Trumbull County resolves another disputed sewer project

Staff report

WARREN

The Trumbull County commissioners approved a negotiated settlement with Marucci & Gaffney, the Youngstown construction company that built a sanitary sewer project in Vienna Township in 2015 referred to as Little Squaw Creek Phase 4.

But the commissioners and their legal adviser said Wednesday they cannot disclose the specific amounts of the settlement.

Atty. Joseph Cavasinni of Cleveland, to whom the commissioners referred all questions, said the dollar amounts will be public after a formal settlement agreement is signed by all parties. Cavasinni handled legal action involving Marucci & Gaffney.

For now, the commissioners, Cavasinni and the company are only providing a joint news release that says the parties reached an agreement during mediation July 11 with Magistrate Tony Cornicelli of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, Cavasinni said.

The settlement also involves Western Surety Company.

In their resolution, the commissioners said they also resolved claims that did not require legal action against Thomas Fok & Associates, the Austintown engineering company that worked on the Little Squaw Creek project.

The dispute involving that project resulted in a lawsuit, but the county also had a dispute with Marucci & Gaffney over another 2015 sewer project the company built in the Kinsman area.

Last August, a panel of arbitrators ordered the county to pay $1.2 million to Marucci & Gaffney to resolve a dispute involving problems the county said existed in the Kinsman sewer project.

The arbitrators said the “greater weight of evidence” showed the problems were caused by poor engineering and project management, not poor construction by Marucci & Gaffney.

MS Consultants of Youngstown handled the project engineering.