Moulder is trial’s lead-off witness

When Scott Moulder went to work as Oconee County administrator four years ago, one of his early duties was try to straighten out the mess that became of the project to extend the county airport runway by 600 feet. And those early actions taken by Moulder, as county administrator, became grist for questions posed by David James, attorney for the plaintiff. James represents Austell, Georgia contractor Plateau Excavation which has gone into court seeking damages from both Oconee County and the county airport’s former consultant engineers, Talbert and Bright. Moulder was the first witness today in a trial that may take two weeks. He was being questioned about the contract to extend Runway 25 at the Oconee Regional Airport, about the lawsuit Plateau later filed in May 2011 and about the answer and cross-claim that Oconee County filed a month later. In response to other questioning, Moulder said he was personally unaware if former Talbert and Bright employee G. Martin Wynn had paid any of court-ordered restitution to the county other than one check which approximated 135 to 150 dollars. As part of his federal court sentence for falsifying project documents, Wynn was ordered to make restitution to Oconee in the amount of $118 thousand.