Town Hall Terrors

The City of Danville denied a variance request from the City of Danville for work on a City of Danville building, so the City of Danville is having to go to a commission of the City of Danville to get a permit to do work for the City of Danville.

I have no idea what in the hell is going on here.

So, the City of Danville is going to put a new air conditioning system on the Municipal Building (City Hall). Fine. That’s no big deal. There’s not enough airflow on the 3rd floor to meet the current building codes, but that can be waivered out with a variance issued by the City of Danville’s Community Development office. Well, they said “No” to that. No, I don’t know why. I don’t care why.

Fine. Even though I’m chuckling at the City of Danville rejecting the City of Danville’s request for a lousy air conditioning airflow concern, there’s a workaround for this problem. The city needs to add in a few extra louvered windows to the 3rd floor. They means turning this…

(actual photo of a City of Danville window provided by Dewberry for the City of Danville so that the City of Danville can apply to a City of Danville commission for permission to change the window for the City of Danville)

into this…

(lousy Photoshop done by me because I’ve said the words “City of Danville” enough already)

Yep! That’s right. The City of Danville just needs to add four sets of louvers to existing windows and the airflow issue has been corrected. That’s simple enough, right?

The City of Danville’s Municipal Building is in the River District, so that means that the City of Danville will have to go through the Planning department and the River District Design Commission (which is part of the Community Development department) to get the permit to workaround the decision made by the Community Development department.

It’s not like these departments are across the hall from one another, you know? Oh yeah, they are. Remember that according to the River District Design Guidelines, you have to get a Certificate of Appropriateness to scratch your butt. Or to paint your building electric blue. Or to paint your butt electric blue and then scratch it.

Now it’s clear that this construction meets the River District Design Guidelines, so the commission of the City of Danville will approve the Certificate of Appropriateness for the City of Danville to do the work on the City of Danville’s building. However, there’s a chance that this may not fit it some River District Design Commission members “view of what the River District should be”. The correct thing to yell at anybody who says that is “I DON’T GIVE A FARK ABOUT WHAT YOUR VISION OF THE RIVER DISTRICT SHOULD BE. YOUR JOB IS TO SEE IF THE IDEA FITS THE EXISTING GUIDELINE AND THEN GIVE ME MY DAMN PERMIT”. I really wish somebody would snap and yell that at the River District Design Commission one day. But I digress.

In all seriousness, the city has to go through the same routine that any other person would have to go through to get these permits and certificates. That being said, having to do all of this crap for adding louvers to four windows that nobody would ever notice shouldn’t require going to an extra layer of government bureaucracy like the River District Design Commission.

After all of that… I still have no idea what in the hell is going on, but it’s been enjoyable to make fun of the entire idiotic process.