SALISBURY — The county’s director of building enforcement has a similar message to that of his post-hiring philosophy: We want to work with you.
Pete Bogle, giving the keynote speech at the Salisbury City Council retreat Thursday, might have been the first county employee ever asked to speak at a city council retreat. That rarity wasn’t lost on community leaders.
Salisbury and Rowan’s relationship has been at odds over the construction permit process for years.
Bogle quickly launched into the elephant in the room.
“Being an architect in town, I worked alongside other departments several times and when you work with them, things work and you can push them through,” Bogle said. “The guys that we have in there now, they’re fantastic inspectors.”
Bogle’s light-hearted remarks focused on how his office partners with the city’s new one-stop shop for development to provide a business-first permitting process.
“This is an opportunity to aid more people,” Bogle said. “Rowan County and Salisbury are very dear to me. I care about what happens here.”
Bogle inserted a number of jokes, including some code-enforcement humor, but landed some of his more serious points, too.
Citing his architectural background, Bogle said he’s used to working with developers to make the code fit their building — not the other way around. Making the department business-friendly, he said, is important to progress.
“That’s a lot different from the ways building inspectors see things and, you know, it should be different,” Bogle said.