Hardly news in a 24/7 news cycle; it is official Smithtown Highway Superintendent Glenn Jorgensen pleaded guilty last Friday to felony and misdemeanor charges. This debacle has been going on for months and those charges were brought about for falsifying documents on a paving project back in the fall. He resigned from his position on Friday after the plea.
Jorgenson held an elected position and was standing next to team Vecchio last November on election night when he won his spot to head up one of the few Departments where an election is needed to decide it’s leader. With decades on the job in the Highway Department, he was a shoe in.
As of now, the town could appoint someone until the next election, most likely Murphy, who is presently the Department Highway Superintendant, however, said election for the term of this position is not until November 2017 as it expires 12/31/17. That’s a long time from now. Insiders say Murphy will stay put until then.
Jorgenson’s wife has stood by his side during this lengthy debacle. Jorgensen, 63, of St. James pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court in Riverhead to a felony charge of offering a false instrument for filing, and a misdemeanor charge of official misconduct as part of a plea deal with the Suffolk County district attorney’s office.
This is the second person who headed up the Highway Department to end up in legal trouble. The Smithtown Highway Department is responsible for the maintenance and improvement of the town’s public road infrastructure. The infrastructure includes more than 470 miles of roads, drainage systems, recharge basins, driveway aprons, and curbs. The Highway Department also maintains a fleet of approximately 200 vehicles, including cars, trucks, and construction equipment.
The Smithtown Highway Department annually undertakes approximately $8,000,000 in road maintenance and improvement projects on our town roads. These projects include road reconstruction, resurfacing, and installation of drainage facilities. That road maintenance was what was in contention, you can only pave with certain temperatures for the job to be considered done correctly. Jorgenson admitted to falsifying documents including those about temperatures during paving.
However, the town paid $10,000 to a firm to do a study which brought about the consensus that said roads should have the standard 10-12 year lifespan.
It was the town’s Engineering Department that caught the differential between the actual temperature and what was written on Jorgenson’s report. This time checks and balances worked.
However, when it comes to communication they don’t. Originally Councilman Eddie Wehrheim was assigned to be the liaison to the Highway Department as well as several others he knew quite well, having for worked for the town for decades. However, he accuses Supervisor Vecchio of using scare tactics – the department heads would not communicate with him. He therefore resigned from all liaison spots. “This is not the way the Town Government should work, everyone needs to communicate, Town Board Members with eachother, with their Supervisor and with Department Heads; this is not happening in any scope of the manner,” he lamented.