Attorney's move raises eyebrows

The statutory agent had nothing to do with the case, the state said.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- An attorney who acted as the statutory agent for the company that formerly operated Warren Recycling's landfill now leads the environmental enforcement division of the Ohio attorney general's office.
The attorney general's office earlier this year filed a motion for contempt of court against Warren Hills, landfill operator, and Warren Recycling Inc., owner.
That motion charged that the companies didn't meet the requirements of a July 2003 consent agreement by the dates specified.
The landfill has been the source of controversy for the last few years because of a rotten-egg hydrogen sulfide odor nearby residents and state and federal officials have said emanates from the Martin Luther King Avenue landfill.
Official word
Kim Norris, a spokeswoman for the office of Attorney General Jim Petro, said that Dale T. Vitale, a senior deputy attorney general in charge of environmental enforcement, resigned as Warren Hills' attorney in January 2003 before coming to work at Petro's office in February 2003.
The office is aware of Vitale's former client list and he has had nothing to do with the case involving Warren Hills, Norris said.
Debbie Roth, leader of Our Lives Count, a citizens group formed because of health concerns surrounding the landfill, said the situation raises concerns.
"I'm disheartened," Roth said. "We put a lot of faith in the state, and now we just have questions. It raises a lot of questions for us."
What happened
Records from the Ohio secretary of state's office show that Vitale resigned as the statutory agent of Warren Hills LLC and Sunny Farm Landfill, both part of Regus Industries, in June 2003, a few days before a consent agreement among the attorney general's office, Warren Hills and Warren Recycling was signed and filed in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
But Norris classified a statutory agent as the "person designated as the place to send the mail." She said Vitale had nothing to do with the consent agreement between the attorney general's office and the two companies.
"He's had no knowledge, no input," Norris said. "He has not even been aware of what's been going on with the case."
The consent agreement was to settle violations at the landfill, but at the time of the consent agreement, it was being operated by Warren Hills through a lease agreement.
Warren Hills, which held the facility's operating license, exercised an option to terminate that lease earlier this year, and WRI bought that company and its assets including the operating license.
The July 2003 consent agreement stemmed in part from charges that the landfill accepted solid waste in the late 1990s in violation of its permit. The facility is a construction and demolition debris landfill and cannot accept other waste material.
The agreement calls for the companies to pump leachate from the landfill site and conduct air, ground water and gas monitoring.
The contempt motion is still pending. A hearing is set for November.
denise_dick@vindy.com