Fuda reacts to resignation of long-time sanitary engineer

WARREN

Trumbull County Commissioner Frank Fuda said he regrets that Rex Fee, one of the key members of the team that has built $70 million in Trumbull County sewers the past eight years, has resigned.

“I don’t think it was presented in the right way,” Fuda said of the commissioners’ decision Feb. 25 to have Randy Smith, Trumbull County engineer, take over the administrative position Fee held at the time. Fee had held the job since August 2007.

Fee gave a letter to the commissioners Friday resigning his position as executive director of the Sanitary Engineering department, effective immediately. Fee has worked for the county 32 years. His salary was $79,673 annually.

He resigned a little more than a week after commissioners appointed Smith to take charge of sanitary engineering on a trial basis starting later this month.

At the time, commissioners said Fee and the two other administrators in the department, Scott Verner and Gary Newbrough, would remain in their jobs and answer to Smith, but there also was talk of eliminating the fringe benefits and vehicle allowance of one employee.

Read more about the situation in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.