Consistent with the start of 2022, all those who served Washington County in appointed positions last year will retain their appointments for another year after a 3-2 vote by the Washington County Board of Supervisors.
As it has in every first regular meeting of the year, the BOS voted for the employment of various county-appointed positions.
Those positions include board attorney, county engineer, assistant county engineer, county administrator, planning director, road manager, assistant road manager, building and grounds director, emergency management director, assistant emergency management director, justice court public defender, justice court clerk, county patrol officer, county fire marshal and veterans service officer.
Just as he did last year, District 1 Supervisor Lee Gordon made a motion to reappoint everyone with the exception of IMS Engineers and instead, replace the firm with former county engineer, Hooker Engineers.
“The reasoning for that is in our first four terms, we replaced 27 brand new bridges in this county — that was contracted out and we built brand new bridges. To this date, we’ve done zero of that,” said Gordon. “We’ve not spent one dime of state money in three years. I talked Friday to the state and I talked to them this morning. Unless something is coming in this morning, there’s no design work that’s been approved. There’s projects that have been approved, but no design work.”
Gordon’s displeasure with the progress as it pertains to roads and bridges since IMS’ appointment in 2020 has been well documented.
He voiced similar concerns in the BOS’ first regular meeting of 2022 and also pointed out that while Leland’s Breisch Street Bridge is “listed” as a Local System Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program (LSBP) project, it’s simply not “true.”
“That’s Washington County funds that’s building that bridge,” Gordon rebutted.
The Office of State Aid Road Construction (OSARC) administers the LSBP by providing project funding and administration to assist the counties and municipalities with the replacement and rehabilitation of eligible deficient bridges on the Local System Roads throughout the state.
“It’s a track record now. We’ve got millions of dollars sitting at the state level, we’ve not used one dime or rather IMS had not used one dime in three years,” Gordon reiterated.
Despite his efforts to offer a compelling rationale, Gordon’s motion died for lack of a second.
District 4 Supervisor Mala Brooks followed with a motion to reappoint everyone, which was seconded by District 2 Supervisor Tommy Benson.
BOS president Carl McGee added before carrying the motion, “Because of the lack of productivity from the engineering department, I agree with you supervisor Gordon and I do fully support everyone else with the exception of IMS based on non-performance. It’s a complete disservice to taxpayers in this county to have successively stifled or stopped any infrastructure progress and I just cannot explain to my constituents why we aren’t moving forward. Not only them, but other constituents throughout the county.”
Brooks’ motion passed 3-2 with McGee and Gordon voting opposed and Brooks, Benson and District 5 supervisor Jerry Redmond voting “aye.”
County engineer Lorenzo Anderson attributed the lagging progress to “switching priorities” by having to address so many bridge closures and working to get those bridges open.
Brooks alluded to such and highlighted there are more bridges open now than when she began serving as District 4 supervisor.
Nonetheless, in Gordon and McGee’s purview, it’s “possible” the county could lose some of its state aid funding and for them, time is of the essence when it comes to complete bridge replacement projects.
