A businesswoman, a sewer authority, and a bill

(Dover Township) — This story starts at the Dover Township Sewer Authority plant. A company called ProElectric won a $420,000 contract in 2009 to do electrical upgrades at the plant. By July 2011, ProElectric says the work was done, and has photos to prove it.

But the company says the Authority hasn’t paid it.

Says owner Deborah Rinehart: “We submitted all of our paperwork. We waited four or five months to get a substantial completion certificate out of them. There’s no reason for that. We were treated differently than the other contractors that were on the job.”

Rinehart says it was blamed for delays on the project and the authority used its deposit to cover costs.

“I mean, I know what I believe. I’ve been living this for three years. We’ve tried to work with the individual, we’ve tried to work with the Authority. We’ve tried to work on a one to one level. We’ve done the litigation route, we’ve tried that.”

A lawsuit she filed against Dover Township Sewer Authority is also pending in York County. She says the issue has weighed on her business and made it more difficult to get government work because of the pending lawsuit.

York County President Commissioner Steve Chronister says he wants the District Attorney, state Attorney General, state Auditor General, the state Department of Environmental Protection and the FBI to all investigate what he calls a cover up.

But any evidence backing that claim wasn’t available.

Kyle King, a spokesperson for the York County District Attorney, says ProElectric’s owners filed a criminal complaint on January 23rd, and investigators looked into the accusation. King says a chief deputy prosecutor looked at the case, but determined no criminal wrongdoing and has closed the case. King says the case will not be re-opened despite the letter.

In fact, in a 2010 meeting of the Dover Township Sewer Authority Board, an engineer with the authority said ProElectric fell behind schedule, delaying the general contractor on the site. Galway Bay, according to the meeting minutes, had said it might have to pull off the site if ProElectric didn’t catch up.

Rinehart says her company may have been a bit naive on the construction schedule. But she argues there’s no reason for ProElectric’s deposit to be used to cover Galway Bay’s increased costs.

Calls to the Authority have not been returned.