YOUNGSTOWN — The $259,700 bill for emergency work done by ProQuality Demolition after the May 28 gas explosion at the former Realty Tower — with city council authorizing its payment Aug. 29 –lists only a series of services with none itemized by price.

“I would have liked to see a breakdown, but it sounded reasonable for the work and size of equipment,” said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works. “We saw they did things. That’s the invoice. That’s what we got.”

Shasho said he is certain ProQuality, a Youngstown company, did all of the work and has no reason to question the bill.

“It’s reasonable,” Shasho said. “He sent a bill. I don’t see it as a problem. We don’t have a breakdown. I have a list of everything that he did. It’s expensive to use the machines. There was a job trailer there for a month. When equipment sits there, it costs money.”

Cosmo Iamurri, ProQuality’s owner and CEO, said his company sent a detailed bill to the city listing all of the work done. He declined Friday to provide a copy of the bill to The Vindicator saying, “My contract is with the city. Please contact them.”

The initial bill sent by ProQuality was one page and listed the services it provided without a cost breakdown. At the bottom of the bill is a $259,700 charge.

When reached Friday, Shasho said Iamurri sent a revised bill that came after council’s Aug. 29 vote.

That revised bill, sent by Shasho, includes the original list of services as well as an Occupational Safety and Health Administration form of work-related injuries and illnesses, an Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation policy and certificate, an Ohio Department of Development Affirmative Action program verification and Minority Business Development Division compliance certificate, the company’s insurance policy, references, resumes of its principals and a list of past projects.

It did not include a list of the cost of each service.

Iamurri also said his company was at the Realty explosion site for about three weeks right after it occurred and could have charged the city for more expenses.

Shasho said: “I don’t know if we’re getting a breakdown, but (Iamurri) said it might be more.”

Iamurri said he should have charged “a lot” more for his company’s services, but “We did them a favor by not charging them the standard rate.”

The city called in ProQuality after the devastating May 28 explosion at Realty Tower. The former 13-story building in downtown Youngstown will be completely demolished no later than the middle of next week.

Mayor Jamael Tito Brown has praised the work done by ProQuality in going into a dangerous building to retrieve the body of Akil Drake, who died in the explosion. Nine others were injured in the explosion, but got out either by themselves or with the assistance of local first responders.

At the Aug. 29 city council meeting that saw the legislative body vote 7-0 to authorize the board of control to pay the $259,700 bill, Brown said, “At the time of the explosion, this company asked, ‘How can we help?’ It came down to the point if they had the equipment and started helping with the debris that was at the bottom of the floor.”

He added: “Originally, when the explosion happened, there was uncertainty about how the ground was, how uncertain the building was. But ProQuality came and really satisfied the need to give the (Drake) family some closure that night. But also in the days after that, they helped us secure the location and focus on the safety of that building.”

Brown said, “I can’t say enough about them.”

The ProQuality invoice was submitted July 3 to the city with an Aug. 3 due date. The board of control hasn’t approved the payment yet.

Shasho said the board has to finalize the approval, and he wasn’t sure if ProQuality would send a detailed bill before that vote.

“When we get council’s approval, it’s not settled,” he said. “It still has to go to the board of control.”

There shouldn’t be an issue with the three-member board approving the contract, particularly with Brown as its chairman. The two other members are Finance Director Kyle Miasek and Law Director Lori Shells Simmons.

INVOICE LISTS

The ProQuality invoice includes two lists of services.

One is “emergency response services” and lists items such as mobilization, overnight differential, heavy equipment, lighting, job trailer, erosion control as needed, temporary fencing, safety signage, service trucks, field coordinator, daily site inspections and demobilization. It also states there were a site supervisor, an operator and laborers on site to assist OSHA.

The other is “consultation services” and lists “means and methods: recovery of Mr. Akil Drake. Coordinated with Youngstown Fire Department.” It also has several “meeting” notations without dates including those with the city’s structural engineer, the National Transportation Safety Board, the city’s housing demolition and code enforcement, two with the city and Cincinnati Insurance – one in person and one online – and a meeting with the city to discuss “means and methods of demolition.”

At the Aug. 29 council meeting, Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward, said ProQuality wanted to do what it could to possibly save Drake’s life and despite being told the building wasn’t safe to enter, the company went in.

“Nobody else was there to do it,” Oliver said. “You really can’t put a price on this.”

Asked by Councilwoman Samantha Turner, D-3rd Ward, what the bill covered, Brown said it was several “services in the first couple of weeks” including removing debris at the request of the NTSB, which is spearheading the investigation into the explosion.

“There were just multiple pieces,” Brown said.

Demolition of the former Realty Tower on the city’s Central Square began July 12 and is expected to be completely finished in a few days. It will then be another one to two weeks before the site, owned by YO Properties 47 LLC, is filled in with dirt and then gravel.

A June 14 preliminary report by the NTSB stated a four-person scrap-removal crew, engaged by GreenHeart Companies of Boardman – owned by Brian Angelili, YO Properties’ managing member – was working in a basement area underneath the building’s sidewalk removing old utility lines when a crew member sawed three times into a pipe mistakenly believing it to not have natural gas in it. That caused the explosion.

A final report is expected to take one to two years to complete.

The city gave GreenHeart a no-bid $140,133 contract to remove utility lines from under the sidewalk in front of Realty and relocate them to its basement as part of a long-running downtown street improvement project. That was done because Angelili heads both companies and it was easier to have GreenHeart do the work than to hire someone else, Shasho has said.

Drake’s mother and sister, tenants at International Towers and former residents at Realty have filed lawsuits against YO Properties, LY, GreenHeart, Enbridge Gas Ohio LLC — the area’s natural gas company — and several of its sister companies.