Step 1: Contextual Framework Pass (Facts)

Section Content:

Facts:
Engineer A serves as a director of a building department in a major city.
Engineer A has been concerned that as a result of a series of budget cutbacks and more rigid code enforcement requirements, the city has been unable to provide a sufficient number of qualified individuals to perform adequate and timely building inspections.
Each code official member of Engineer A’s staff is often required to make as many as 60 code inspections per day.
Engineer A believes that there is no way even the most conscientious code official can make 60 adequate, much less thorough, inspections in one day, particularly under the newer, more rigid code requirements for the city.
These new code requirements greatly enhance and protect the public’s health and safety.
The code officials are caught between the responsibility to be thorough in their inspections and the city’s desire to hold down costs and generate revenue from inspection fees.
Engineer A is required to sign off on all final inspection reports.
Engineer A meets with the chairman of the local city council to discuss his concerns.
The chairman indicates that he is quite sympathetic to Engineer A’s concerns and would be willing to issue an order to permit the hiring of additional code officials for the building department.
At the same time, the chairman notes that the city is seeking to encourage more businesses to relocate into the city in order to provide more jobs and a strengthened tax base.
In this connection, the chairman seeks Engineer A’s concurrence on a city ordinance that would permit certain specified buildings under construction to be “grandfathered” under the older existing enforcement requirements and not the newer, more rigid requirements now in effect.
Engineer A agrees to concur with the chairman’s proposal, and the chairman issues the order to permit the hiring of additional code officials for the building department, which Engineer A believes the city desperately needs.