Source: Rhino Times Greensboro

County’s Noisy, Leaky Rat Trap

by Scott D. Yost

August 02, 2012

Guilford County’s building at 325 E. Russell Ave. in High Point, which houses hundreds of county social services workers and other county employees, has been the subject of complaints about insect and rodent infestation, leaks in the roof, parking problems and acoustical problems – the building is even keeping county employees from wearing high heel shoes to work because the noise travels so easily through the floors.

In 2010, the county purchased the building from developer C. Wayne McDonald, a friend and former business associate of then Commissioner Steve Arnold, after Arnold argued and pled for the county to buy the building. That happened even though the Board of Commissioners had already voted to build a new building in High Point to house the social services operations for that city. The commissioners stopped the new building in its tracks, bought the Russell Avenue building from McDonald, and awarded McDonald the contract to renovate the building for the county without that contract ever being put out for bids.

Employees who work in High Point for Guilford County’s Department of Social Services (DSS) complained for years that the former DSS building, which the county used for over a quarter of a century, was plagued with problems such as pests, a leaking roof, a parking shortage and other troublesome working conditions, but now those employees have moved into the newly purchased and renovated building where they’re facing those same problems, along with new ones.

One thing that may help DSS workers cope, however, is that – even though they’ve apparently jumped from the frying pan into the fire when it comes to their work environment – misery loves company and now DSS staff have plenty of company.

The building is being used not only by DSS, but also by the county’s Board of Elections, the Register of Deeds, Child Support Enforcement, the county’s Tax Department in High Point and a veterans affairs office.

The county closed on the Russell Avenue building in July 2010, and they bought the building mainly to house DSS operations in High Point – the justification being that the former DSS building at 300 S. Centennial St. was a shambles.

So DSS workers in High Point were excited about getting new digs. But the fact that those workers are seeing some of the same problems after moving is a major disappointment.

The problems have also come as a shock to workers in other departments who liked their previous workplaces, but who have now been moved into the Russell Avenue building. Some of those workers worked in the county courthouse in High Point on the governmental plaza with a giant parking deck – where they were on the same downtown block as many other county services. Other employees, such as Child Support Enforcement workers in High Point, were in an office building where the county rented space.

The Russell Avenue building has been the center of major controversy for several years, ever since the Guilford County Board of Commissioners voted to build a new building on the High Point governmental campus downtown so that DSS would be on the same block as many other government services.

The county hired an architectural firm and paid it about $40,000 to begin designing the building. However, Arnold, through great effort, convinced the board to do a 180. He talked the commissioners into stopping work on the new building and got them to buy the Russell Avenue building instead.

McDonald got his initial asking price, without the county attempting to negotiate – and without the county even so much as conducting an appraisal of the building.

Guilford County paid McDonald $6.9 million for the building as part of a land swap in which McDonald also got the former DSS building on Centennial Street.

Guilford County also gave McDonald the contract to renovate the building. The county virtually always uses a bid process to award contracts of that sort, but in this case there was no bid process.

Many DSS employees say the new building not only has many of the same old problems but has additional ones as well. For instance, they say, the acoustics of the newly renovated building are a constant area of complaint, with many staff saying that sound from other floors and from adjoining rooms makes it difficult for them to conduct their work.

In some of the conference rooms, it’s difficult to hold a meeting since it’s hard to hear what’s being said because of the noise in the hallways and surrounding areas.

Visitors to the county’s elections office in High Point can see mousetraps on the counter and in other areas, and there have been complaints about the interior of the building ever since county employees began moving in.

Guilford County Board of Elections Deputy Director Charlie Collicutt, who works in the Old Guilford County Court House in downtown Greensboro, said that, since he works in Greensboro, he hasn’t observed the mice in the High Point elections office first hand but, he added, he knew about the problem.

“I had been made aware of that,” Collicutt said.

He said the rodent issue is “concerning” and that it had been brought to the attention of the Guilford County Facilities Department. Collicutt said it was his understanding that the Facilities Department had been working to eradicate all the pests.

Guilford County Social Services Director Robert Williams said he’s confident the county will be able to solve most of the Russell Avenue building problems, and he said it’s obvious that the Facilities Department has been making an effort.

“They treated the building for ants and they’re doing the same thing for mice,” Williams said.

