Licensed engineer here (Massachusetts). I don't know WTF Lacy is smoking. I've been in a position where community groups have performed their own analysis to challenge my work and that's fine - either their analysis is wrong and I can point out their errors, or (in the rare occasion) I have indeed missed something and I revise my report. But going after the group who prepared the analysis because it looks "engineering-level work"... I don't know where to begin.
For one, it's not necessarily improper for a non-licensed engineer to do "engineering-level work" - the way you become a licensed engineer is to do "engineering-level work", typically under the supervision of a licensed engineer, but some of your experience has to come on your own ("responsible charge"). But more importantly, just doing engineering work isn't the problem, it becomes a problem if you represent yourself as a licensed engineer when your not.
Quite frankly, Cox should file his own complaint with the NC engineering board against Lacy (assuming Lacy is licensed, his name didn't come up in a license search).
The article claimed Kevin Lacy was "chief traffic engineer for the [North Carolina] state DOT". I assume that makes him a bureaucrat rather than a working engineer. And bureaucrats have all sorts of "interesting" ways of working.
For one, it's not necessarily improper for a non-licensed engineer to do "engineering-level work" - the way you become a licensed engineer is to do "engineering-level work", typically under the supervision of a licensed engineer, but some of your experience has to come on your own ("responsible charge"). But more importantly, just doing engineering work isn't the problem, it becomes a problem if you represent yourself as a licensed engineer when your not.
Quite frankly, Cox should file his own complaint with the NC engineering board against Lacy (assuming Lacy is licensed, his name didn't come up in a license search).