Cass County Engineer Charles Marker has issued an apology for a comment he made last week at the Board of Supervisors’ meeting. During the meeting, Marker, who was speaking about a bridge construction project, said one of the projects was running behind because a subcontractor had not been able to complete their portion of the project. Marker said based on Federal law, the County is required to have a certain percentage of all projects to minority sub-contractors.

But then he added “You can see what that gets us into…we’re sitting there just waiting on a minority contractor to show up ‘cuz they’ve got other jobs they’re workin’ on, and I guess they don’t get in a hurry. But we’re required to do that and there’s no way around it under federal guidelines.”

That comment irritated an Atlantic resident, who called KJAN News and requested a copy of the audio from the meeting. KJAN provided Marker with a copy of the audio, as well. At Thursday’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting, Marker clarified his statement and apologized if his previous comment offended anyone.

He said quote – “It was not my intent to imply that they {the subcontractor} was procrastinating or would be doing substandard work. I was only trying to explain the County could not open the bridge until all parts of the contract were completed, both those of the contractor and the subcontractor. As stated during last week’s report, they were already working on other projects, and it was not clear how soon they would be available to complete our guardrail {on the bridge near the research farm}. So, if my report was offensive and unclear, I apologize, but it was not my intent to offend anybody.”

The Board thanked Marker for his report and public apology.