City sues over contract with Belleville engineer who accused officials of playing politics
The city of Belleville is suing a local engineering company owned by a woman who accused the mayor and other officials last month of playing politics with contracts for road projects.
City Attorney Garrett Hoerner filed a lawsuit in St. Clair County Circuit Court this week against Kaskaskia Engineering Group in Belleville. It asks a judge to force owner Geri Boyer to turn over electronic files for the design of a roundabout at South Belt East and Freeburg Avenue.
The lawsuit argues that the city’s contract with Kaskaskia requires the company to provide “tracings, plans, specifications, estimates, maps and other documents” related to the design and to make available on request “basic survey notes, sketches, charts and other data.”
“Despite repeated requests by Plaintiff, Defendant has failed and refused to provide Plaintiff with its (MicroStation) CAD files for the Project,” the city’s complaint for declaratory judgment states.
As of Friday morning, Kathy Kaiser, the city’s director of public relations and communications, hadn’t responded to a request for comment Thursday on the lawsuit.
Boyer said engineering companies generally don’t release electronic files until designs are complete to keep them from being provided to other companies that could alter them and apply their own stamps or seals.
Boyer said she sent the city unalterable PDFs of the roundabout design, which is “95% complete.”
“I don’t want to turn (electronic files) over because I don’t want to put myself at risk,” Boyer said. “If they give those plans to another engineering firm to complete the design, and then something goes wrong in the field, they could claim, ‘No, that was done under Kaskaskia and not us.’”
Boyer said she suspects that city officials who decided to terminate another one of Kaskaskia’s contracts last month want to do the same with this contract for political reasons.
Kaskaskia frequently did engineering work for the city under former Mayor Mark Eckert, who was defeated by current Mayor Patty Gregory in the 2021 election.
During the campaign, Gregory criticized the Eckert administration for what she characterized as too many “no-bid contracts” being awarded for city projects. Eckert and other officials countered that bidding is illegal for professional services, such as engineering on roadwork.
Last year, the Gregory administration created an evaluation process for engineering companies seeking contracts on city projects and decided to do business with the Top 5. Kaskaskia was ranked sixth.
“Obviously, they’ve decided they don’t want me to do any more work for the city,” Boyer said. “Slowly but surely, they’re trying to take away all the contracts that I still have.”
Planning dates back to 2011
The intersection of South Belt East and Freeburg Avenue is east of Belle-Clair Fairgrounds and west of Walnut Hill Cemetery. The city of Belleville contracted with Kaskaskia to design a roundabout in 2011 with an original cost estimate of $108,322 for engineering.
Freeburg Avenue also is Illinois 13, making the Illinois Department of Transportation responsible for oversight.
Boyer said IDOT asked for revisions to the original roundabout design, as is common, requiring more engineering services, then the city delayed construction due to lack of funding.
The project was resurrected in March 2022, according to a letter that Boyer’s attorney, Matthew Jacober, sent to Hoerner on Jan. 25.
Jacober wrote that IDOT reviewed the roundabout design and requested more revisions based on updated 2015 policies and on changes to adjacent properties; and that Kaskaskia submitted a change order to the city so the company could complete its work.
“Attempting to get a new engineer involved at the 11th hour, without any basis, makes no sense,” Jacober wrote.
In his reply, Hoerner reiterated the city’s position that it owns the electronic files for the roundabout design and stated that emails between City Engineer Sal Elkott and Kaskaskia staff were “telling.”
Hoerner wrote that a Kaskaskia engineer told Elkott that he would send the files upon payment of an outstanding invoice of $55,689, prompting Hoerner to point out that the city already had paid $235,218 of the contract’s maximum allowable payment of $236,400.
“It is certainly astounding and saddening that a professional firm that has already been paid virtually the entire contract amount on a project still refuses to provide the owner with the product for which that firm has been paid,” Hoerner wrote.
Hoerner acknowledged in the letter that Boyer had requested a meeting with city officials and that he had told her “a meeting is unnecessary for KEG to fulfill the City’s request.”
One of Boyer’s complaints has been that city officials have refused to communicate with her on projects.
“They literally won’t meet with me,” she said. “There’s no way I can even solve a problem. ... It’s starting to seem like more than, ‘You worked for the former mayor.’ I honestly don’t know what the issue is.”
Council approves legal action
Kaskaskia Engineering Group has been a topic of discussion at every Belleville City Council meeting in 2023.
On Feb. 6, aldermen voted 13 to 1 to give Hoerner the authority to take legal action related to an engineering contract, which was identified only by its IDOT project number. The BND filed a Freedom of Information Request to verify that the contract involved Kaskaskia.
Ward 1 Alderman Joe Hazel voted against the motion. Ward 2 alderwoman Jamie Eros and Ward 7 Alderman Dennis Weygandt were absent. The vote followed an executive session closed to the public.
“I can’t comment on pending litigation,” Hoerner said afterward.
Officials haven’t publicly accused Kaskaskia of wrongdoing related to city contracts, nor have they stated their reasons for requesting electronic files for the roundabout design.
“Plaintiff has a legal interest in the (MicroStation) CAD files for the Project and Defendant has asserted an opposing interest, thereby creating an actual controversy between Plaintiff and Defendant,” the complaint states.
On Jan. 3, the City Council voted to terminate a $39,000 contract that Kaskaskia had been awarded in May 2021 for oversight on Forest Avenue construction that hasn’t yet begun.
At a Jan. 17 meeting, Boyer told aldermen that Elkott had provided false information before the Jan. 3 vote when he stated that the contract had to be terminated under a new City Council policy that prohibited companies from doing both design and construction oversight on projects, though no such policy exists.
In a letter to aldermen, Boyer also alleged that Gregory and other city officials had corroborated on the misinformation.
Boyer maintains that it’s “standard procedure” for engineering companies to provide design and oversight services on municipal and state projects because the latter’s goal isn’t to review them but to make sure contractors follow their plans and specifications.
“I left that meeting (on Jan. 3) feeling like I was lied to, and I didn’t appreciate it,” Eros said on Jan. 17. “And I don’t feel like that’s in (keeping) with the transparency that we’re working so hard to create here in council.”
Boyer founded her own company in Belleville 16 years ago after spending the first half of her career with IDOT. She now has 60 employees who handle projects throughout the Midwest.
This story was originally published February 17, 2023 at 8:36 AM.
