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Polk County Traffic Engineer Rips Into County Government Brass

Posted Jan 30, 2008 by Billy Townsend

Updated Jan 30, 2008 at 04:06 PM

Casting himself as wrongly-accused whistleblower, Polk County government’s traffic engineer sent a long, angry e-mail Wednesday morning to the entire county government e-mail network.

The three-page letter, written a day after supervisors recommended Ghassan Zebdaoui’s firing, blasts County Manager Mike Herr and his administration. Zebdaoui’s most far-reaching allegation is that Herr and top administrators have gone easy on industrial development projects, downplaying their traffic impacts in the hope of building tax base for the government.

Zebdaoui said superiors had instructed him on more than one occasion to withhold comment about the potential impacts of projects on Polk roads.

Herr denied that his staff ever muzzled Zebdaoui. “There’s not a person on our staff who would do that.”

Zebdaoui also criticized the county’s use of consultants and what he considers excessive compensation for certain top level employees. And he urged other county employees to e-mail him their stories.

Zebdaoui, who says he’s been at odds with county administrators for several weeks, has been Polk’s traffic engineer for four years. In that capacity, he reviews traffic studies submitted by developers of large projects and analyzes their impacts on the county’s roads and traffic management systems. He also provides traffic studies for county building projects. 

Zebdaoui’s supervisors decided to fire him Tuesday, pending a hearing process, based on alleged disruptive behavior, violations of the chain of command and alleged discrepancies in his employment application, Zebdaoui and Herr said. Zebdaoui dismisses those charges as reprisals for his ongoing criticism of management.

Herr declined to address the merits of the case against Zebdaoui, saying that he might have to make to final call on whether to fire the traffic engineer. For now, Zebdaoui is on paid administrative leave.

Zebdaoui sent his e-mail from home through the county’s system at 7:07 a.m. At 7:26 a.m., a second e-mail was sent from his account asking that the earlier e-mail be recalled. During a phone interview, Zebdaoui attributed the second e-mail to county officials, who he said have now locked him out of his e-mail account.

Herr could not confirm or deny that.