Water Resources: Oluic to Resign
Rumors that Geauga County Department of Water Resources Director Steve Oluic resigned this week were confirmed June 15.
Rumors that Geauga County Department of Water Resources Director Steve Oluic resigned this week were confirmed June 15.
Geauga County Commissioner Jim Dvorak said Thursday, prior to the regular commissioners meeting, he does not know Oluic’s reasons for resigning, but he wishes the best for him.
He also proposed County Administrator Gerry Morgan — who headed GCDWR for 12 years prior to taking the county role — as Oluic’s replacement.
“The facts are that Gerry knows more about that department than anybody in the county,” Dvorak said. “And I think it’d be a seamless transition for him to move into that job as the director and manager of water resources, and then we would just merely put take applications for a new administrator.”
Dvorak said he has not spoken to Oluic but found out about the resignation in an email from Morgan late in the afternoon June 9.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said, adding if Morgan returned to the department, there would be a smooth transition with no interruption in service. “(GCDWR serves) almost 7,000 residents in the county. Some have water and sewer, some have only water and some have just sewer.”
Morgan said after the meeting Oluic’s decision to resign was a personal one. When asked about Dvorak’s statement — that he would be a natural fit to return to the job — Morgan declined.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Gail Roussey, a representative of the League of Women Voters-Geauga Observers Corps, questioned commissioners about Oluic’s resignation.
“Are you anticipating a posting for the position in water resources that appears to be vacant?” she said.
“Which position?” Lennon said.
“The director? It was reported that he resigned,” she said.
“As of right now, he’s still the director,” Lennon replied.
When pressed by another member of the audience to name the acting director after Oluic leaves July 8, Morgan said his resignation has not yet been accepted by commissioners, meaning no acting director has been named.
“(Oluic) has done a really good job over the years and I appreciate him,” Lennon said after the meeting.
Oluic, who holds a doctorate in geography, served 27 years in the U.S. Army and was the assistant dean for strategy and policy at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He later served as dean of arts and sciences at Lakeland Community College.
“I was part of the hiring process,” Lennon said. “I almost fell out of my chair when I read his resume. He is a top-notch employee … and I think the county has been very fortunate to have somebody like him willing to work for Geauga County.”
Oluic did not respond to requests for comment.
News of Oluic’s departure comes amid the revelation of yet another security breach at GCDWR— this one dating to January 2021.
During a June 13 Geauga County Automatic Data Processing board meeting, Geauga County Auditor Chuck Walder, who serves as chief administrator of the ADP board, said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security brought the hack to the county’s attention.
“There is no indication from email exchanges that they provided to us that (information about the hack) went anywhere past (GCWRD Network Administrator) Mike Kurzinger,” Walder said. “But a whole host of people at the homeland security level were aware of it.”
A few weeks earlier, during an ADP meeting April 13, Kurzinger told the board his department had faced no IT issues in the 30 years he worked there.
The hack was only discovered at the beginning of June, as part of review of files recovered during a federal search warrant executed May 3 at Kurzinger’s office in the county building on Ravenwood Drive.
The FBI and U.S. Secret Service also searched the Mentor office and Chester Township home of Joe Camino, an outside information technology consultant for GCDWR, that same day.
Records presented to the ADP board and provided to the Geauga County Maple Leaf show Kurzinger worked with DHS to remediate the issue, which was finally resolved at the end of June 2021.
