Tree Firm Alleges It Had Been Cut Off

A tree-removal contractor stripped of about $250,000 in work by San Bernardino County this week had filed a complaint with a federal agency in March alleging that he had been passed over for other contracts despite being the lowest bidder.

Andy Acosta told the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service that the county had denied him six jobs worth about $3.4 million, writing in his complaint that the county felt it was “too much work for one company.”

The agency awarded the county $70 million last year to remove bark beetle-infested trees on private property, an action spurred by the wildfires that devastated the San Bernardino Mountains in 2003.

Acosta, who owns A.J. Acosta Inc. in Big Bear Lake, said he believed his criticisms prompted county officials to drop him this week.

“I have a feeling it stirred up a lot of hairs. They had to silence me somehow. The whistle-blowers normally get snuffed,” Acosta said.

State and county officials dispute Acosta’s claims. The Board of Supervisors this week sided with a county panel that labeled Acosta Inc. an irresponsible contractor, and took away its five low-bid jobs and barred it from bidding on any county tree-removal projects for two years.

The panel said workers had chopped down the wrong trees, destroyed a building foundation tagged as a cultural resource site and leaked hydraulic fluid onto the ground.

Acosta’s work, worth about $268,000, was distributed among three other contractors.

The state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is considering legal action against the company for violating state logging rules while removing trees for the county, said Glenn Barley, a department forester.

County officials said they also were investigating another tree-removal contractor for poor work.

“We’re trying to clean house,” said Theodore Golondzinier, assistant director of operations for the county’s Department of Public Works. “We need to get this program moving, and to have people doing things wrong -- we can’t afford that.”