Lee County fires landscaping company unable to maintain roads

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FORT MYERS, Fla.- A lawn care company hired to maintain medians on stretches of five roads in Lee County has been fired.

The Andrew Murray company of Punta Gorda was dumped by the county after numerous complaints poured in. Murray was the low bidder, coming in at least 20 percent below the nearest competitor.

“We have a set number of cuts, 21 per year,” said Randy Cerchie, director of the Lee County Department of Transportation, “they were missing some deadlines and some work wasn’t quite up to the contract.”

On Tuesday, Lee County commissioners voted to rescind Murray’s contract, for failure to perform a number of jobs.

“There was some weeding that needed to be done, some replacing mulch, some structural pruning of the trees,” said Cerchie.

Murray’s failure shouldn’t be a complete surprise. In the summer of 2014, Andrew Murray told a committee, checking out bidders, that he was worried, he didn’t have enough people or equipment to satisfy the contract. The county reduced his assigned roads from eight to five and gave him a contract.

“I am not familiar with the committee you’re referring to,” said Cerchie. “We keep an eye on all the contracts, this one just went a little bit south.”

Rescinding Murray’s contract will cost $81,000; the difference between Murray’s low bid and the next highest bidder– P & T Lawn. The money now goes to P & T, which will work on the medians that Murray could not maintain.

Lee County paid Murray about $137,000, for work that was done over the past year. The county refused to pay the company a few times because of incomplete work. WINK News reached out to the company for comment but received no answer.

 

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