Lee County Manager promises answers but still no word on audit

Promising you answers but giving you silence. Lee county's top dog still not saying a word about an investigation she ordered of the county's troubled transportation department. The county manager calling for an audit after Four in your Corner investigator Mike Mason exposed allegations of mismanagement.

Karen Hawes

It has been 16 days since county manager Karen Hawes ordered the County Clerk to do an independent audit into Lee County's Department of Transportation. Problem is that we are getting the run around now on how that audit is coming along. On June 27th county manager Karen Hawes sent Fox 4 an e-mail stating: "The scope of the audit will be defined, hopefully by Thursday. At that time I will forward a copy of the scope to you."

So on Thursday Four in your Corner tried contacting Hawes but we were told to speak with Patty DiPiero in the County's Utilities and Compliance Program. Dipper said, "Karen spoke with Charlie Green, the Clerk of Courts, about the audit and he should be aware of the scope. At this point, it may be best to speak with Mr. Green. But when we called Charlie Green he had nothing to say. So on Friday we contacted Karen Hawes again.

We then received an automated email stating 'she will be out of the office until July 6th." That's when Fox 4 again called DiPiero who said Karen Hawes is the only one who can give us information on the audit but Hawes is still on vacation until tomorrow."
Dipiero suggested we then contact assistant county manager Holly Schwartz so we left Schwartz a message. We then went straight to Schwartz's office for answers but were told she wasn't there. Since Schwartz was nowhere around we decided to meet with DiPiero at her office to try to find some answers. DiPiero's secretary told us DiPiero was refusing to meet with us because she had already spoken with us on the phone.

Brian Bigelow

Four in your Corner contacted Lee County commissioner Brian Bigelow today. He says he spoke with Clerk of Courts Charlie Green and Green admitted he has already determined the scope of the audit but is refusing to release details until Karen Hawes returns from her vacation. We'll stay on top of this and let you know what happens.
To view the Fox 4 report click here: http://www.fox4now.com/story/15030279/fox-4-gets-runaround?redirected=true

Fox 4's Mike Mason sparks another investigation into Lee County's troubled DOT




Clay Simmons

  Lee County officials opening a new investigation tonight and this comes after Four in your Corner's Mike Mason already found county employees doing work on family members' property.

The dirt keeps piling up around Lee County's Director of D-O-T operations, Clay Simmons who is already under fire for delivering dirt to the Berner family's home in Buckingham. Now it appears he also broke federal guidelines by doing it. D-O-T workers accuse Simmons of delivering the dirt as a personal favor for the Berners after we exposed that Mrs. Berner is the sister-in-law of a D-O-T supervisor.
After digging deeper, and reviewing the county's zoning rules Fox 4's investigation found that dirt was dumped in a federally restricted flood way. We went straight to Simmons for answers telling him, "it's in a flood way, you weren't supposed to have anything delivered there that's a pretty big deal." Simmons responded, "No, I don't agree that it is."

Simmons says he's not talking about the issue any further and Fox 4 will have to speak with someone in media relations department. We went to Joan LaGuardia, the manager at Lee County's Department of Community Development. She says she has serious concerns with what we showed her. Since the Berner's home is located in a restricted flood zone, the Berners would have needed to get a special certification approved by an engineer before getting the dirt delivered.

Berner Home

This is something workers say Simmons should have known since he's a professional engineer himself. The Berner family confirmed to Fox 4 that D.O.T. dropped off the dirt so they could build up the slope of their pond and it is clearly located in a restricted area.
LaGuardia says they Berners will either have to hire an engineer and obtain the proper certification or have all of that dirt removed.
Investigator Mike Mason asked LaGuardia, "So now Code Enforcement is going to have to do an investigation? LaGuardia responded, "Yes they will. Now that I'm aware of it I'll let them know tonight. I hadn't been aware that fill was put there."
We then confronted Simmons, telling him, "Joan LaGuardia just said she's opening an investigation and having code officers go out there". Simmons would only say, "You need to go through the process." Simmons told us we would have to take our questions to Patty DiPeiro who works with media relations.
DiPiero told us Simmons has been notified that he will have to cooperate with code enforcement's investigation. She promised to give us an update tomorrow
To view the Fox 4 report click on this link: http://www.fox4now.com/story/14967964/fox-4-sparks-yet-another-investigation-into-countys-troubled-department-of-transportation?redirected=true