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Highlands Today

Wright Pledges Answers On Fill Dirt Dumping Questions

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: January 7, 2009

SEBRING - Highlands County Administrator Michael Wright said he will answer questions raised at Tuesday's county commission meeting about the county's dumping of fill material on a private property in late 2007.

The two questions were raised by Preston Colby, concerning hundreds of truck loads of fill material dumped at the Farm Road property of Charles Howerton in late September and early October of 2007.
Colby said Wright had reportedly said "the facts are not in dispute," and he asked Wright to state what the facts are.
Colby also said the county accepted bid prices to purchase fill dirt for 2007, 2008 and for this year. He asked why "fill dirt" was given away at the same time the county sought contracts to buy it.

"I am not prepared to talk about this today," Wright said. But, he said, he would answer the questions, in a memo to the commissioners.

When Colby asked when he would get an answer, Barbara Stewart, chairman of the county commissioners, said, "This is not something that will get pushed aside. This is an important issue and we will address it."

After the meeting, Wright said that while the county obtained prices for fill dirt, he did not know if the county actually purchased fill dirt. He said he would get the answer to that question.

Wright also said he will answer the question "as to what was done" by the county's Road and Bridge department in dumping fill materials on the Howerton property.

But, he said, he could not answer the question of why the dumping took place, because he was not here at the time. Wright moved here in late May 2008 to became the county's new administrator on June 1.

In early November, Howerton told Highlands Today he accepted the material with the understanding that the county had no use for it and needed to move it out of its Sebring yard to accept delivery of materials for road construction projects.

Howerton said then the materials were not fill dirt, but a combination of sands with scrap materials, including chunks of concrete.

Bruce Van Jaarsveld, who retired in April 2008 as superintendent of county Road and Bridge, said in early November that the materials were taken to the Howerton property under his permission, in line with a longstanding, unwritten county policy to offer unneeded debris collected by Road and Bridge to the nearest property owner who would accept it.

Wright has said that policy was discontinued shortly after he became county administrator.

A report by the compliance and internal audit division of the clerk of court's office said daily spot checks of Road and Bridge trucks estimated 977 truck loads of fill material were taken from the county's Sebring storage yard to the Howerton property in the two-week period from Sept. 24 to Oct. 5,2007.

The clerk's report said fill dirt was then selling for $105 per truck load, and so the estimated value of the material was reported at $102,585.

Kyle Green, who became interim superintendent of Road and Bridge in 2008, said he checked daily work sheets and found that about 460 truck loads of fill material were taken to the Howerton property.

According to Green, the material was not clean fill dirt and the value, if any, would be "nowhere near that amount." He said the county had no use for the material, which he described as "just spoil, unusable spoil."

The audit and internal compliance division's report was given to then Clerk of Courts L.E. "Luke" Brooker, who did not run for re-election and retired from the office Monday, on Oct. 26, 2007 with a recommendation that he forward it to county commission officials.

Brooker did not forward the report to county officials. In early November, he said questions raised by the report would be answered in the scheduled audit of the Road and Bridge department. The audit, started late last year, is in progress now.

Highlands Today reporter Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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