MCSWEENEY APPEAL BRIEF submitted 62522

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The St Joseph County lead investigator provided a list of lead licensed contractors and mandated us to abate the lead in our home. Many of the listed companies no longer work in the region or do only commercial work. The first contractor we obtained a bid from proposed replacing every window in the house [Exhibit J]. The second contractor, Greentree Inc, proposed abating lead throughout the home and property, repairing approximately 30 windows, and only replacing the six most deteriorated windows with vinyl. [Exhibit K]. We then contacted the HPC for a Certificate of Appropriateness (COA) to begin the work of abating our household lead and ensuring the critical health, saftey and well-being of our child. Adam Toering, HPC liaison, reviewed our initial COA application [Exhibit L]. He informed us that vinyl replacements were not generally deemed appropriate by the HPC and suggested we look at aluminum or fiberglass materials which had previously been approved by HPC[see Exhibit E]. Wishing to cooperate with the HPC, we sought a new bid from Greentree for 6 aluminum replacement windows, which raised our costs by $12,000. [Exhibit M] We also confirmed with Greentree that the color and grid pattern of the replacement units would resemble those of the existing windows. This was orally communicated to Adam Toering and the HPC at the second hearing. We also contacted window restorers at this time to look at the possibility of restoring these six specific windows, but learned that since restoration firms generally do not hold lead licenses they would not be appropriate for a county -supervised lead abatement project such as ours. This was orally communicated to the HPC at the hearing and to Adam Toering when he visited our home. Notwithstanding, we were issued a denial on April 13, 2022 [Exhibit N]. ARGUMENTS AND CONTENTIONS I am a bereaved mother. In 2017,1 gave a birth to a baby girl with an unexpected birth defect. She was born at Memorial Hospital in Chapin Park, flown to Riley Children's Hospital, and died at just 13 days old. In the aftermath of that loss, wracked with grief but also hope, my husband and I trained to become foster parents with the St. Joseph County DCS. We were privileged to foster our son Othello when he was just five days old. We took him into our home at 628 Park Avenue in Chapin Park, and have raised him ever since. In August of 2021 we adopted him. Just two months later, after he developed unexpected and frightening respiratory distress and was rushed to the hospital, we learned of his elevated lead levels. We were shocked, scared, and wracked with grief a second time.