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Key West Airport
Grand Jury: Airport oversight 'negligent' Citzen News Paper Reporter: Timothy O'Hara August 28, 2007 |
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| A state grand jury has found that Monroe County government mismanaged a Key West International Airport expansion project, the cost of which has grown from $25 million to at least $31 million.* State Attorney’s Office officials on Monday delivered a list of 10 findings from the grand jury to County Administrator Tom Willi, County Engineer Dave Koppel, County Mayor Mario Di Gennaro, County Commissioner George Neugent and others who either testified before the grand jury or were mentioned in its report. The notice was intended to give the recipients an opportunity to review and respond to the findings, according to an accompanying letter from Monroe County State Attorney Mark Kohl. County Airport Manager Peter Horton said Monday he had not been served with the document, and would not comment about the report. County officials who receive the findings have 15 days to respond or the “report will become public and may be released to the public,” the letter states. The grand jury investigation centers on whether the county’s contractor for the project, Morganti Group, met the requirements of its county contract and for Federal Aviation Administration grants, which the grand jury states were “jeopardized.” Among other things, Morganti and the project’s architectural firm, URS Corp., disagreed about pilings installed at the airport, and the county briefly stopped work in 2006 as a result. The pilings “did not match the URS specifications,” and “county engineer (Dave Koppel) retained another geotechnical firm to ascertain the adequacy of the pilings at the county’s cost,” the report states. “Based on documents and testimony to the grand jury, we find the county has exercised inadequate oversight of the contract for the expansion of the Key West airport,” the report states. “The county’s inadequate management has left this grand jury with serious doubts whether anything has changed to insure compliance with the contract. ... The taxpayers of Monroe County have a right to expect more responsibility from their public officials in managing a project that was originally slated to cost $25 million, now has a guaranteed maximum price of $31,613,533 and may ultimately cost substantially more.”* The grand jury outlined problems with the project and stated “the county permitted work to continue despite the failure to receive required documents from Morganti.” When the county’s initial director of planning and development on the project, Larry Chalmers, “repeatedly brought Morganti’s shortcomings to the attention of his superiors, he was told, ‘work with these people,’ ” the report states. Willi, contacted Monday afternoon, argued that points jurors made about mismanagement were “incorrect” and others “mischaracterized” events or actions taken by Willi, Koppel and other county officials. Willi said he and Koppel are working on a response to the findings. “The report shows how complicated this stuff is and hard it is to understand for the layperson,” Willi said. “There are a lot of very technical issues.” This is the second time a local grand jury has criticized the county and its engineers for an infrastructure project. After an 18-month review, a grand jury found that the county failed to adequately protect property owners and was negligent in its oversight of a wastewater collection project on Stock Island. |
