Warren sues county over sewer rates

City says Trumbull owes upward of $3 million in unpaid bills

WARREN -- The long-simmering feud between Warren and Trumbull County officials erupted Friday afternoon when the city filed a lawsuit in Trumbull County Common Pleas court alleging the county owes upwards of $3 million in unpaid sewer bills.

Some of the debts the county owes are more than a year old, according to Edward Haller, director of the Warren Water Pollution Control Department. These bills are for water treated from residents and businesses in the Lordstown and Champion areas.

Negotiations between the city and county have been ongoing for nearly a year.

More than $600,000 of the $3 million is for money owed under a 20-year-old sewer agreement between the county and the city, which expired Dec. 31, 2017. Since the end of the contract, Trumbull County, like other customers, has been required to pay user fees set under the city's ordinances.

However, according to city officials, the county has only paid the amount it was paying under the expired agreement, which is one-fourth of what is required by city ordinance and less than a third of what city residents pay.

Inside-rate customers pay $4.65 per 1,000 gallons. Under the expired contract, the county was paying $1.42 per 1,000 gallons, but was charging Lordstown and Champion customers $6.66 per 1,000 gallons, according to city officials.

Although the county owns the lines, they empty into a Warren treatment plant.

The county has proposed paying the inside rate Warren residents pay for the service, but the city wants more assurances it will improve the sanitary sewers so the treatment plant is not flooded with rain water.

County Commissioner Dan Polivka said negotiating teams tried all options to avoid litigation.

"They wanted us to pay the inside rate," Polivka said. "We offered that, which came out to an extra $1 million."

In addition, according to Polivka, the county offered $150,000 to $200,000 to improve the lines to reduce the storm water that infiltrates the system.

"I was hopeful we could resolve a win-win for both the county and the city and stay out of court," Polivka said. "In negotiations, both sides have to give some. We did, to no avail from the city."

Polivka said the city did not provide a counter offer to the county's last offer.

Warren Mayor Doug Franklin expressed disappointment the negotiations did not end with a settlement.

"It is truly unfortunate that the city has been forced to take this step," he said. "The county has steadfastly refused to voluntarily pay anything close to the same rate we charge our own residents, or to commit to take meaningful steps to reduce the tremendous amount of storm water and ground water that enters county sewers, which we then have to treat."

City Councilman Ken MacPherson, D-5th Ward, called filing of the lawsuit strategic.

"It is too bad we could not come to an agreement," he said. "During one of my first meetings as a councilman, I said we should set the rate to one-and-a-half times the inside rate if we could not come to an agreement. That's pretty much what has happened."

MacPherson suggests both sides have caused the issue to be more complicated than it needed to be.

"Hopefully, we will come to more comfortable terms," he said.

Councilman Eddie Colbert, D-at Large, council's finance chairman, said the city has done everything it could to negotiate a fair contract.

He called the previous contract a bad one.

"There is no possible way I would support a contract in which the county is paying anything less than what our citizens pay," he said.