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Lordstown leaders blame sewer for losses
By Ed Runyan
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Chaffee
LORDSTOWN
For Mary Jane Wilson, Jan. 1 will mark the end of 19 years on the Lordstown Village Council. She and fellow incumbent Robert Bond failed to get enough votes this month to secure another term.
Even Mayor Michael Chaffee, who chose to run for council this election instead of another term as mayor, didn’t win.
Instead, voters elected council newcomers Robert Radtka and John Mansell.
Why?
Wilson said she believes the No. 1 reason was the “ballyhoo” generated by the village’s $11 million east-side sewer project, which officials originally hoped to have completed in early 2009 but which still doesn’t provide sewer service to about 300 customers in the Imperial mobile home park off of Bailey Road.
Radtka is one of the owners of the mobile-home park.
The project, which resulted in a lawsuit filed by the Trumbull County commissioners against the village, as well as a lawsuit filed by the village against the project engineer, has been a nightmare for village officials.
It was designed to serve 600 homes and businesses — about a third of the village — but the project had to be redesigned when officials learned that a part of the line could not travel along Highland Avenue as planned because it would be too close to a gas line.
To fix the problem, it was built under Highland Avenue, which dramatically increased the cost.
After that, officials learned that a pump station that was supposed to force the sewage uphill was not pumping sufficiently. Wilson said that problem persists, which is the reason the mobile home park still isn’t online.
Wilson said she received a lot of criticism for undertaking such a large sewer project, but she still believes it was the right decision because waiting for the county to provide sewers to Lordstown would have taken too long.
Arno Hill, who barely defeated fellow councilman Michael Sullivan for mayor Nov. 8, says he thinks Lordstown voters were unhappy about the sewer project and this year’s wind-turbine project.
Hill, who has been on council for six years and served as mayor previously, said he believes voters don’t hold him responsible for the problems with the sewer because he was among the council members who voted against hiring James Farina to serve as project engineer.
The village eventually sued Farina in common- pleas court, saying Farina failed to secure a $2 million insurance bond, failed to produce written change orders, failed to provide several other types of construction documents to the village and failed to conduct certain construction tests.
The lawsuit is pending, as is the county’s lawsuit, which asked the court to stop the village from establishing its own sewer utility.
As for the turbine project, Hill said he thinks residents of Lordstown believe the village rushed into the project.
The village secured $118,530 in grants to install the two 10-kilowatt-hour turbines at village hall, leaving the village to pay the remaining $13,170 of the cost.
Chaffee said the turbines will save the village $300 to $500 per month in electricity, claiming it will take only about four years to recoup the village’s cost.
But Hill says he believes a wind study should have been performed before the village went forward to determine whether wind turbines in Lordstown made any sense.
Radtka said he agrees that dissatisfaction with the sewer project is one reason incumbents lost the election, but another reason was “internal bickering” among members of council.
Mansell did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.