In the wake of a critical report in which their company’s work was deemed inadequate, leadership from Road Surface Recycling defended themselves with allegations of bribery and incompetence against city staff and an engineering firm during a public meeting Sept. 7.
Approximately 50 people attended the evening event at The Northbury Hotel and Conference Centre on Brady Street, just down the road from Tom Davies Square. A video of the meeting posted to social media had received more than 1,400 views by Sept. 11.
The event was hosted by Our Towns Our City Institute, a community group headed by city hall critic Tom Price, who also serves as political advisor for Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini.
Much of the three-hour meeting consisted of Road Surface Recycling vice president technology and research Frank Crupi defending his company’s work.
Consistent with previous comments to Sudbury.com, Crupi maintained that his company’s product will hold up over time, and the city should have allowed them to complete the asphalt surface recycling project on The Kingsway they began undertaking this summer.
Crupi also claimed that a third-party report by engineering consulting firm WSP, which cites various deficiencies in his company’s work and finished product, is, in his words, bunk.
WSP could have made any number of mistakes in the testing process, Crupi claimed, admitting he “can’t prove anything ... because we weren't invited to go witness the testing.”
While defending his company’s work against the WSP report, Crupi also admitted to deficiencies.
Road Surface Recycling used 20 litres of rejuvenator oil instead of the required 190 while doing 170 linear metres of road during their first day on the job.
Crupi also said the existing asphalt material on the stretch of The Kingsway they were working on, between the Highway 17 bypass and 400 metres southeast of Second Avenue, was of poor quality. (City Growth and Infrastructure General Manager Tony Cecutti responds to this allegation later in this story.)
Since the material they were recycling was of poor quality, Crupi said the end product wasn’t going to be perfect.
“You don’t get perfection at every point,” he said. “It’s not about today’s test, it’s about how it’s going to perform over time.”
City council members show their support
Vagnini attended the Sept. 7 meeting alongside Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc and Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier.
In the questions they asked, statements they made and in their demeanour, the trio of city council members seemed to be in support of at least some of Crupi’s allegations against the city.
At one point as Crupi alleged certain city staff are incompetent, Montpellier named a city staff member (which Sudbury.com will not do) before adding, “I’m not allowed to call them by their names and all that because I’ll end up in jail again, but he couldn’t have been alone, so this crew — that gang,” he said with some derision, “is that the same people that built Maley on private property?”
“I would guess so,” Crupi answered.
“OK, just to clarify,” Montpellier added with a smirk, which was answered by chuckling from those around him.
(Montpellier’s comments reference a lawsuit claiming the city built Maley Drive on land it didn’t expropriate prior to construction. His reference to “jail” likely has to do with his running afoul of the city’s code of conduct for members of council for his comments regarding city staff in the past.)
During the Sept. 7 meeting, Crupi repeatedly insulted city staff, dismissing their work as “total incompetence,” and insinuated they were being bribed by contractors with “brown envelopes.”
“There is a fix here,” he alleged. “What’s in it for them?
Crupi also said one staff member has “no credentials,” and only got their job because they’re in a relationship with another city staff member. He also alleged a city staff member involved in the project is in a conflict of interest because they have a family member who is employed by a contractor that bids on municipal projects.
Leduc stood up to reveal additional personal information about the relationship between two city staff members in question, “just so everyone understands the relationship between the two of them.” This revelation spurred further unchallenged criticism from Crupi.
At no time did the three city council members who attended the Sept. 7 meeting counter Crupi’s allegations or defend city staff.
Asked about Crupi’s allegations regarding the two staff members, the City of Greater Sudbury declined to weigh in on what they describe in a written statement as “unprofessional comments or unfounded accusations from meetings organized by private resident groups.”
“We will uphold our principles of privacy, dignity and professionalism in the workplace and will not participate in the violation of privacy and security of our employees by discussing their personal lives in a public forum.”
Crupi calls to question WSP test results
During his presentation, Crupi alleged that WSP, the company contracted to perform the third-party testing on RSR’s work, was not truly independent.
“How can they be a third-party if they own the company that did the testing?” Crupi asked.
“Frank, I have no idea,” Vagnini responded from his seat in the front row.
Crupi’s allegation regarding WSP not achieving the third-party status is somewhat convoluted.
A large global engineering firm with an office in Sudbury, Wood Engineering (John Wood Group), was originally retained by the city in 2020 to provide expertise in selecting candidate roads and do quality testing for the asphalt recycling pilot project.
Subsequently, in September 2022, John Wood Group’s environment and infrastructure business was acquired by WSP.
Although WSP tested the quality of Road Surface Recycling’s work and not that of Wood Engineering, Crupi has argued their past involvement in the project means they can’t be a true third-party.
With neither original company nor the amalgamated company carrying a vested interest in the results of the testing, it’s unclear what conflict Crupi has alleged.
This summer, the City of Greater Sudbury enlisted WSP’s Sudbury office to test the quality of Road Surface Recycling’s partially completed surface asphalt pilot project on The Kingsway.
WSP is “a professional firm that provides independent analysis and opinions,” Cecutti said. “They are definitely a third party.”
Between allegations of “brown envelopes” (bribes) and questioning the validity of the WSP tests, admittedly without evidence, Crupi seemed to be trying to dismiss the company’s findings of deficiencies publicly as being biased against Road Surface Recycling.
