Beatty prelim set for Aug. 5
By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)
Originally published 02:30 p.m., June 30, 2009
Updated 04:23 p.m., June 30, 2009
Former Emporia City Engineer Keith Beatty will have a preliminary hearing Aug. 5 on charges of official misconduct, permitting a false claim and misuse of public funds in conjunction with a resurfacing project done in 2006 on Union Street.
Beatty made his first appearance on the charges Tuesday afternoon before Magistrate Judge Douglas Jones in Lyon County District Court. Jones set 3 p.m. Aug. 5 as the preliminary hearing date, after Beatty waived formal reading of the charges in court.
At issue in the charges are dowel baskets that were to have been installed by Star Construction on or between the dates of June 7, 2006, and Oct. 4, 2006.
Dowel baskets are basic truss structures, fabricated from thick-gauge wire, used to hold dowel bars at the appropriate height during the paving process.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation opened a case on the matter on April 29, 2008, after an administrative investigation conducted by the city of Emporia. Lyon County Attorney Marc Goodman requested the KBI enter the investigation, based on the findings of the city’s administrative investigation, according to an affidavit filed in the case by Senior Special Agent Ron Hagen.
Hagen’s primary duty with the KBI is investigating allegations of public corruption.
Hagen wrote in the affidavit that his review of documents showed that on Jan. 12, 2005, Beatty requested the city commission approve $656,000 for reconditioning Union Street, with the cost to be split between the city and the state of Kansas.
Star Construction of Emporia was awarded the contract and began work on July 10, 2006. The work was inspected daily by Fred Gaede of the city’s engineering department. Gaede maintained daily notes and a photo log of the project’s progress.
Between July 20 and 25, 2006, Gaede noticed that dowel baskets were not being placed in the street as required. Gaede said he notified Beatty that Star Construction was not putting in dowel baskets, and that Beatty told him the original order had been changed.
Hagen wrote that he could not find a written change order showing that Beatty had made the change.
Another engineering department employee, Jon Proehl, said that he also noticed that dowel baskets were not being used by Star Construction when he inspected a site sometime in 2006. Proehl told the agent that he contacted Jeff Herrick, owner of Star Construction, to notify him to put down the dowel baskets before the street was finished.
“Jeff Herrick told him that he did not put down dowel baskets in the Union Street project as required and was not going to put them in this project,” the affidavit stated.
Because a written change order from Beatty would be needed, Proehl told the agent that he checked the Union Street Project file and found one change order. It did not address the dowel baskets, however, which cost $11,917.18.
The affidavit states that Herrick, when interviewed on July 9, 2008, acknowledged a change order on the Union Street project that added $7,106.50 to the original $443,109.70 bid from Star. The company received $450,216.20 total.
Herrick told the KBI “that he did not have his employees put in dowel baskets in this project although is (sic) was required because he just did not put them in although he was compensated for them,” the affidavit stated. The cost of the dowel baskets was $11,917.18.
According to Hagen, Herrick told him “he is a personal friend of Keith Beatty and could not remember speaking to Keith Beatty about not putting in the dowels.”
The affidavit stated that then-Deputy Police Chief Mike Williams said that he had been assigned the administrative investigation regarding problems with the Union Street Project and a pond owned by Keith Beatty that was worked on by personnel of the Kansas Department of Transportation at taxpayer expense.
“With respect to the Union Street Project, he interviewed Jeff Herrick and Herrick told him that he did speak with Keith Beatty and Beatty was aware the dowel baskets were not put in the Union Street Project as required,” the affidavit said.
The affidavit states that the city treasurer had no record that Star Construction repaid the city $11,917.18 for the dowel baskets that were not used.
Beatty is accused of official misconduct in submitting a false claim to a government entity for expenses that either were false or were duplicates of a claim that had been submitted. The claim was for less than $25,000 and is a Level 9 non-person felony.
An alternative count for the felony is a misdemeanor official misconduct that states he altered a bid or proposal submitted on a contract or proposed contract, with the intent to reduce or eliminate competition among bidders or prospective bidders. The alternative count is a Class A non-person misdemeanor.
The felony charge and the alternative charge each state the actions took place between June 7, 2006, and Oct. 20, 2006.
The second count alleges that between the same dates, Beatty permitted a false claim valued between $1,000 and $25,000 to the City of Emporia and the Sstate of Kansas "knowing such claim or demand to be false or fraudulent in whole or in part," the complaint stated.
