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Landowner sues township over ‘wrongful interference’
YOUNGSTOWN
An Ellsworth Township man and his company have sued the township and its deputy zoning inspector, seeking more than $25,000 in compensatory damages and a court order barring the township from what the plaintiffs call “wrongful interference” with lawful use of company property.
The lawsuit was filed last week in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court by Basista Holdings LLC and David J. Lewis, both of 5620 Gault Road, against Ellsworth Township and Michal P. Kurilla Jr.
The complaint concerns an 18-acre property on state Route 45 and the 5-acre property on Gault Road, both owned by Basista, of which Lewis is the sole owner.
The new complaint says Kurilla’s 2012 lawsuit against Basista, which seeks to compel Basista to cease purported township zoning violations, is an attempt “to harass and annoy” Lewis and Basista and to improperly deny them their legal right to use the Route 45 property according to its industrial zoning.
Kurilla’s lawsuit is still pending in common pleas court.
Kurilla’s complaint seeks to bar “storage of large, unused, abandoned metal storage containers” on the Route 45 property.
Kurilla also asked that Basista be barred from having a 2,560-square-foot outbuilding on the Gault Road property without zoning and occupancy permits.
In last week’s lawsuit, however, Basista said the building needs no permit because it is on agriculturally zoned land and is used for agricultural purposes.
In the suit he filed last week, Lewis asks the court to order township officials to follow Ohio’s open-meetings law.
Lewis’ suit alleges the township and its administration “have conducted meetings of a majority of the members of one or more of its administrative agencies privately and without notice to the public,” but the suit doesn’t specify times, dates and locations of the alleged violations or name the board or boards purported to have violated the law.
Township officials and their lawyer, Mark Finamore, could not be reached for comment.