Sale of treatment plant prohibited

The mayor said he doubts Aqua Ohio will hold its offer until November.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
and KANTELE FRANKO
VINDICATOR staff writers
CAMPBELL -- Mayor Jack Dill said he will be forced to lay off eight city employees because a referendum petition filed Thursday prohibits the city from selling its water treatment plant until residents vote on the sale in the November 2006 general election.
The referendum petition, filed Thursday afternoon with city Finance Director John Leskovyansky, negates legislation passed Nov. 16 by city council that authorized Aqua Ohio to manage and eventually purchase the plant, Atty. Mark Hanni said.
Hanni represents the Let Us Vote Committee, which spent two days collecting 441 signatures for the petition. The number of valid signatures needed is 256, which accounts for 10 percent of the number of Campbell residents who voted in the last gubernatorial election.
The agreement
Under the agreement approved by council, Aqua Ohio would operate the plant and pay the city $3 million up front and $300,000 annually for 10 years, after which Aqua would own the facility.
The company also would invest $100,000 annually in the plant for improvements and repairs, and would assume the current $4.2 million debt the city owes for improvements. Dill has said the total Aqua payout would be in excess of $11 million, an amount that would get the city out of debt and fiscal emergency.
The referendum petition will be open for public inspection for 10 days, at which time it will be submitted to the Mahoning County Board of Elections, which has 10 days to validate signatures, Hanni said.
He added that the committee is concerned that the sale by auction of public property -- the water treatment plant -- was advertised only in The Journal, a paper which has small circulation, rather than a paper of general circulation in the Mahoning Valley, such as The Vindicator.
As a result, Hanni said the Let Us Vote Committee is considering a taxpayers' suit to determine if the sale of the plant was done according to Ohio Revised Code specifications.
Layoffs planned
The mayor plans to give layoff notices today to eight city employees, including a clerk and seven people from the police and fire departments who are paid out of the general fund.
Dill has said the city will have a water plant but no police or fire departments if the sale to Aqua does not go through.
"I just don't think that people are going to realize exactly what happened today until the second or third week of January," when the layoffs take effect, Dill said.
He added that residents also will see ramifications of the referendum in the 12 percent increase in water costs expected to begin in January.
The proposed agreement with Aqua prohibited any rate increase in the first year and provided for a 4.9 percent increase in the following years.
The mayor expressed doubts that Aqua would hold its offer through the general elections next year. "They cannot commit for a year, and that's understandable," he said. "That's a long time to be waiting."
Dill said he feels residents expressed approval of the sale twice -- first by changing the charter to allow council to sell the plant, and then by electing him and defeating mayoral candidate Juanita Rich, a member of the Let Us Vote Committee.
Although Dill said he was confident that voters will approve of the sale during the general election, he added that the petitioners have "put this city two years behind" by delaying the process.
"The problem that we have is that it took five to six months to negotiate this contract, and it was a good contract," Dill said. "It's not like the water plant is leaving the city of Campbell. It's just that we aren't going to be operating the plant."