Alan Brubaker
Summit County Engineer
Why am I the best person to be elected to the office of County Engineer ?
I am the most qualified candidate and I have a sound plan for improving the Engineer's office to make Summit County a better, safer, stronger community. My extensive service in the public sector, first as Assistant Portage County Engineer, then as Akron-Canton Airport Engineer & Assistant Manager and finally as City of Kent engineer have provided me the public sector experience need to effectively manage the Engineer's office and my experience in the private sector as Senior Project Manager for McCoy Associates, Inc. has provided me the experience needed to insure that public services are provided in the most cost effective manner possible.
The current County Engineer has had five years to institute reforms and develop programs that will benefit the Summit County region as a whole. These needs have not been met. It is time to make a change. I will work closely with the County Executive and the various offices under his direction, the County Council and the officials of the townships and municipalities of Summit County to inspire regional cooperation to reduce costs and provide regional solutions to our infrastructure problems.
My program of office reforms and efficiency:
Why are there more attorneys on the staff than bridge engineers, no engineer dedicated to traffic issues and no engineer dedicated to stormwater? ODOT requires consultants who perform bridge design to have a minimum staff of three bridge engineers, one to manage the design, one to perform the design and one to check the design. Who is checking the work of the bridge engineer? Traffic management and stormwater management are serious problems in the County. Why is installing a roundabout the only solution for traffic problems you hear from the County Engineer? Perhaps less intrusive, less expensive solutions could be explored if an engineer dedicated to traffic issues were on the staff. Why is a small stormwater basin considered by the County Engineer to be a regional improvement while there is no comprehensive plan for stormwater? Perhaps a regional stormwater plan could be developed if an engineer were dedicated to stormwater. One bridge engineer, no dedicated traffic engineer and no dedicated stormwater drainage engineer; perhaps that is why attorneys are need on the County Engineer's staff. I will employ qualified engineers to fill essential positions and eliminate the need to have attorneys on my staff.
How can we tell if the operations of the County Engineer are efficient or if our County's financial resources are being wasted? I do not believe we can. Businesses in the private sector must make a profit to survive. Successful businesses employ a manpower scheduling and tracking system to make certain that they efficiently manage their work forces. All hours worked must be charged to specific job and task codes so that managers can account for employee time and monitor project and task efficiencies. When elected I will initiate a system where all employees, hourly and salary, are required to complete payroll reports that show all time worked being charged to specific projects and tasks. This information will allow me to make judgments based upon the efficiency of various operations. We know what it costs to perform work tasks by contract; with a manpower tracking system in place we can compare our costs with the cost of contracting the work and be able to make sound decisions required to either improve our efficiency or to contract out tasks that can be performed at a lower cost by contract. With such a system in place, managers and their employees will be accountable for their time and have more incentive to be as productive as possible.
Why do we often hear jokes about government workers where 3 are leaning on their shovels while one is working? Could it be because it is a frequently observed phenomenon? I believe that this joke has its basis in reality, a problem that is caused by a lack of dedication and training of some of our public works supervisors and superintendents who find it easier to send half of their workers out to one job and the other half to another rather than to properly plan the jobs to insure that the work will be done efficiently. Three things are needed for work to be accomplished efficiently: the right number and classification of people on the job, the right equipment on the job and the right materials on the job and ready to go on time. If any one of these three things is not properly executed then the job will not get done efficiently. When elected I will make sure that supervisors and superintendents receive the training needed to properly schedule their jobs and then should we find that project scheduling and implementation is resulting in inefficiencies. I will make the changes necessary to insure that inefficient personnel are reassigned and replaced with competent and dedicated individuals.
Why are there so many County Engineer employees involved in public relations? Are these employees not qualified to perform the technical functions of an engineering office? Isn't public relations another name of advertising and isn't advertising the County Engineer really political activity that should be paid for by political contributions, not by employees on the public's payroll? I pledge to never select people to fill positions based solely upon the recommendation of the political party boss. I will always select the applicant who is best qualified to fill the position and I believe that a job well done is the best advertising there is so I will not employ personnel solely for the function of performing public relations. Public relations will be one of my jobs!
Why is public equipment used to participate in holiday parades and to parade at project opening ceremonies? Why are stop sign materials used to display the name of our County Engineer inside our libraries and other public offices? Why does our County map prominently and repeatedly display the name and photograph of our County Engineer? Couldn't this space be better used as an economic development tool to advertise the virtues of our County? I will end these and any other wastes of our County resources that I discover.
Employee diversity and equal opportunity are essential to a strong, economically viable Summit County. The work force of our County Engineer currently consists of about 150 employees. The number of women and African Americans within this work force is not well balanced and the average pay of African Americans and women is considerably below the average pay of the workforce. I pledge to work diligently to insure that the work force of the Engineer is more representative of that of the general population of Summit County and to insure that women and African Americans are recruited to fill all positions, including the higher paying technical and management positions.
