Fredonia has settled out of court with Ramboll, the engineer that worked on its water treatment plant project, over design issues.

The village Board of Trustees voted, 4-1, last week to accept the settlement. Trustee James Lynden voted “no,” because he felt the settlement is too lenient to Ramboll.

Village officials and Ramboll disputed that the engineers misdesigned steel rings that are key parts of water clarifiers. The issues with the ring caused delays in the project.

Lynden wondered if village officials would enforce a contract clause to bill Ramboll $1,000 per day for going over its anticipated completion date. The project was supposed to be done July 31 but wasn’t finished until November — after Ramboll asked for, and was granted, an extension pushing the original completion date six months to July.

“I think, unfortunately, it’s just going to be tough to, especially knowing that it was during COVID, (with) supply chain Issues (and) everything that was going on, it’s just going to be tough to prove that it was solely their fault, essentially, for the contract going over,” Trustee Nicole Siracuse said.

Mayor Douglas Essek said village attorney Charlie Roberts had explained to them that unless a delay was the result of a contractor’s negligence, the clause couldn’t get enforced.

“I feel different on that. That’s my point,” Lynden said.

“Well, I guess if we bill them and they fail to pay it, what recourse we do have, other than paying our attorney $300 an hour?” Trustee Jon Espersen said.

“That’s what you have attorneys for,” Lynden replied.

“They threatened us with the same thing, if we didn’t settle with this then they would take us to court. Same thing with enforcing our part of the contract, that’s what contracts are for. You have the details, and they were detailed. They were given completion dates.”

Espersen said he deferred to the village attorney’s opinion. Essek said, “I believe our attorney researched that and their legal opinion … is if it’s not of their doing that the negligence was of theirs for the delay in the work, they’re not responsible for that.” He said spending more attorney fees on the matter would be “fruitless.”

Lynden said he just wanted everyone to understand where he stood and that “enough has been said.”

The other trustees wound up approving a walk-in resolution, sponsored by Espersen and Michelle Twichell, to accept the settlement. The resolution said the village’s original claim against Ramboll was for $20,500.

No details of the settlement were included in the resolution.