ODOT removes county’s duties

The local deputy director says the move won’t affect projects or funding.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — The Ohio Department of Transportation has terminated the Trumbull County engineer’s ability to serve as administrator for county projects funded by the federal government.

Saying the county engineer’s office has not been receptive to ODOT advice on various projects within the past four years, failed to properly administer such projects and failed to comply with federal requirements, ODOT wrote this summer that it will “assume the construction on all remaining federal-aid projects” for at least the next year.

Among the projects cited by ODOT were the Newton Falls covered bridge rehabilitation and North Road reconstruction.

Randy Smith, deputy engineer, who has announced he is running for county engineer in 2008, says the loss of the projects will have no effect on the number of federally funded projects that will be awarded here or on the revenue coming into the county engineer’s office.

He added that the timing of ODOT’s actions suggests a political motivation. He declined to be more specific.

Content of letter

A letter on July 24, 2007, to Trumbull County Engineer John Latell from James Beasley, director of the Ohio Department of Transportation, says staff at the ODOT District 4 offices in Akron first warned Latell of possible revocation of its participation in such projects April 5, 2006, when ODOT met with Latell and his staff over conflicts with various contractors.

Among the contractors was BECDIR Construction of Berlin Center, which was originally awarded a contract to renovate the historic Newton Falls bridge. The company’s contract with the county was terminated in October 2006, and a new company awarded the project. BECDIR has a pending lawsuit against the county over the project.

In a memo attached to the letter, Beasley wrote that the county engineer’s office changed the floor beam design for the project after the project had been awarded to BECDIR and that when negotiations broke down between the county engineer and BECDIR, the engineer’s office sought advice from ODOT on whether to terminate BECDIR’s contract.

The district advised against terminating the contract, the memo said.

Further, the county engineer terminated BECDIR’s contract without notice to ODOT and did not follow ODOT’s advice regarding resolution of disputes through negotiation or how to handle the aftermath of terminating BECDIR’s contract.

Response

Smith said ODOT was “aware” that the contract was going to be terminated, “but we didn’t give the date or time.”

As for complaints that the department didn’t have a dispute resolution process of its own and didn’t follow ODOT’s, Smith said the engineer’s department has followed its dispute resolution process for at least 10 to 15 years without complaint from ODOT.

ODOT said the North Road project was delayed by the lack of a process for dispute resolution with the contractor. Smith said the project started on time and is likely to be done a year ahead of schedule.

In another letter, Beasley said there have been two other engineer’s departments in the history of ODOT that have had their participation in federally funded projects cut off, though Smith said he believes there have been more.

runyan@vindy.com