NEWS

Engineering director for Columbia County resigns

Amanda King,Susan McCord
aking@augustachronicle.com
Steve Cassell resigned Tuesday as Columbia County Traffic Engineering Director. [FILE/STAFF]

Columbia County Engineering Director Steve Cassell has resigned and is going to work with Abie Ladson, his former boss at the Augusta Engineering Department.

Cassell was with Columbia County for approximately three years after a decade as assistant engineering director for traffic in Augusta.

Columbia County officials declined to comment on the reason for Cassell’s departure, but County Administrator Scott Johnson said that Cassell did not request any severance pay and that the county would not award severance when an employee resigns voluntarily.

Cassell replaced Matt Schlacter as engineering director in 2016, when Schlacter was promoted to deputy administrator under Johnson.

The fast-growing county is rife with both traffic congestion and road construction. Doug Duncan won election as chairman of the Columbia County Commission last year on a platform of reducing traffic congestion. The county is in the process of developing a new 10-year plan for road construction funded by the next 1 percent Transportation Investment Act sales tax, and project lists are due by July.

Ladson, who headed Augusta engineering for about a dozen years, left city government in 2017 to create his own engineering business, Infrastructure Systems Management LLC. He confirmed Tuesday that Cassell was joining his business and that construction work is booming in the area.

The firm does development plans, site plans, some traffic, storm drainage, sanitary sewer, water, road and bridge work, and demand for work in the area continues to increase, Ladson said. The firm recently won a bid to do engineering design for upgrades of Augusta’s Greene Street, a project funded through the current Transportation Investment Act sales tax.

Cassell worked for the city of Augusta from 2006 to 2016 as the assistant engineering director for traffic. He was heavily involved over the years with the city’s traffic plan for the Masters Tournament, the Berckmans Road realignment project and the massive recovery effort from the 2014 ice storm.

After taking office in 2014, Augusta Administrator Janice Allen Jackson did not retain Cassell as one of her deputies, and in February 2016, Cassell resigned to take the Columbia County job.

Cassell’s resignation follows a trio of departures in Augusta, including Jackson, who resigned last week along with General Counsel Andrew MacKenzie. Recreation Director Glenn Parker resigned Monday.

Unlike Columbia County, Augusta gives resigning top officials automatic severance pay. The Augusta Commission agreed to pay MacKenzie and Jackson a year’s salary and benefits. The administrator’s severance is nearly three times the amount guaranteed under her contract.