OCTOBER 29, 2023 – Miraculously—by the power of positive influences and advances in medical research and treatment—after mid-February I was feeling much better. And the purchase agreement for the Rutherford properties was at last fully signed, sealed, and delivered. Cliff and I could now focus on expediting and responding to Steve’s due diligence. Cliff assumed responsibility for addressing the fire marshal’s exacting requirements while I spearheaded the environmental investigation and reporting.
It soon became clear who had the more difficult task, notwithstanding the barrage of texts, phone calls, and emails that I had to fire off to keep our retained environmental engineers on task. It was Cliff who had to stand on his head, cajoling, pressing, and negotiating with the fire marshal. The official ran things by the book and for decades had been waiting for the day when he could list all the substandard conditions inside the warehouses, then insist that they be corrected. His time had arrived: approval of our sale to Steve now hinged on full remediation.
Except for Cliff, Steve, and me, the irony in the marshal’s stridency was lost on everyone. The sooner our sale to Steve was approved, the sooner the redevelopment project could go forward; the faster the project proceeded, the earlier all the deficiencies associated with the “Dickensian Village” would be eliminated by the redevelopment. For a time it seemed that the marshal would double-down on irony and require installation of a prohibitively expensive sprinkler system and other safety measures—to bring the 19th century “Dickensian Village” up to 21st century standards . . . just in time for the village to be completely gutted, partially razed, and fully replaced by modern, wholly code-compliant structures.
To triple down on the irony factor, the environmental engineers confronted me one day with a potential show-stopper. In reviewing public records pertaining to the properties, the engineers had learned of the Great Fire. “We need to know what kind of fire suppressants were used,” said one of the engineers. “Was it just water or was it foam, because if it was foam, there’s the potential for soil and groundwater contamination. We’d have to run tests, and if they show levels that exceed current legal limits, you’d need to do remediation, and that could get pretty expensive.”
My subsequent call to Cliff was ill-timed. He had just had his own “bad news” conversation with the fire marshal about other issues and was in no mood to hear potentially “really bad news.”
“You’re shittin’ me,” he said. “Where does this end?”
“I don’t know, Cliff. Who could’ve guessed that while you were dealing with UB’s nonsense on the night of the fire, the real issue was whether those fire departments from Rutherford and surrounding towns were using foam or water to put out the flames that started in UB’s bedroom. You could say this potential problem is UB’s parting gift to us.”
“Goddamnit,” said Cliff.
“Oh, and one more thing, Cliff, lest we forget.”
“Now what?”
“Beep-beep!”
Cliff’s laugh broke the tension of our mutual frustration. “You can’t make this stuff up,” he said.
“No you can’t. Not in the world according to . . .”
“. . . Bruce.”
Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