Beatty also has been charged with misuse of public funds, between $1,000 and $25,000. Using the same set of dates again, the complaint accuses Beatty of lending or permitting someone to use public money in a manner not authorized by law.
Comments
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Posted by Tell (anonymous) on June 30, 2009 at 7:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)
very confusing article are you sure these are the facts? This doesn't even resemble the KVOE article.
Posted by SFIns (anonymous) on June 30, 2009 at 9:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Why wasn't star construction also charged? It sounds like they were responsible for this.
Posted by kuronc (anonymous) on June 30, 2009 at 10:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
tell i can image u are confused with the facts
Look who wrote the article a factless reporter!!!!!!
Posted by Tell (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 6:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If the city engineer told the contractor not to put in the baskets the contractor was following the direction of the powers that be. The only wrong doing it seems there should have been a deduct change order filed. Is that criminal? The engineer is in a position that he has to make decisions if he makes a bad dicision does that merit charges? Maybe before we all start burning people on the cross we find out if it was a mistake.
Posted by Steve_Corbin (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 6:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
koronc;
Seemed like plenty of facts were in the article.
What do you have against the reporter?
Do you know of a fact that was left out of the article?
Not jumping on you, I just like to hear all sides of the story.
Posted by create (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 6:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
What are dowel baskets?
Posted by Joe_Strummer (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 8:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"Dowel baskets are basic truss structures, fabricated from thick-gauge wire, used to hold dowel bars at the appropriate height during the paving process."
Happy I could help.
Posted by biscuitboy (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 12:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
rbow......I agree......since koronc seems to know it all maybe koronc would like to enlightened the rest of us factless people.
Posted by hawks422 (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 2:52 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by Steve_Corbin (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 3:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
hawks422;
We can rest assured now that you and you 13 different personalities have seen the evidence and judged these two men guilty. You and 11 other of your personalities have found them guilty. What will your 13th personality,(the Judge), sentence them to?
Posted by hawks422 (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 8:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
rbow- if guilty THE MAX
Posted by Steve_Corbin (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 8:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I kind of figured that. Reading your post before it was pulled, it sounded like you knew all the facts and had already judged them.
Posted by create (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 8:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Thanks Joe_Strummer. I read that in the article, but that didn't tell me much about what a dowel basket was. Why do you have to have them? What happens to asphalt if you don't have dowel baskets? Oh well, thanks anyway. I really don't need to know what a dowel basket is. It might corrupt my mind.
Posted by hawks422 (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 9:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
rbow- I don't know all the facts...but as I have contended in other posts when your dealing with corruption within govt & KBI gets involved & then charges are filed the cases are pretty strong. If Beatty is guilty?? Then being a person in a trusted position... with taxpayer money.. he deserves the max.
Posted by railroadhorn (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 10:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Based on personal experience that I'll not go into, I know the habits of this reporter. She read the police/KBI affidavit and didn't do any other reporting. Note: she doesn't mention trying to get the views of Herrick or Beatty or even trying to reach the KBI agent herself. Like I said, she read a document and wrote what it said without going further and giving it a context. For instance, does this case have anything to do with Mike Williams' departure? Did the reporter even think to ask that question?
But, I'm with those who think Star Construction took city money without doing the work. Again, the reporter should have anticipated that issue and asked whether the company has to repay the city.
This is typical Gazette reporting.
Posted by YY4U (anonymous) on July 1, 2009 at 10:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Here you go create: Dowel bars transfer heavy loads across joints in the pavement, preventing faulting at the joint that can lead to pavement damage.
Practices vary from state to state, but dowel bars are typically
required in eight-inch or thicker pavements.
Dowels must be positioned and aligned perfectly so that, as joints open in winter and close in summer with contraction
and expansion of the concrete, the pavement on either side of the joints can move in a straight line along the smooth dowels.
If a dowel bar is not aligned truly across the joint, the pavement can’t move and a stress results. The stress can crack the pavement.
Without dowels, the slab on either side of a joint tends to move up and down; that is, there is little “load transfer” at the joint.
Dowels help provide load transfer at the joint.
After the subbase has been properly trimmed and inspected, dowel baskets are set on the road bed, perpendicular
to the pavement edge or at a slight skew (often 6:1). The bars should be located at the mid-depth of the slab and carefully aligned, horizontally and vertically.
As mentioned above, location and alignment of the bars is critical. If they are too close to the edge, the paving equipment
will snag them.
When the bars are correctly aligned, the baskets must be secured with stakes. Practices vary from state to state, but a minimum of eight stakes (for 12- or 14-foot lane widths) are placed on the leave side of the basket wire to secure the basket against movement.
