March 28, 2024

Monroe moving to Jasper County for inspection services

30 day notice given to current inspector Veenstra and Kimm

With a unanimous vote, the Monroe City Council moved to end building inspections services with Veenstra and Kimm, Inc. The council cited several complaints by local builders over inconsistencies in inspections from the engineering firm.

The council approved sending a 30 day termination notice to Veenstra and Kimm and moving inspection services to Jasper County at its regular July meeting.

“We’re having some in inconsistency issue with the current inspector we have,” city clerk Kim Thomas said. “There are four of our local builders that don’t get along with our local inspector and he requests different items at different times from each one of them. They all talk and one person had to have this and the next person didn’t, it is just something every single week that someone is upset about.”

Councilwoman Andrea Steenhoek said she got a similar response when talking to another builder who works in the area.

“They work a lot with V&K and other building inspectors in different towns and I asked how he felt about building in Monroe and he said it is fine, it is great, the city is great to work with, he said it is just really inconsistent on permits,” Steenhoek said.

Prior to the meeting, Thomas said she spoke with county staff to see if they would be interested in the work. They responded positively to the request but did note they only want to do new construction.

A couple of differences pointed out between to the inspectors include V&K charging $75 for electrical permits while the county starts at $35. The county would also like to retain 90 percent of the permit fee while V&K was at 80 percent.

“They seemed to be pretty descent for the first year, year and a half, maybe two and then all of a sudden it’s kind of gone down,” mayor Doug Duinink said.

Steenhoek asked if the county would be able to respond in a timely manner to inspection requests given their other responsibilities. According to the county staff, they typically respond the same day but would prefer a 24 hours notice.

The City of Monroe initially contracted with Veenstra and Kimm in August 2016.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com