mike Vellucci, who stated that Tammy is his sister. It turned out to be untrue -- Tammy and Mike Vellucci are indeed wife and husband. No explanation from Vellucci as to why he voluntarily provided false information.