Residents demand public review, 90-day pause of $11.2 million Inner East Loop contract

Residents pressed the Brazos County Commissioners Court on March 11 to place the Inner East Loop project and a $11,200,000 contract with Quiddity Engineering on the court agenda and to halt work while the county produces traffic studies and contract records.

The requests came during the public-comment period from residents who said the county awarded the Quiddity contract on Feb. 6, 2024, but has not publicly released key deliverables. "The $11,200,000 should never have been executed without the due diligence of justifying the need prior to the expenditure of the taxpayer dollars," said Beverly Greenwood, who identified herself as a co-owner of noeastloop.com. She summarized the contract’s scope as including route and design studies, traffic projections, environmental studies, right-of-way data, utility engineering and roadway design work.

Why it matters: Speakers said the county’s failure so far to place the item on an agenda and to share study results undermines transparency on a project that could affect property and right-of-way. They also reported delayed responses to open-records requests for contract materials and said timeline estimates from Quiddity have been inconsistent.

Greenwood said residents were told different completion timelines by Quiddity engineers: "One of the Quiddity engineers told us that it would be completed in 3 to 4 months. That was 3 and a half months ago." She also read an email from a Quiddity subcontractor that said the traffic study is "ongoing" and that the team is following requirements in the National Environmental Policy Act, which, the subcontractor wrote, "can take several years."

Other speakers echoed calls for public review and a temporary halt. Kyle Greenwood said he submitted open-records requests for documents provided to Quiddity (he referenced contract number CIP23-600 and requests he identified by the court’s tracking numbers), paid an invoice for requested records and had not yet received the documents. He formally asked the court to "issue a stop work order to Quiddity for a 90 day period" and to put the Inner East Loop and the $11,200,000 contract on a public agenda.

Former commissioner Russ Ford, who said he helped approve earlier bond funding related to roadway work, urged the court to represent affected residents and to insist the county avoid using eminent domain without making residents’ interests clear.

Court response and process notes: Court counsel and the judge responded during the meeting. The court’s attorney clarified a timing question about open-records responses: "It's not 10 calendar days. It's 10 business days. So your responses were timely," the attorney said, and added that producing some requests required IT to run broad email searches. Judge Duane Peters (identified in public remarks) and court staff said the requested documents were being processed and would be provided to the requesters.

What remained unresolved: Speakers pressed why Quiddity is sharing information with state agencies if the project is only a county study, and asked for a clear public timeline for the traffic study. The county did not provide a public traffic-study release date during the meeting.

Ending: Petitioners left the meeting having secured a public acknowledgement from court staff that records requests were being processed and a public pledge to provide the requested documents; no formal stop-work order or agenda placement was made during the March 11 session.