Suha Atiyeh thought she was simply doing her job when she raised concerns about the company picked to help run a $57 million road reconstruction project in Northeast. Instead, she was fired for her trouble, according to a lawsuit she just filed against the city. It’s a tale as old as time in D.C. government. 

Atiyeh, formerly a civil engineer in the District Department of Transportation, claims that her superiors moved to pick a specific engineering firm to manage the overhaul of a two-mile section of East Capitol Street SE despite her strenuous objections about its lack of qualifications. She alleges her DDOT bosses were overly friendly with executives at the company, Alabama-based Volkert, Inc., after previously working with them on other major projects in the city and seemed determined to award them the lucrative contract from the outset of the procurement process. When Atiyeh sounded the alarm, she claims she was sidelined from the project and abruptly fired last February.

An attorney representing Atiyeh, AJ Dhali, declined to discuss the case with Loose Lips and deferred to the claims in the lawsuit, which was filed last week in D.C. Superior Court. Atiyeh is asking for an unspecified amount of punitive damages, as well as compensation for any wages and benefits she lost over the course of the past year since her termination. 

A DDOT spokesperson declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. A Volkert spokesperson didn’t respond to LL’s questions.

The East Capitol Street project at the heart of the case has been in the works since at least the fall of 2020, Atiyeh recounts in the suit, as District leaders sought to improve safety on a busy stretch of the road running roughly between the Benning Stoddert Recreation Center and the Capitol Heights Metro station on the Maryland border. But the city had trouble funding the work, and it petered out around mid-2021.

The project launched back into high gear when it earned some federal funding (Atiyeh claims she was instrumental in helping the city land the grant for the work). DDOT planned to add protected bike lanes, floating bus stops, and other traffic-calming measures as part of the project.

As the city began soliciting bids from firms seeking to design these changes in the fall of 2023, Atiyeh says her direct supervisors quickly started touting Volkert’s merits. She writes in the suit that David Tackoor, who manages major infrastructure projects in wards 7 and 8, repeatedly praised the company and its lead engineer, Jason Cawrse, before anyone even responded to the agency’s request for proposals. Tackoor disparaged other firms who might bid on the work as a “horrible batch” or a “bad batch” of respondents.

“Tackoor stated to Atiyeh ‘Jason can do it’ and ‘Jason can deliver’ the project before the proposals were submitted,” Atiyeh writes in the suit. “Tackoor also informed Atiyeh that he ‘likes working with Jason.’”

Although his statements are not exactly the picture of objectivity, Atiyeh writes she didn’t question Tackoor’s assertions at first, in part because Volkert was a regular contractor with DDOT. Most notably, the firm led the effort to rebuild the Lane Place pedestrian bridge over D.C. 295 after a truck struck the old one and it collapsed back in 2021.

Atiyeh claims she grew more alarmed when Tackoor insisted that he serve on the panel of officials tasked with judging bids on the project (Atiyeh chaired the panel). The city’s Office of Contracting and Procurement generally prohibits employees and their direct supervisors serving on such panels, but OCP blessed the odd arrangement despite the apparent conflict of interest.

In the suit, Atiyeh alleges that Tackoor “had multiple contacts with Cawrse” as the panel was evaluating the bids. The agency was nearing its final decision in December 2023, when Atiyeh recalls that two Volkert employees stopped by her desk “unescorted” and “without invitation,” which she found “unusual.” One of them referred to Cawrse in passing as the “project manager” for the East Capitol work, even though it hadn’t been awarded yet, another remark she thought was “odd.”

At that point, Atiyeh claims, she began scrutinizing Cawrse’s resume, considering his central role in Volkert’s bid. She found that he only had one year of experience working at the firm and that most of his listed experience involved bridge projects (such as the one at Lane Place and a new pedestrian bridge at Douglas Street NE). The East Capitol Street project doesn’t have any bridge components, so she questioned Tackoor’s trust in Cawrse and the firm more genearlly. Tackoor “vehemently defended” Cawrse,” according to the lawsuit, and said he was his “go-to guy.”

“Further, Cawrse’s resume in the East Capitol Street proposal states he has the ‘relationships’ with” Atiyeh’s team at DDOT, she writes in the complaint. “Atiyeh told OCP that projects should not be awarded based on ‘relationships.’ Atiyeh also reminded the panel members to ‘disassociate’ their relationship with the offerors from the procurement evaluation.”

As the agency neared its decision on the project, Atiyeh reported to the city’s procurement agency on Jan. 16 that her colleagues were “not being unbiased, objective and impartial.” The next day, she reiterated claims that the process was “rigged,” and OCP officials said they perform an “independent review” after she raised those concerns and pressed pause on the process.

But by Jan. 25, the agency received word that the project would receive a $34 million federal grant to support the effort (thanks to former President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill), a massive step for allowing it to move forward. Procurement officials were “on the verge of cancelling the solicitation” entirely over Atiyeh’s concerns, but she says Richard Kenney, the deputy chief engineer overseeing her division, stepped in to keep the contract moving ahead. DDOT officials then “excluded Atiyeh from their correspondence and decisions on the East Capitol Street procurement,” she claims.

On Feb. 7, DDOT awarded Volkert the contract. 

Atiyeh claims she repeatedly objected, saying that “all four proposals [the agency received] were deficient and did not meet the requirements.” Six days later, Atiyeh received notice that she’d be fired, despite her history of exemplary performance reviews, which she views as clear evidence she was retaliated against for her protests.

The city has yet to respond to Atiyeh’s claims in court. An initial status hearing is set for May.

These allegations are hardly the most egregious that have been levied against the District government when it comes to favoritism in the contracting world. Generally, it tends to be the firms that spread the most money around to local politicians that get the best treatment. Volkert is a frequent city contractor but it does not appear to be particularly politically connected; the firm has given just a handful of donations to D.C. politicians over the years.

Nevertheless, Atiyeh’s case appears to be part of a disturbing pattern in local contracting. Why try to find the best firm for the job when you can just pick your buddies and move on?