TxDOT notifies Concord contractor of intent to fire

The contractor who had won the contract to rebuild Concord Road essentially was fired by the Texas Department of Transportation as of May 26, according to a letter sent to Tradeco Infraestructura on May 16, citing the contractor's failure to comply with at least four conditions.

Tucker Ferguson, TxDOT's Beaumont district engineer, sent the letter to Arturo Garcia at Tradeco's office in The Woodlands.

The letter was obtained through state open records law.

In the letter, Ferguson refers to Tradeco's several failures to make significant progress on the 1.77-mile-long, $11.3 million project from East Lucas Drive to Texas 105, which is about 40 percent completed after a year of work.

"As of today, all certified payroll submissions for May are late. Employees (said) they have not been paid since May 1, four work crews were on site for one day (May 8) and no significant work has progressed," Ferguson wrote to Garcia.

Ferguson said the latest monthly work schedule does not reflect Tradeco's most recent commitments to make significant progress and assign four work crews to catch up and meet the new December deadline.

"Therefore, we are advising you of our intent to declare Tradeco in default of contract," Ferguson wrote.

TxDOT granted Tradeco one more 10-day extension to comply with:

- submitting all documents for work in accordance with its commitment.

- maintain four work crews on site.

- submit a revised project schedule.

- fulfill that schedule for the next 60 days.

"Failure to complete the issues listed by the start of business on May 26 will force us to declare Tradeco in default of contract," Ferguson wrote.

A spokeswoman for the Beaumont district told The Enterprise on Tuesday that TxDOT is in the process of terminating Tradeco's contract.