| Counties
Can't Do It All |
From:
Inspector's Quarterly
A
Quarterly Newsletter from Quality Control Inspection
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Page
3
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With limited
staffs, counties help townships line up inspection services
Ideally, Ohio townships
can turn to county engineers for a full range of services - from design
to construction inspection. But some counties, increasingly faced
with too many projects and not enough personnel, will rely on QCI
to get the job done.
Medina County
is just one example. With a limited staff, the county engineer's
office is tied up with new subdivisions, storm sewers and county
road projects. Although the county offers inspection services, it
can't free up someone on a regular basis for all of the county and
township projects, says Hal Gershbacher, the project engineer. And
the county would have a hard time justifying new full-time positions
for the intermittent assignments, he adds.
Under Ohio
law, counties provide townships with technical engineering services,
so that's why Medina County takes the initiative to assess townships'
needs before recommending QCI. But the townships - not the counties
- generally sign the contracts and pay for the inspection services,
says Fred Boreman, the county engineer's technical staff coordinator.
Colene Conley,
a York Township trustee, says the township felt comfortable using
QCI for the inspection services on the Stone Road and Beck Road
resurfacing projects in 1999. Township leaders wanted QCI to keep
close tabs on the projects -from monitoring the mixtures to how
well the asphalt was applied. "We had a good contract with them,"
she says, noting that the inspection records were very detailed.
Last year QCI
provided inspection services for Medina Township's Nettleton Road.
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