By JAY CONLEY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Archives Reprint

   After months of wrangling over a lien and a lawsuit, a Bedford County construction company has won a $1.67 million judgment against the National D-Day Memorial Foundation. And it appears that Forest-based Coleman-Adams Construction Co. may settle in the next few weeks for the rest of what it claims it is owed.

    Bedford Circuit Court Judge James Updike granted Coleman-Adams the partial summary judgment in August. It came after attorneys for Coleman-Adams produced a letter from the National D-Day Memorial Foundation in which foundation president William McIntosh acknowledged the foundation owed Coleman-Adams at least $1.67 million and probably another $600,000.

    Coleman-Adams president Cliff Coleman said Thursday that the letter was written in May, soon after Coleman-Adams filed a lien against the memorial foundation in an effort to collect $2.1 million in unpaid bills.

    The judgment came two months after the D-Day foundation filed court documents disputing the amounts it owes to Coleman-Adams and Roanoke architect Byron Dickson, who designed the memorial. They are the two principal contractors to whom the cash-strapped memorial still owes money. Both have filed lawsuits to collect unpaid bills from the memorial.

    Dickson's suit asks for nearly $900,000. A court hearing in his case is scheduled for Jan. 27. No summary judgment has been entered in the case for Dickson.

    "I didn't have a letter," he said.

    Coleman said his company is still owed $430,000 on top of the judgment. Although a Feb. 10 hearing date has been set, Coleman said he believes a settlement can be agreed on soon.

    "We're very close to getting something resolved," possibly within the next few weeks, Coleman said.

    He wouldn't elaborate on how the D-Day foundation would pay the funds, but said unless the foundation received a large increase in donations, repayment would likely take years.

    "Our position is, we'd like to have something steady coming in. We're working with them. We're not trying to shut them down. We want them to thrive," Coleman said.

    McIntosh would not comment on the case. He referred all questions regarding the lawsuits to Roanoke attorneys John Richmond and William Poff. Neither returned phone calls Thursday.

    The $25 million memorial in Bedford pays tribute to the sacrifices of American and Allied World War II soldiers who participated in the June 6, 1944, invasion of Nazi-occupied France.

    Since it opened more than a year ago, the foundation that operates it has struggled with a $5 million debt left over from its construction. In addition to Coleman-Adams and Dickson, the foundation also owes about a million dollars to the Bank of the James and thousands of dollars to other contractors.

    Richard Burrow, the foundation's former president who resigned in July 2001, is scheduled to go to trial in December on four federal fraud charges that arose from the bank loan and millions of dollars in state grants he acquired to build the memorial. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

    McIntosh said Thursday that the foundation's debt stands at $3.8 million.

    Coleman-Adams' 125 employees, about 45 of whom worked directly on the memorial, have felt the pinch from the company's inability to collect such a large debt.

    "Our company is very strong and we're very busy, but we've had to put on hold all pay increases and bonuses," Coleman said.

    That has been a hard blow, particularly to the employees who worked 70 hour workweeks trying to get the memorial ready in time for President Bush to dedicate it on June 6 of last year, Coleman said.

    "A lot of them were there many, many long days."

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