My program for improving services:
Immediately after the election, upon confirmation of a successful campaign for change, I will ask for the assistance of members of the Summit County community to serve on a transition team. The transition team will be composed of individuals from government, engineering, construction and legal firms and civic organizations. This team will review the current organizational structure of the office and assist in the selection of persons to serve in key management positions. This process will insure that we execute a seamless transition of authority, maintain the operations that are good and modify those that are ineffective.
I will publish complete and accurate descriptions of all proposed projects and provide ample opportunities for public and County Council comment and input before proposed projects have already been "set in stone". Project stakeholders will be notified of projects during the planning stage of development to insure that they have an opportunity to have their views considered. Semi-annual public meetings will be held in each Council District to insure that the County Engineer and that project staff are accessible to the public. I will also attend Council work sessions to be available to respond to engineering questions posed by Council and attending county residents and business owners.
I will implement a complete overhaul of the County’s subdivision street construction standards to provide for modern and environmentally sound building practices. Specific areas that will be addressed are neighborhood traffic calming methods, pedestrian & bicycle access corridors, provisions for usable open space and stormwater mitigation methods. Standards will be formatted to be Township specific such that each Township’s desires or improvement types will be accommodated. The procedures for dedication of public streets will also be revised to eliminate the problem of residents living on streets that are not eligible for public ice and snow removal services. The development of the new standards will be aided by a committee of volunteers comprised by a broad spectrum of business and private stakeholders to insure that the standards reflect the desires and needs of the community.
In 2002, the Ohio legislature adopted HB 366 providing for the adoption of County Access Management regulations. The County Engineer has not done so. Uncontrolled traffic access points along busy highways are causing unnecessary traffic congestion, increased traffic accidents and a loss of business customers. I will develop and implement Traffic Access Management Rules and Regulations to provide standards for site development to minimize these problems and to provide for the safe and efficient movement of traffic into and out of businesses. Service roadways and access points between businesses are needed to mitigate currently congested roadways. I will work with property owners to implement needed traffic access improvements to benefit both the businesses and the highway users.
Stormwater management requires more than simply a declaration of success -- real action is needed. Drive along any county highway and you will find deep barren earth roadside ditches that send mud and debris downstream with every heavy rainfall. County established off-roadway ditches that were at one time properly maintained have been allowed to pass into obscurity. The construction of a stormwater management basin serving a mere 80-acre area is not a "regional" stormwater improvement. Requiring individual project sites to install expensive stormwater management basins provide the appearance of protecting our waterways but may not be achieving their goal. Financial resources may be better utilized if they were directed toward satisfying the needs of a regional plan. Unfortunately we have no regional stormwater management plan. Drainageways, just like highways, cross over political boundaries. In the 1960’s AMATS was created to inventory and assess our regions highway needs and develop a regional plan for their improvement so that needs could be prioritized and funding directed based upon the priority of the need. A similar organization and plan is needed to address our stormwater drainage system. With a regional plan in place, properly planned regional stormwater systems can be installed to provide the improvements needed to address existing problems and provide for the needs of planned future growth and development. Such a plan would eliminate one of the main obstacles to economic development and make our region attractive to investors seeking a location for new industry. As the professional engineer representing all of Summit County, I will be in a unique position to promote the development of a regional stormwater management plan.
Procedures will be implemented to reduce the negative impacts of roadway construction and maintenance on the environment. Bio-fuels and bio-oils will be used to improve vehicle efficiencies and we will expand the use of environmentally safer products for ice control such as beet juice. A program of street sweeping will be implemented to remove roadway pollutants and reduce the amount of pollutants that reach our waterways. I will work with our local paving contractors to bring low temperature asphalt paving technology to Summit County to reduce VOC emissions and reduce the amount of fuel needed to produce asphalt. I will inventory our operations to insure that all possible methods of material recycling are utilized. To improve accountability and provide added incentives to employees to recycle products, I will initiate a process for recording and reporting the quantities of materials reused, recycled and thrown out.
A stronger emphasis will be placed upon maintenance issues. Timely maintenance prevents deterioration, saves money and reduces negative impacts on the environment. Streets need new surfaces before labor-intensive pothole patching is required and pavement joint and base failures must be corrected before new surfaces are placed to prevent new pavement surfaces from failing soon after they are installed. Bridges also need annual maintenance to clean corrosive debris from structural members and to touch up protective coatings. I will seek legislative changes to direct more state and federal funding to maintenance of critical infrastructure. It is no surprise that the Society of Civil Engineers reports that our public infrastructure is failing. Funding requests are prioritized by a condition rating giving funding priority to replacement of poor and critical condition structures. There is simply too little funding available for maintaining our existing infrastructure so roads and bridges are allowed to deteriorate until they achieve a rating of CRITICAL so that they will qualify for funding. This is a gross waste of our financial resources.
Roadway construction creates considerable traffic delays. These delays are made even worse when construction detours are not coordinated. A recent example of this problem occurred last week when the County Engineer closed Swartz Road for paving and detouring the Swartz Road traffic through the South Main Street construction zone where traffic delays were already severe. I will implement procedures that will allow all county agencies to map their projects and their schedules on Summit County’s GIS so that this information will be available for officials of each community to better plan project schedules and detour routes. Additionally, the public will have access to this information on the Internet and thereby be better able to plan their trips accordingly.