The location of dowel centers is then marked on both sides of the roadbed, either by setting pins or painting marks. The markers indicate where joints should be sawed, ensuring
that they will be sawed across the center of the dowel assembly.
Posted by biscuitboy (anonymous) on July 2, 2009 at 4:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
YY4U
......Thank You......
Posted by Tell (anonymous) on July 2, 2009 at 6:08 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This job was one block from the city engineers office it had a city engineer inspector on it 8hrs a day 5 days a week. It hardly looks like the contractor was hiding anything. They were directed by the city engineer not to install them and they complied. The inspector questioned his boss and was told that they were not needed. Everyone is assuming they were required maybe they were not. Maybe they aren't even on the plans. There are additions and deletions to jobs everyday no question in my mind every change isn't dealt with ,with change orders ask every inspector with the city. I would guess 90% of the city streets don't have dowel baskets but if you want to look at a great street go to the north end of Deerbrook addition that street is maybe a year old. I'm sure it had a inspector on it 8hrs a day 5days a week.
Posted by create (anonymous) on July 2, 2009 at 8:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
YY4U, thank you so much. Now I can understand why those dowel baskets really should be a part of that kind of construction. It would certainly help the budget when it comes to fixing cracks and stresses that lead to bigger problems later on. I appreciate the information.
Posted by YY4U (anonymous) on July 2, 2009 at 2:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If you don't build it right, you will have to build it again.
Posted by jasonesu (anonymous) on July 2, 2009 at 4:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think that Star Construction should be charged as the owners answer to why the baskets were not placed is because he did not want to and him and Beatie were best friends. Instead of returning the almost 12000.00 they get a change order to charge and addition 7000.00, bet that makes it easier to build that new home down south. I think that the state should also file charges for KDOT employees working at his house on the tax payers time.
Posted by kuronc (anonymous) on July 2, 2009 at 5:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This town is a joke! Thats all I have to say..... The County Runs wild around here. We have a city manager..... Do we have a County Manager???? I don't think so... The Paper and the Courts love blasting people all over the place. Just think about it. How many people have been charged with crimes, but because there family has no importance to most people they are left alone. Its a WHOS WHO in court in this town...
SAD how politics run such a small town.. If you don't believe me just look around here or read the articles of people who have been charged. not everyone makes it they pick and choose.
Posted by YY4U (anonymous) on July 2, 2009 at 6:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I know nothing about this particular case (other than what I have read here) but dowels and dowel baskets are not as critical on asphalt as they are on concrete. The sub grade and base is more important to the longevity of the new surface than the dowels. After tearing up the existing surface you might discover serious problems with the sub and base that were no anticipated. This could run into cost overruns far exceeding 18,000. We should hold judgment and allow the judicial process to work. I'm just saying.......
Posted by seriouslyfolks (anonymous) on July 2, 2009 at 7:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The Dick Tracy movie was so bad it was a crime. Warren Beatty ............. pfft.
Posted by neighbor (anonymous) on July 3, 2009 at 9:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I hope Star Construction has good lawyers and utilizes them. I know if someone slandered my business and my credibility like what has been done in this article, I'd would have already filed my case in court.
It is the City Inspections Department duty to ensure that specs are followed, proper materials are used, and that tax money spent on construction projects is being used properly and legally. Trying to pass blame down to the bottom end of the process is nothing short of pathethetic.
Posted by Steve_Corbin (anonymous) on July 3, 2009 at 9:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
neighbor;
I agree with the slander aspect of some of these statements, and I think that is why hawks422 comment was removed by Gwen.
railroadhorn:
I think the reporter reported what was fact, preliminary hearing held on charges filed. Why would she check with the individuals involved? What is the 1st thing you hear when a news reporter shoves a microphone in the "perps" face and asks a question? "NO COMMENT ON ONGOING LEGAL ISSUES".
It is not her job to speculate or insinuate, we get to much of already. Just give us the facts and report the results of the court case and then we can speculate all we want.
Not jumping on you , just my thought.
Posted by Steve_Corbin (anonymous) on July 3, 2009 at 9:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
And believe me, I am not giving the Gazette a pass on this. Some of their so-called reporting is biased and baseless. A certain study published by Gwen Larson 3days before the last election did border on, if not election fraud, it was shoddy newspaper work.
Posted by seriouslyfolks (anonymous) on July 3, 2009 at 10:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This isn't about the star Warren Beatty? I really got ta start readin' the articles, i guess.
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