A paving contractor has filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court against the village of Brookfield, claiming the village owes the company $258,525 for work it started in 2003 and completed in 2005.
Swallow Construction Corporation filed the suit in mid-February claiming it was paid only $1.4 million of a $1.7 million contract approved by the village board in June 2003. The work entailed resurfacing streets in the north Hollywood section of Brookfield.
While the work wasn’t finished until early 2005, the suit contends, the delays were the result of “the failure of the village’s engineer to properly administer the contract.”
Brookfield has never paid Swallow Construction the balance of the contract despite being asked to do so, according to the lawsuit.
On April 12, the village of Brookfield fired back by filing a countersuit against the construction company, denying responsibility for the delays and asking the judge to award the village $272,926 from Swallow for failing to complete the work on time, for causing the village to incur additional engineering costs, for installing a leaky water main and for damaging some curbs and gutters.
“Swallow Construction Corporation breached the agreement by failing to prosecute the work in a timely manner and completed the work to be performed under the agreement more than 400 calendar days after” the contract was awarded, states the village’s counterclaim.
According to the construction contract, the work was to have been completed within 150 days after the contract was signed. The contract also included a provision allowing the village to impose a $900-per-day fine on the contractor for failing to complete the work within that time frame.
The village is seeking 250 days of $900 fines – $225,000 – the bulk of its claim against the contractor.
While the roads in north Hollywood are nice and smooth today, for nearly a year back in 2003 and 2004 they were unfinished. Work began in July 2003, and the village and residents of the neighborhood began venting frustration that fall when work was clearly behind schedule.
After Nov. 7, 2003 the village began imposing its $900-per-day fine; the roads remained unfinished that winter and it was July 2004 when the streets received the top coat of asphalt.
But punch list items remained, village officials said at that time, and Swallow was not responsive. In November 2004 then-Village Manager Dave Owen said Brookfield was withholding payments to the contractor.
“We’re just not paying for what wasn’t done,” Owen told the Landmark in late 2004. “I’ve never been associated with a project like this.”
Meanwhile, Swallow Construction has consistently maintained that it was the village of Brookfield and the village’s engineer, specifically, who hampered the project.
In a letter to the editor published in the Landmark in late 2003, Raymond Choate, the general manager of Swallow Construction, wrote “the project could have been completed and in use by now had we been allowed to set our own pace.”