After some initial confusion, Wright City officials have identified the “subcontractor of a subcontractor of a subcontractor” that recently caused damage impacting neighboring properties and utilities while doing excavation work in a subdivision in the city.

City Clerk Abbie Ogborn said at the Thursday, Aug. 13, Board of Aldermen meeting that earlier in the week, city hall was contacted about fiber-optic work going on in the Huntington Acres subdivision “where the company had come in, they had bored, they hit a fiber line, a sprinkler system and a water main in that subdivision.”

Ogborn said at the meeting that the city had been in contact with internet service provider Brightspeed. Deputy City Clerk Shelly Howard clarified Friday that Brightspeed was the company ultimately responsible for the excavation work that caused the damage.

“But it was being subcontracted by several companies,” Howard said, and while she didn’t have the subcontractor’s name, she had been told earlier in the day that the company that directly caused the damage was “a subcontractor of a subcontractor of a subcontractor” of Brightspeed.

“Somehow something got mismarked” on a utility map, Howard added, leading to the contractor digging in the wrong place. The company will need to get an excavation permit with a bond before it can resume work, she said.

Local resident Rita Key, in attendance at the Aug. 13 meeting, said her property was impacted by the recent work.

“That happened in our yard, where they came and had their truck and pulled out their digger and all that stuff and left a big muddy spot in our yard,” she said. “And I don’t know how far the right-of-way is from the street or whatever, but they did put two little bales of hay there. But they didn’t do anything with it, they didn’t re-seed or anything.”

Key added that she saw that some restoration work had been done on other yards in her neighborhood.

“But is there a phone number of somebody we can contact about that? Because I’ve just been trying to catch them to see if they’re going to come by, and it’s not that big of a deal, but I was just kind of wondering why they left it,” she said.

Ogborn said the city was already working to remedy the situation for homeowners in the neighborhood.

“The residents of that subdivision, I assume, are having a point person who’s contacting City Hall. They’ve been given the number in order to submit the damage claims. That will also be provided to all the utility companies that have experienced some issues as well,” she said.

Though the mystery has since apparently been solved, however, as of Aug. 13, the city was still “trying to determine who the contractor is who is doing the work, because they’re in unmarked vehicles,” Ogborn said.

“I am assuming that the contractor who is doing the work does not have a contractor’s license, because we don’t know who it is,” she added.