Scott Hajek, a Hennessey farmer and land developer, said misinformation from Town Administrator Tiffany Tillman cost him $10,000 because he had to stop construction on his meat processing plant.

He had to lay off a construction crew for a week when it wasn’t necessary, he told Hennessey town board members at their meeting last Thursday night.

Hajek said Tillman called and told him to “stop work.”

“I did not,” she said.

“You did too,” he said, and that she’d told him that Doug Moore with the Institute of Building Technology said he had to have sidewalks at his plant site.

“No, I didn’t,” Tillman countered.

“I think it was our engineer,” said Mayor Bert Gritz.

It turned out to be a federal requirement that commercial property along federal highways must have sidewalks, the board was told.

Hajek’s property, which is zoned highway commercial, isn’t on a federal highway. It’s a few blocks east of U.S. Highway 81, a federal highway, and a block north of State Highway 51 (Jack Choate Avenue) across the street north of the Pizza Hut.

Tillman said both the town’s engineer (Cowan Group Engineering) and Hajek’s engineer (Keystone Engineering) had talked about that problem.

Hajek called Steve Orr with Hennessey’s Orr Construction on his cell phone because he said Orr could confirm that Tillman told him to stop work on the development.

He put the call on speaker phone, told Orr he was at a town board meeting and he’d just been called a liar.

“Tiffany told me to stop work at the plant and she just said she didn’t,” Hajek told Orr.

It was difficult to hear Orr’s end of the conversation and he may have been driving. It was audible that Orr confirmed the crew was laid off and had to go on to another job.

This snafu started at the May board meeting when Hajek told the board a surveyor told him he was required to put in ADA sidewalks. He said two other developers in Hennessey weren’t required to do that and it would cost him another $100,000. “And I don’t mind it just

“And I don’t mind it just as long as everyone else has to do it,” Hajek told the board.

Hajek left the meeting Thursday night while the board and Tillman were in an executive session and said Tillman has a personal grudge against him.

Gritz said at the May meeting it was probably a federal regulation and Tillman said she’d check it out.

Hajek and his builder, Jay Ladwig, have attended the July 8, July 29 and the Aug. 12 meetings where both have been opposed to proposed new building and construction ordinances and higher fees for building permits and inspections.

In the July meeting, Tillman said that the proposed new ordinance only required sidewalks in housing and commercial zones.

(Ed. note: See related story on ordinance/permit fees.)

What meat processing plant?

The processing plant, valued at $300,000 on Hajek’s building permit, is a concrete block construction measuring 60 feet by 70 feet and 10 feet tall with a metal roof. It’s going up a block across the street north of the Pizza Hut.

Hajek wrote Saturday via text to the Times & Free Press that the walls on the plant went up Friday morning and he expects to have it “going by October.”

He also wrote he hasn’t been able to get the “pavement (to the 4,200 square feet building yet) because of the city manager’s mistake on the sidewalk ordinance and I had to send the street contractors to another job.”

Hajek filed a town permit for the plant construction Feb. 24, 2021, according to a copy of the permit provided to the KT&FP by the town. A receipt shows he paid $1,400 March 11 for the building permit.

He owns 25.76 acres north of S.H. 51 and east of U.S. 81, which sit north and east of the Dollar General Store. Hajek had used the prop

Hajek had used the property for agriculture, then it was zoned estate residential and rezoned in August 2020 as highway commercial.

He told the board in May that he’d spent five years getting his plat approved, zoning changed and the town recently got sewer service to his property.

The town started talk and work to get sewer service north of S.H. 51 in 2013. A lift station was put in about three years ago at Seaboard’s truck wash on the north side of the highway.

The DEQ approved the project, but bids came in too high and funds weren’t available. Orr Construction won that bid in March at $81,715, the contract was approved in April and the eight-inch lines were installed.

What new Dollar store?

Hajek said Family Dollar/Dollar Tree is looking to build on his property. The company is looking

The company is looking at 1,000 sites and will decide on 300 before they invest $2 million in a site.

Tillman said the company has made a variance request.

Hajek said the company is checking out all the properties and that doesn’t necessarily mean they will choose Hennessey.

“It’s not a done deal,” Hajek said. “I haven’t signed anything.”

Hennessey has a Dollar General Store on U.S. 81 north of S.H. 51.

At the meeting

All board members were present at the August meeting: Mayor Gritz, Vice Mayor Clif Vogt, Keith Meek, Richard Simunek and Harold Shaw.

In addition to Tillman, other staff there were Kati Walters, minutes clerk and town clerk; Shelley Burch, town treasurer; Police Chief Ed Cangiano, and Officer Matt Bruner.

In the audience were Hajek and his wife, Karel; Ladwig, and Soloman Pardo Jr.