A move to replace the company providing building inspection services to Harrison Township failed Monday but could surface again.

Commissioner Gary Lilly moved to replace Professional Code Services with NIRA Engineers, the township engineer, to do the work.

Lilly said his dissatisfaction with Professional Code Services stems from the way it has handled a building in the township's Natrona neighborhood, which he represents.

According to Lilly, deterioration of a building at River Avenue and Garfield Street led to bricks falling from an upper story onto the street and sidewalk at a spot where children board a school bus every morning.

He said that happened on a Sunday morning in April. But the sidewalk has remained blocked off because Professional Code Services has not taken any action as the township's building official.

“It's not that I don't like them, I don't even know them,” Lilly said. “I've got a street down there with bricks falling on it.”

“PCS inspected the building,” he said. “They walked around it, but they never went in it and they were never on the roof.”

Lilly said the company has never provided him a report on everything that is wrong with the building, nor given guidance to the building's owners.

“They should have given them a list of what they need to do, and they didn't do it,” Lilly said. “They (owners) still don't know what they have to do.”A call Monday night to Professional Code Services' office in Gibsonia to obtain comment for this story was unsuccessful.

Commissioners chairman Bill Poston and commissioners Robin Bergstrom and Bill Mitchell did not offer a second to Lilly's motion and it died.

“I'd like to discuss it further because I want to know the legal ramifications,” Mitchell said.

“I just want to know what they are doing wrong,” he said. “I want to see something in black and white.”

Poston said the township has a contract with the company that requires the township to give Professional Code Services at least 60 days notice for terminating services.

Bergstrom said she also wanted more information.

“What else have they done wrong?” Bergstrom said “I just want enough information to make an informed decision.”

Miffed, Lilly said: “I won't say nothing about anything, then. Let it stay like it is, and let people complain about it then.”

Poston and Mitchell said they asked Lilly for a report outlining the problems with Professional Code Services but never received one. That appeared to irritate Lilly further.

“I'm supposed to tell them what the problem is, and I did that,” he said.

Poston said that Professional Code is paid based on the individual services it provides.

He said a proposal from NIRA is basically structured the same way and that the price for each service was comparable between the two.

He said Professional Code Services was retained by the township when the ATI-Allegheny Ludlum hot strip mill project began. Poston said the commissioners felt that NIRA's fees to do the inspections on that project were too high.

So the township retained Professional Code Services to do that work for about $30,000 and kept them on to do other building inspections.

Tom Yerace is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.

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