By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- City housing inspectors, a local property owner and a state judge are butting heads over whether the city should be able to demolish a small, run-down apartment complex in East Durham.

The Neighborhood Improvement Services Department was ready to tear down the so-called Boone Court complex on Thursday, but had to back off after the property's owner, Haskell Properties, convinced Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson to issue a 10-day restraining order.

East Durham activists were stunned because a federal bankruptcy judge had previously given the company an Aug. 6 deadline for bringing the property up to code, and barred it from appealing any subsequent move by the city to demolish Boone Court's five buildings.

"Once again, you know, they show how powerful they are," said Melvin Whitley, a member of Partners Against Crime District 1 and other East Durham groups. "You see very clearly that they've got privileges no other property manager has."

Whitley was referring to Haskell Properties' operators, the family of longtime Durham landlord James "Fireball" White.

But a lawyer representing Haskell and the Whites, Robert Perry, said Friday he'd had an oral agreement with Neighborhood Improvement Services' acting inspections director that his clients could continue working on the property.

Perry conceded that Haskell Properties had missed the Aug. 6 deadline, and that a "literal reading" of U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Thomas Waldrep Jr.'s July 24 order barred an appeal to state court.

He nonetheless argued in an interview Friday that Haskell and the Whites need some leeway to finish renovations that city officials agree are more desirable than demolition.

"A lot of times, you can go to any major construction site, and deadlines are not met," Perry said. "We need to have an understanding."

He added that while city officials "didn't have to enter into that agreement with me," they did and should honor it.

Waldrep's no-appeal edict was part of an order releasing Haskell Properties from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, its second in 13 years.

Another lawyer representing the company, James Talcott, drafted the order for Waldrep. In doing so, Talcott stipulated that Haskell agreed to the Aug. 6 deadline, even though it hadn't made any repairs as of July 14, and the no-appeal clause.

Through it, Haskell "waived all rights to contest the city of Durham's authority to demolish or repair [Boone Court] including any right to appeal to the state and/or federal courts and any rights to contest any procedural deficiencies made by the city of Durham in the enforcement of the applicable codes."

Despite the deadline, city inspectors were willing to give the Whites more time to repair the complex, which is actually on Boone Street, Neighborhood Improvement Services Director Constance Stancil said.

They met in July with Tisa Rogers, a daughter of Fireball White's who's now running the company, and agreed to give it until Aug. 31 to do the work.

The deal was contingent on the Whites' hiring a general contractor, securing building permits, and showing they had both a plan and the financial wherewithal to pull off the renovation, Stancil said.

The idea was that if "they were sincere in bringing this property back, it would be better than having a vacant or deteriorating building, or a vacant lot where people would congregate," she added. "Some might say it's not a good judgment, but that was our thinking."

But as the days went by, Haskell and the Whites didn't deliver, Stancil said.

The company did obtain a building permit on Aug. 5, in its own name, for what City/County Inspections Director Gene Bradham said was about $3,500 worth of work. Haskell is not a licensed general contractor.

Bradham said the company to date has not secured a building permit for a full-blown renovation.

Perry said NIS Acting Assistant Director Rick Hester agreed late last week to again give the company more time, about six to eight weeks. He also said Haskell had hired a general contractor, Clarence Dyson.

But Hester said when he checked the complex on Tuesday, the workers there said they were working for a contractor, unlicensed, other than Dyson. He and Stancil also said the Whites have put up only $40,000, not nearly enough for the job. Given that, they decided to pull the plug.

Hester added that Dyson on Friday told Rogers and NIS that he was off the project.

City lawyers are reviewing the situation. Their boss, City Attorney Patrick Baker, said the NIS "side agreement" with Haskell "was a surprise" to him. But he noted that there are questions about whether the company honored it.

"I thought the bankruptcy agreement was crystal clear," Baker said. "It appears things are less clear now. We'll try to work through that on Monday and advise the administration accordingly."

Whitley said he doesn't see how an NIS acting assistant director through a verbal agreement can "overrule what [a] federal judge has dictated," and believes Hudson was "hoodwinked" into issuing the restraining order.

He and other East Durham activists want Boone Court torn down because they don't trust the Whites to maintain it properly or screen tenants carefully.