________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
Q:
It was just not at the level that the Corps was ready to undertake.
A:
Right.
Q:
I had listed--back in the regulatory area--some specific changes maybe that happened in the
division. For example, a section in the division organization, like a section devoted to
regulatory that hadn't been there before. I don't know if that's really worth exploring.
A:
You say we did that?
Q:
Yes, the history says you did it.
A:
Did it, really?
Q:
Well, it talked about things such as using project managers for permits, speeding up the
permit process, and maybe these are not necessarily things that were going on divisionwide
or at the division level.
A:
I'm thinking of the division level perhaps. The divisions are lean affairs.
Q:
Well, you did mention specifically a section at the division office for regulatory.
A:
Divisions are very lean affairs. There was a ConstructionOperations Division, probably of
15 to 19 people. We had a navigation section that might have had two people. We had a
regulatory section that might have had two people in it. The recreation section might have
had just one person in it. It was very difficult to look at sections as being much different than
responsible action officers. This was because of our role at the division level. I mean, the
doers were in the districts. Down at the district level, certainly there were regulatory sections.
The way permits were handled was to assign a project manager to one because it did move
over sometimes a lengthy time frame.
Q:
The administration was trying to speed up the permits process? I mean, that was another
administration initiative. How far did that get during your period there?
A:
The question was, "How come it takes so long?"
Q:
Right.
A:
That was a good question, but it was put in a punitive style that didn't seek to differentiate
between the norm and the complex. We hadn't bothered to break out the statistics at the
headquarters between the norm and the complex. Sometimes things were complex because
people objected to them, whether they had reasonable reasons to object or not. When a
district was leanly staffed, they couldn't always have a meeting each and every night to wrap
it up quickly. So, things stand in a queue for action sometimes.
We tracked permits, as I recall, on a 30-, 60-, 90-day basis, and worked on them. My
recollection was that we weren't too bad in the Ohio River Division. Not the worst, not the
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