The contractor that worked on Fredonia’s water treatment plant project wants to get paid, but that’s apparently tied up in a dispute between the village and the project engineer over a new clarifier and parts that had to be added to make it work properly.

Trustee Scott Johnston opened a discussion about the issue at Monday’s Board of Trustees meeting by noting that Kandey Corp. sent requests for pay last week.

“My understanding was that our engineer (Ramboll), the last time we met with them, was going to negotiate with Kandey in regard to the creation of our rings and the trap door to test them,” said Trustee EvaDawn Bashaw. “That there’s a $20,000 fee for that, and that they wanted us to go ahead with those, approve going ahead, and that there would be negotiations regarding that cost because we were still questioning whose responsibility it was and fingers were still being pointed.

“They did proceed with that (creating the rings). It’s my understanding that Kandey has not received any reach-out from the engineer,” she continued. “And now, if you look at the bills, not only are we up to $47,000 with Kandey, now we have a new bill from Ramboll based on delays and charges that equal $40,000, and we have additional field order changes that came. … We’re up over $100,000 in changes and additional fees to this project. The last time we met with the engineer we were talking about a $20,000 charge for the rings.”

“He said the job would be complete to our satisfaction before any other billing would be done,” Trustee James Lynden said.

“I know Kandey has told Chris (Surma, the water treatment plant’s head operator) they’re not doing any more work, payments aren’t being made,” Bashaw said. “Chris told me the other day that the only thing left were the trap doors for the testing.”

“I know that there was some issues with the clarifier that was installed, even after the rings were put in, some additional issues that it wasn’t performing properly.” Lynden said. “Those had to be addressed, but I can’t imagine it was anything the village had to do with. It had to do with the engineering of the system. I don’t think we should pay for that, either. I mean, it should have been functioning.

“I wouldn’t buy a brand-new car that they say, ‘Well, you can’t drive it, but it’s yours,'” he added.

Trustee Roger Britz asked Charlie Roberts, attorney from village law firm Webster Szanyi LLC, if he had any updates. Roberts said he had sent some emails to Ramboll and their lawyers, but “I gotta pick up the phone and get back to them and let them know they need to get back to us. I have nothing substantive other than I’ve been continuing to hound them.”

“The last conversation we had, it sounded like we were on our way to negotiating, and then it just kind of stopped,” Britz said.

Roberts, noting that he knew all of the lawyers involved well, promised he would reach one of them the next day. That marked the end of the discussion.