Although Crupi repeatedly claimed the city spent $250,000 on the WSP report, Cecutti told Sudbury.com he doesn't know how Crupi might have come up with the estimate, as the city hasn’t received a final bill for the work.They’re estimating it will be less than $50,000.
By Crupi’s estimate, Road Surface Recycling had completed approximately one-third of the project when it was shut down on July 12.
Road Surface Recycling was ordered on July 11 to cease work on the project by the following day after it was determined the contractor “could not demonstrate significant improvement in their equipment or operators,” following prior concerns of “non-conformances to the specification requirements,” according to the final report by WSP.
Can asphalt be recycled on The Kingsway?
A key question coming out of the back and forth between Road Surface Recycling and the City of Greater Sudbury is whether The Kingsway was a candidate for the project to begin with.
The city’s tender document stipulated, “The design lift thickness shall be 50 mm,” while the average surface course asphalt depth on The Kingsway was recorded at 43.1 mm.
Crupi contends the material under the surface layer is aggregate, which doesn’t bond with asphalt.
City engineering services director David Shelsted told Sudbury.com last week that the city estimates the pavement thickness as being between 90 mm and 140 mm thick.
Shelsted would not speak to the quality of the material underneath the surface layer, but said Road Surface Recycling did not raise any concerns about it after digging core samples last year.
With extensive tests performed by WSP coming back since that time, Cecutti said Crupi’s allegation the underlying material is insufficient is “not what the third-party report says.”
“It’s a hot-mix asphalt ... and it met the requirements of hot-mix asphalt,” Cecutti said, adding that it has also met Ontario Provincial Standards specifications.
Another potential issue is with re-refined engine oil bottom (REOBs), which Crupi describes as “the cheap sh*t,” and is present in the existing asphalt on The Kingsway.
Queen’s University chemistry professor Simon Hesp has described the use of recycled motor oil in asphalt as “garbage in, garbage out.”
Hot-in-place asphalt recycling, such as the work done by Road Surface Recycling, can work quite well, Hesp told Sudbury.com recently, adding the company has a positive track record.
“Whatever happened in Sudbury might not have been the right contract,” he said. “If it’s complete garbage underneath, you can’t fix the surface and expect it to last. Or, if there’s motor oil in the mixture.”
REOBs have been used in asphalt since the 1980s, Cecutti said, noting that after municipalities began reporting extreme premature asphalt failures several years ago its application came under the microscope.
“They were found to modify the asphalt in a positive way, but perhaps through overuse in refining we started to see these premature road failures,” Cecutti said. “We haven’t seen that in Sudbury.”
In recent years, Cecutti said the city has adopted new testing procedures, and asphalt laid has been “very high-quality product.”
The asphalt on the stretch of The Kingsway in question was laid in 2006, since which time Cecutti said the city has not seen evidence of REOB-related degradation.
“Any suggestion that what happened is a consequence of REOBs is not supported by the evidence of either how the road looked or performed for the past 17 years, or the testing performed by WSP,” Cecutti said, citing The Kingsway as a viable candidate for the project.
Again, Crupi’s firm raised no concerns with the quality of the asphalt from core samples taken last year, prior to the report being issued that found RSR’s work substandard.
During the Sept. 7 meeting, Crupi played a video clip from a past city council meeting at which staff said The Kingsway was not a viable candidate for the asphalt recycling pilot project.
This clip, Cecutti said, was taken out of context. It applied to a stretch of road to the west, between Silver Hills Drive and Bancroft Drive; for which work was completed in 2019.
What’s next for Road Surface Recycling?
In a city media release issued last month, it’s noted the WSP report “has been provided to (Road Surface Recycling), and the city will work with them to determine next steps.”
Cecutti told Sudbury.com on Friday that the city is still awaiting a response from Road Surface Recycling.
“It’s possible that they return to work,” he said, adding that the city would expect the company to include a plan for how they would address deficiencies in their work.
In July, Crupi told Sudbury.com his company would consider returning next year if the city met certain conditions, including not having to work with certain city staff members.
Another issue centres around finances.
For failing to arrive as scheduled, Crupi said the city is claiming they owe them a penalty of $167,240, which he said his company is not going to pay.
Cecutti confirmed an amount has been allocated for damages, and clarified the company's original completion date was to be Nov. 15, 2021.
“Sometimes the city will negotiate a modified schedule ... and we might adjust the date for completion ... but at this time, the contract allows for the application of liquidated damages," he said.
Crupi contends the city owes his company hundreds of thousands of dollars for work they’ve already done.
“We’re not going to sue, we’re going to walk away,” Crupi told last week’s crowd.
After criticizing city staff members by name during last week’s event, Crupi told the audience that he “can’t wait for them to get me in a courtroom. I can’t wait for them to sue me.”
It appears as though the issue is slated to remain alive in council chambers.
Throwing his support behind Road Surface Recycling, Leduc issued a call to action, urging those in attendance to phone their ward councillor and Mayor Paul Lefebvre to “get them on side, because right now we’re throwing money away.”
“The three councillors that are here tonight, we can't do it by ourselves,” he added.
Even if the WSP report is accurate and the city will need to redo the work every few years, Leduc contends that recycling surface asphalt is inexpensive enough to still save money.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.