He also said that, when it comes to the pests, if the county focuses on the problem and staff keeps the place clean, those pests will find other homes.

“Eventually, they’ll go away,” Williams said.

He said it may be that some mice and insects were inadvertently transported to the newly renovated building from the old DSS building when staff moved.

“They were there and we moved furniture and boxes in – and you also bring mice and rats,” Williams said. “That’s just the reality of it.”

Williams also said some of the issues with the building could be partially addressed through workplace policy changes – for instance, he said, one strategy is making sure that employees in the building don’t eat at their desks and that they dispose of food properly.

Williams said some other problems with the building are the noise-based complaints.

“We have issues such as someone on the first floor hearing someone on the second floor walking,” Williams said. “We’ve asked what kinds of things can we do. We’re asking staff not to wear high heel shoes, spike heels or hard heels.”

One woman who works in the building, who didn’t want her name used, said the insects and rodents at the building were a serious issue.

She said the ant infestation got to be very bad before exterminators got a handle on it. Even though exterminators have been addressing the matter, she said, some workers in the building bring their own cans of ant spray from home so they can take a hands-on approach to controlling the problem in their workspaces.

“It would be almost comical if it weren’t so serious,” she said. “We were hoping the roaches would eat the ants, and then the mice would eat the roaches.”

She also said the problem wasn’t caused by workers being careless with food. She said the people in her office are very good about not making the situation worse.

“We don’t leave food out,” she said.

The woman also said there were constant problems with the roof.

“Every time it rains they come out and repatch it,” she said.

She also said the noise that comes through the floors and through the walls is very distracting, and she added that parking at the Russell Avenue building was “an absolute nightmare” – especially when early voting was being held in the building.

The parking problem is particularly ironic given that one of the selling points of the building when the county commissioners voted to buy it was that parking wouldn’t be an issue anymore. The commissioners were told the building had plenty of parking for the county’s needs.

The employee said there are too many problems with the building to list them all.

“You can hear people walking above you; there’s no insulation; there are spiders in the Tax Department,” the woman said. “The building is a nightmare.”

She said the county should have given more thought before purchasing the building and moving so many employees into it.

“This should never have happened,” she said.

Guilford County Facilities Director Fred Jones said the county has been working to address the problems. He said some issues, like the leaks in the roof, were taking some time to fix completely.

“It’s mostly when it rains very hard and there are heavy winds,” Jones said.

On the positive side, when it’s not raining, the roof does not leak.

He said county workers and the exterminators the county hired had been addressing the ant issue.

“We had a termite company treat the building, and we put borax in the parking lot,” Jones said.

Borax is used as an agent to draw out ants and kill them once it is ingested.

Jones said that, while there may be mousetraps in the elections office, he doesn’t think county staff are catching mice anymore. He said the last official complaint his office received about mice in the building was last November.

Jones also said many of the 60 or so county-owned buildings are older structures, and he said that, periodically, those buildings are likely to face some sort of issue with mice, ants and other pests. However, Guilford County bought the Russell Avenue building just two years ago, and they paid for a newly renovated building.

Jones said that, even in the Old Guilford County Court House, where his office is, there have been some rodent issues over the years.

Guilford County Board of Elections Director George Gilbert said the building at 325 E. Russell Avenue has been a major headache, and that problems with mice are just par for the course.

“With that building, I’m not surprised,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert said the building had created all sorts of problems for his High Point operations. He said the parking for early voting, for instance, was so lacking that he has stopped holding early voting in the building.

Gilbert said that, if there’s a small runoff election with few voters, parking isn’t as big an issue, but with elections with any turnout at all, the parking situation at the building has made it unusable as an early voting site.

Williams said that, despite all the challenges his DSS staff face in the new building, it’s still an improvement over the former DSS building in High Point.

“It had asbestos issues and was highly overcrowded,” Williams said of the building at 300 S. Centennial St.

Guilford County Manager Brenda Jones Fox, who is a friend and longtime political ally of Arnold, played a central role in the negotiations over the building. The role Fox played has been of interest to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as well as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Last year, the two federal agencies began looking into the transaction, as well as at other actions by Fox. Last month the FBI released a statement saying that that agency wasn’t moving forward with its investigation.

The current status of the IRS investigation is unknown.