Pasco: Charges fly over highway extension

Charges fly over highway extension

County officials say hired engineers fumbled the River Road project. The firm accuses the county of inaccuracies.

By JAMES THORNER

After winning the job of consultant for the Ridge Road Extension project, the engineering firm of Pitman-Hartenstein & Associates showered Pasco County bigwigs with Christmas fruit baskets.

But in the wake of setbacks for the road that leave its future in doubt, the mood is less jolly this holiday season.

It's hard to escape the sentiment among some Pasco officials, most vociferously expressed by County Commissioner Pat Mulieri, that Pitman-Hartenstein has flubbed its end of the $2.8-million consulting contract for Ridge Road Extension.

Rather than spend another $700,000 to correct those errors, Mulieri said she might consider scrapping the highway, 8.6 miles of asphalt that would link Moon Lake Road in New Port Richey with U.S. 41 in Land O'Lakes.

But another question also nags Mulieri: Given Pitman-Hartenstein's record, why has the county hired the same firm for yet another big highway project, the 4.7-mile Zephyrhills Bypass?

"Are we just going to keep throwing money down a black hole?" Mulieri said Friday. "Before we do, the county staff has to answer some questions."

Pitman-Hartenstein president Bill Pitman, speaking to the Times about the Ridge Road issue for the first time, said he believes his critics haven't been completely accurate.

Pitman founded the company in Jacksonville 12 years ago and runs satellite offices in Tampa and Fort Myers.

"I thought that was pretty harsh," Pitman said about comments from county officials that his company "screwed up" Ridge Road. "But everybody's got an opinion."

Questions have arisen about how the firm does business, such as:

A rumor indicating that Walter Kloss, Pitman's senior project manager overseeing the Ridge Road project, was forced to resign for mishandling the Pasco job.

Not true, said Pitman. In fact, he said, Kloss will manage the next phase of the project should Pasco approve an additional $700,000 contract in January.

Reached at his home at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Kloss denied he was let go by Pitman.

"I'm not obliged to tell you anything," he told a Times reporter.

The company lost a lawsuit for shoddy work on the Interstate 275 widening project in Tampa. That's an exaggeration, Pitman says.

A contractor sued the Florida Department of Transportation, and as the agency's consultant on the project, Pitman's company was dragged into the legal morass. The company was exonerated by the DOT and continues to work for the agency.

Critics say Pitman has benefited from a friendship with Bill Munz, Pasco's chief assistant administrator. The two have hunted together.

Interviewed separately, both Pitman and Munz scoffed at the charge. Pitman said engineers are selected not by favoritism, but by qualifications.

"All my clients are my friends," he said.

Munz said he chooses engineers in the interest of the county, not in the interest of friendship.

"We just hunt," Munz said.

On the Ridge Road issue, both Pitman and county officials said they were blindsided by an eleventh-hour challenge by the Sierra Club and the Pasco-based Citizens for Sanity.

Engineering and design that might have passed muster absent the scrutiny of environmentalists fell short after the Sierra Club filed objections with the Army Corps of Engineers.

The corps issues "dredge and fill" permits crucial for road construction. Pasco expected to break ground on the $25-million road in September, but was forced to postpone the work indefinitely.

The heart of the environmental objections: Ridge Road would bisect 9,000 acres of land bought as compensation for wetlands destroyed during building of the Suncoast Parkway.

If environmentalists can defeat the highway, which would boast an interchange on the three-county Suncoast Parkway, they hope to cripple developers' plans to suburbanize thousands of acres of farm land in central Pasco.

The corps is demanding Pasco show alternative routes, including a "no-build" option, to its preferred route through the wetlands. To produce that information, Pitman-Hartenstein wants to charge Pasco another $700,000.

Pasco expects to spend an additional $100,000 on a second engineering firm to oversee Pitman's work and a further $75,000 on legal help in the case.

But why weren't alternative routes included in the original proposal to the Corps of Engineers on which Pasco taxpayers already spent millions?

"We gave them $2.8-million," Mulieri said. "But I've heard there were so many holes in our study it would be very difficult to get the permit."

Munz blames both the county and the company, although as the county's consultant, Pitman should have been aware of the shortcomings.

"They should have banged us on the head," Munz said.

Pitman said he originally pitched the county a more expensive study of Ridge Road that would have featured alternative routes. But both sides decided they didn't need to spend the extra money.

The reason: Pasco cut a deal in 1997 with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, a deal Pasco assumed let it build the road across the wetlands.

"Our original job was a Chevrolet and not a Cadillac and now Pasco has got to have the Cadillac," Pitman said.

Yet as Pitman's deficiencies from the Ridge Road study were coming to light last summer, Pasco hired the firm for the Zephyrhills Bypass project.

Pasco is paying Pitman $217,000 for a corridor study of the proposed bypass between Eiland Boulevard and Curley Road. In later phases of the project Pitman's company could make as much as $1-million.

Loren Midgett, the county engineer overseeing the bypass job, said he believes Pitman is being blamed unfairly over Ridge Road, an issue Midgett calls a "political hot potato."

Midgett said Pitman is more than competent, based on its work for the Department of Transportation, to handle the Zephyrhills job. The company makes errors, he said, but what engineering firm doesn't?

"I have never seen a perfect set of plans," Midgett said. "I don't expect to."

Munz said he believes the further investment of about $1 million should satisfy the Corps of Engineers' objections. It's just a matter of "grinding it out," he said.

From the county's perspective, the highway is a necessity: Ridge Road has been in the work for at least a decade as a solution to congestion on State Roads 54 and 52.

The corps wants Pasco to answer environmental questions about the road by February, although the county could seek an extension.

But first, Munz and his colleagues will have to persuade the likes of Mulieri and her four fellow commissioners.

Mulieri said she worries when she hears Pasco will have to hire a second engineer essentially to babysit Pitman.

"It's public money," Mulieri said. "If the company can do the job, why do we need a second company to oversee what they're doing?"