State certification

The state Building Official Certification Committee denied Cobleigh’s requests to take the exam in February and July 2017 and February 2018, citing she did not meet the minimum statutory qualifications of an associate degree in a related field or five years of experience supervising building construction or design.

Despite that, in December 2017 Bernier submitted to the state a new-employee report form naming Cobleigh as a new local inspector. The BOCC unanimously voted not to acknowledge it in January 2018, and required Bernier and Cobleigh to attend a hearing the following month.

Cobleigh, who was directed to bring her work history and documentation of construction supervision experience, solicited and received letters of support from local contractors who observed inspections, permitting and plan reviews she performed.

Five contractors provided letters, noting inspections she performed over the previous five years.

One of the contractors who wrote in support of Cobleigh oversaw a Bulkeley Road project she inspected that was later reported to have “serious construction defects” that should have been prevented by an inspector, the report states.

At the BOCC hearing, Bernier testified that Cobleigh had begun shadowing him on inspections in 2012, allowing her to do more and more work while he signed off on the final inspections.

That May, the BOCC sought an investigation of Bernier for possible violations of state building code, including aiding and abetting an unqualified person to act as a building official, fraudulent or deceitful acts as a building official, and gross negligence or misconduct in performance of duties. He was reprimanded for all three violations that August.

The audit found that between 2015 and 2020, Cobleigh performed a number of foundation, rough, insulation, as-built and final inspections that she was not legally certified to conduct, as well as wrote several unauthorized zoning opinions.

“All of her inspections were conducted when she knew that state law prohibited her from performing then,” Brewer wrote.

In August, two landowners filed complaints with the town over Cobleigh’s actions.

One complained that Cobleigh refused to allow him to pull a building permit and that he suspected she had entered his construction site without permission. He further alleged that Cobleigh retaliated against him over a previous dispute over a sheetmetal permit.

“She charged him a double permit fee, ordered him to tear up work that he had not done, and failed to tell him when the final inspection would be performed,” the report states. “The building department’s file erroneously stated that the property had failed its septic inspection. The closing was almost derailed because the department stated that there was no fire inspection.”

The other complainant informed the Select Board that during a 2018 house and barn reconstruction, Cobleigh ruled he could not have dwelling quarters in the barn and that he could not appeal her opinion, but Bernier later told him he could appeal to the ZBA. The complainant said Cobleigh shut down construction twice and Bernier was not on site at the time.

The audit report noted a number of irregularities in software reporting of inspections, including some believed to have been done by Cobleigh under a generic “building inspector” username and other inspections she appeared to have inexplicably waived. Though Bernier retired on Sept. 3, 2019, his username continued to be used by Cobleigh more than two months later, the report alleges.

The software showed that Cobleigh performed a number of inspections from then through August, including the December inspection of the wheelchair-lift replacement at Shaker Lane Elementary School.

During the hearing, Cobleigh repeatedly said she did not receive the report in advance or have adequate detail on the charges to prepare her defense. She requested additional time to do so, but it was not granted.

Joe Knox, the sole board member to vote against her termination, was the only one who agreed she should have been given more time to prepare.

Napoli, Vice Chairman Chuck Decoste and Matthew Nordhaus all said they felt the report spoke for itself, and there was nothing Cobleigh could say to change their minds. Nordhaus said he saw her request to move the disciplinary hearing to public session as nothing more than a delay tactic.

“I was sitting on the board at the time, and it was 100% conditional on you getting your license,” Decoste said. “It was conditional on you continuing your education and meeting all the requirements in order to operate as state law dictated.”