I am concerned that bridge inspection services are performed in-house while there is only one bridge engineer on the staff. ODOT requires consultants performing their work to have three pre-qualified bridge engineers on staff to insure that the work is properly supervised and checked. Who is checking the work of the bridge engineer in Summit County? I will require that at least once each three years that every bridge be inspected by an independent engineering consultant. This will insure that the inspections performed by the County staff accurately reflect the condition of our bridge structures. I will also require that all bridge inspection reports reflect maintenance issue that should be performed and that current reports are posted on the County Engineer web site for public viewing.
The principal duty of the office of County Engineer is to provide a safe and efficient highway system for the community. 50 years ago, county highways were the primary transportation system for farm to market transportation. The urbanization of our county has changed that role and now our county highways must provide transportation for commuting workers and school children. The highways are now busy with more and faster vehicles making them less safe for pedestrians and cyclists. Summit County has embraced the concept of regional bikeways through predominately park-like areas but the needs of local pedestrians and cyclists have not been adequately addressed. Our current highway system simply does not provide a safe and convenient way for pedestrians and cyclists to get from their homes to their schools, parks and shopping areas, or even to their nearest buss stop. The first step I will initiate to remedy this problem will be to establish a policy of requiring all county highway improvement to provide facilities for safe pedestrian and cyclist travel. The second step will be to recommend modifications to our county development regulations to provide for open space pathways that will provide safe means of local non-motorized travel between neighborhoods, schools, parks and shopping areas. And finally, to promote the establishment of a source of funding for acquisition of access easements to provide pathways in already developed areas.
My program for improving our regional opportunities
With the above mentioned reforms in place, the office of the County Engineer will be prepared to offer the services of its staff to other communities within the county in the same way that police services are provided to the City of Green by the County Sheriff and building permit and inspection services are being implemented for the City of Akron by the County Department of Building Standards. Many communities simply cannot afford the cost of a complete engineering department with expertise in the multiple disciplines needed to provide effective solutions to their infrastructure problems. Engineers work best in a group setting where they have the ability to discuss problems and solutions with other engineers to develop sound solutions and to check their work for accuracy. Simply maintaining a library of the most current engineering reference materials can be too costly for small and middle size communities. Significant savings could be realized by incorporating a municipalities engineering department with the engineering department of the County Engineer.
Combining municipal and county engineering departments should also result in better coordination of improvement project thereby allowing projects to cross over political boundaries. The inconvenience to the public would be minimized and the cost of installing separate maintenance of traffic operations for separate projects would be minimized.
Currently the County Engineer and each of the various communities within the county have adopted their own individual standards and specifications for public works construction. I will work with the officials of Summit County to develop standardized standards and specifications for the county. Uniform standards will aid bidders by eliminating confusion between the standards of different communities and will make it easier to construct project that cross political boundaries. The current lack of countywide standards for traffic signal systems creates problems between systems at jurisdictional boundaries such as the current problem with the new traffic signal installed at the intersection of Twinsburg Road and SR -- 91. The City of Twinsburg has a coordinated signal system but the new signal is in the County and the City cannot interconnect it with the City’s system because of the new signal system does not meet the City’s specification requirements. With countywide standards in place we can avoid problems related to inconsistencies between jurisdictions.
Traffic congestion is a serious problem that affects us all. I will solicit volunteer "citizen engineers" and technicians from the private sector to monitor traffic and maintenance issues along the routes they commonly travel to inform us of problems and provide advice for solutions to traffic congestion. Modern "smart" traffic signals can drop out of sequence due to power outages and system failures. With knowledge of the proper operation and timing of the signal system a frequent driver can alert our personnel to the problem so that it can be corrected quickly to restore traffic flow to its proper efficiency. Individuals who travel a route daily often have a better idea of how traffic congestion can be alleviated than an engineer who may only have the opportunity to observe traffic flow for a limited period of time. Such volunteers will be provided training so they will be knowledgeable of the proper operation of the signals on the routes they travel. All suggestions of "citizen engineers" will receive serious consideration and feedback will always be provided to emphasize our commitment to this program.
Northeast Ohio and Summit County have excellent professional engineering consulting firms and a large contingency of experienced contractors with the capabilities to provide all services needed by the County Engineer, however large contracts for services have been awarded to firms outside our area. I will initiate selection processes that promote the selection of local businesses for our contracted services. It makes little sense to bring federal grant monies for projects into our local economy and then award contracts to businesses outside our area. Our County Executive and the Mayors of our Cities work hard to encourage businesses to come to Northeast Ohio. What message are we sending our businesses when we sent our work elsewhere?
Conclusion
The programs and polices identified above are important for the future of Summit County and our region. Our County Engineer has had ample opportunity to institute these measures and has failed to do so. We need an engineer who cares more about our community and less about personal recognition and political party loyalty. I have a sound plan for making Summit County a better, safer, stronger place to live and for businesses to grow and I have the experience and the will to execute this plan.
