At the risk of being accused of overkill, it is necessary to make clear the repercussions that City Planning Chief Thomas DeSantis incurred as a result of his failure to file timely work permits for the kitchen and half-bath renovation work he had done at his Pershing Ave. home some 15 months ago.
 
    As this newspaper reported exclusively in its May 1st edition, Mr. DeSantis failed to obtain the required permits for what he has now admitted was $38,480 in kitchen-bath renovation he had done  more than a year ago.

After our story broke, Mr. DeSantis filed the necessary permits, on May 8 and 9, 2012, paying $1,200 for the building permit, $90 for the plumbing permit and $50 for the electrical permit. In addition, Mr. DeSantis was required to hire, after the fact, a licensed electrician and plumber to inspect the work he had done previously without permits.

 Mr. DeSantis, as the permits show, hired Art McGill Electric Inc. as electrician and H.W. Bryk and Sons Inc. as his licensed plumber.

Dennis Virtuoso, the city’s acting code enforcement chief, told the Reporter that Mr. DeSantis had to pay double fees as a penalty for not filing permits before the work started.  In addition, the permits will trigger an inspection by the city tax assessor’s office to determine if a property tax increase is in order.

Mr. DeSantis, the city’s top planner, certainly can’t claim ignorance of the law in his defense for not obtaining the permits, as required, before getting the work done.  Whatever his reasons, it cost him in dollars and cents and most likely damaged his otherwise strong credibility.

The Reporter’s stance on permits and other intrusions into citizens’ homes and businesses lean toward the libertarian. We presume every man has the intelligence to protect himself in his own home and wish to afford him that freedom. We believe in the intelligence and honor of Americans. We believe the more laws, the worse for any country.

The Reporter would not normally report on a man not getting permits for his home or his castle.

 Mr. DeSantis, however, is a man who has made a 20 year career enforcing tedious, petty, tyrannical, anti-business and cumbersome municipal laws. He is a letter of the law kind of guy. He is now revealed as a man who required others to obey laws that he himself chose not to follow. He wanted freedoms for himself he did not afford others.

 This was the whole point of our coverage.