TARPON SPRINGS, FL (WFLA) – The city of Tarpon Springs has agreed to spend as much as $75,000 to hire a private consultant who can serve as the city building official while the state investigates the $95,000 a year Development Services Director who is supposed to fulfill that role.
Anthony Mastracchio’s temporary state license expired in October, but no one at city hall noticed until an anonymous tipster alerted the state and 8 on Your Side.
“We didn’t really know where we stood with that until your investigation,” said Tarpon Springs City Commissioner Rea Sieber.
The city’s recent decision to hire an outside consultant fulfills a state requirement to have someone licensed as a Building Administrator to oversee the permitting process. According to a fee schedule with that consultant’s last project, he charges $140 an hour when serving as a Building Administrator.
Mastracchio had a provisional license when he was promoted to Development Director in September 2014 but was supposed to take state tests to qualify for a permanent license within the first year in his new role. His Building Adminstrator license is now listed as “null and void” but Mastracchio has a new application in process.
Sanctions for functioning as a Building Official without a license range from a reprimand to fines and the inability to obtain a license. Mastracchio has other types of licenses that enable him to review plans, but not the one required to run the city’ permitting operation. It’s not clear what sanctions the city might face for allowing Mastracchio to serve without the proper credentials.
Sieber insists Mastracchio has been a loyal and hardworking employee for years. She attributes his licensing problem to undisclosed personal problems.
“He’s been working very hard on taking his final exam,” Sieber said.
She suggested we ask Mastracchio to explain. We’ve been trying for a month but he’s refused our attempts to communicate.
Tarpon Springs City Attorney Jay Daigneault says he has advised everyone at Tarpon Springs city hall to keep silent about Mastracchio’s licensing problems until the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation wraps up an investigation that started a month ago.
So far, that code of silence is working quite well. All City Manager Mark LeCouris would confirm Monday is “it’s not over.”
Seiber insists that Mastracchio is staying busy streamlining the city’s permitting process and conducting inspections while the state decides what to do. “He’s very busy,” Seiber said.
Maybe so, but Monday we watched Mastracchio arrive in his personal car at noon then vanish into city hall where employees told 8 on Your Side he was not in his office, adding one more degree of mystery to his current role.
According to his work calendar, Mastracchio has just two meeting set for this week and had two last week. “Well, those may be meetings, but again he’s out in the field,” said Sieber. “He does inspections.”
That’s something he does have a license for.
