Ronald Barney is the coordinator for the Office of Community Renewal in Malone, NY which is a local venue for Federal HUD dollars. He allowed an incompetent carpenter, Jack Nichols to perform shoddy workmanship in my parents home under the auspices of HUD. He refused to do anything to assist my parents when the work looked horrible claiming the work was good and my parents had to accept it. My father is a retired contractor with 40 years of building experience. I heard Ronald Barney tell my father that he had to accept whatever the carpenter did as correct work, and when my parent challenged this, Ron Barney ordered the carpenter off the job and then lied to the entire Town of Brandon village board, claiming my father removed the carpenter. When I spoke up and said the man had lied, he started an arguement with my father. He kept shouting "Are you questioning my integrity?" over and over. When my father stated yes, because a liar can not possess integrity, he walked out, and the board made empty promises and did nothing to alleviate the problem. Supervisor Mike Lawrence called the carpenter on the phone and took his side in spite of being informed by the code enforcement officer that Jack Nichols was "impossible to work with". When the carpenter was allowed to return, Jack Nichols verbally abused my parent and accused him of theft and trying to injure him because he tried to reinstall an electrical fixture with the wires 'hot'. The Town Supervisor Mike Lawrence labeled my father a chronic complainer over this single incident and failed to act in the issue, as was his duty. When my father found another carpenter to finish the work, Ron Barney was required to inspect the work to close the HUD contract and he was deliberately antagonistic to my father in his home, hoping to use it as an excuse to discredit him. The work that Jack Nichols did was so shoddy my parents are now faced with having to pay to have a reputable carpenter redo the work and will have to take Nichols into small claims court in hopes of recovering the cost of a very expensive fixture he ruined because he did not know or remember how to reinstall after he had removed it to to his crummy work. On 10/6/09 I filed a written complaint with the Albany NY Office of Community renewal. I have not received any response from the individuals they told me would be responding to the complaint as of 11/9/09. Gail Hammond is the head of that office and she did notheing except to put it back in the hands of the town supervisor Mike Lawrence and the local office who have done nothing to correct the situation, instead they have ignored my parents and tried to manipulate them into losing thier temper through provocative statements so they can claim the fault lies with my parents. This is a phenominal waste of HUD dollars and is directly attributable to a total lack of internal controls and accountability at both the local level and the Albany New York level. Their refusal to act appropriately has allowed a carpenter to abuse my parents and drag a remodeling job supposed to be competed in three months, for nearly a year-over 11 months.in addition the work is so bad it needs to be redone. The final insult is that Jack Nichols required my parents to remove all items from any room he was supposed to be working in, and they are 83 years old, so I was the one who did all the packing. They have lived with their house packed into two rooms for nearly 6 months because of this Jack Nichols. Never get involved with anything hud has a hand in_they do not monitor effectively how the projects turn out for quality control.
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