Engineer: I have not abandoned my office

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Trumbull County Engineer David DeChristofaro says he has not abandoned the office.

“I’ve been at the office every day, even with a kidney stone,” DeChristofaro said by telephone Tuesday.

But a second lawsuit has been filed by a Niles man, seeking DeChristofaro’s removal from office for neglect of duty. It was filed Tuesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court by the Chandra Law Firm of Cleveland on behalf of Vincent Davila Sr. of Niles. It says that DeChristofaro has abandoned the office, so he should be removed.

The first lawsuit, filed on Davila’s behalf in February, asked that DeChristofaro be removed from office for misconduct. That suit alleged DeChristofaro used county resources at the engineer’s office on North River Road to produce cards and letters sent to political supporters.

Depositions taken as part of that suit revealed testimony from DeChristofaro’s secretary, Jennifer Bindas, that she had done a week’s worth of work or more on county time that was related to campaign activities such as inviting supporters to a fundraiser and keeping track of the responses.

DeChristofaro admitted a week ago he was giving consideration to resigning as county engineer to avoid a trial in the civil suit. The trial is scheduled for July 18 in common pleas court before a visiting judge.

Tuesday’s court filing by Chandra law Firm says Marty Patrick, DeChristofaro’s highway superintendent, informed DeChristofaro’s office staff June 13 that DeChristofaro was “going to stay home to focus on his personal legal troubles” and that Deputy Engineer John Picuri would assume day-to-day operations.

“DeChristofaro has neglected his duties to the citizens of Trumbull County,” the suit says. “Though still collecting a salary and benefits at taxpayer expense, DeChristofaro has abandoned his position and left the operations of the county engineer’s office to an unqualified substitute.”

DeChristofaro, conversely, says he has not abandoned the office. He only failed to come to the office one time — on June 13 — and that was partly because he had to go to the hospital because of a kidney stone.

DeChristofaro said it’s not true that Picuri is handling DeChristofaro’s duties and not true that Patrick said that he was.

DeChristofaro admits that he took a lot of personal items out of his office in recent weeks, such as family photographs, but he denies that there is a specific reason for it.