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Attorneys for Youngstown want a judge to throw out a lawsuit about using water and wastewater money for economic development
YOUNGSTOWN
Attorneys for Youngstown are asking a judge to dismiss a class-action lawsuit filed by five city water customers who question the legality of using water and wastewater funds for economic development.
In a motion filed Monday, James F. Lang, one of two attorneys from the Cleveland-based Calfee, Halter & Griswold law firm retained by the city for this case, wrote that the complaint “is utterly devoid of any factual support for the contention that the rates charged by the city were in any way illegal or improper.”
Lang asked Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who is assigned this case, to dismiss it. “Plaintiffs failed to provide any factual support or legal basis for their claims that the city was over-charging its customers for water and sewer utilities,” he wrote.
Lang also wrote: “Given that the water department may assess any charges it wants upon its nonresident customers, plaintiffs have no legal basis” for “contesting the water-department charges.” Of the five water customers, three are from the suburbs, and two live in Youngstown.
The lawsuit, filed Feb. 4, contends Youngstown violates state law and the city charter by “using [about $4 million in water and wastewater] surplus revenues to issue grants and payments to private parties involving projects unrelated to the purposes and activities necessary for providing the water and sewer utilities to its customers.”
The plaintiffs want the judge to force the city to stop giving money from the funds to businesses. It also seeks “restitution of all funds unlawfully collected, removed and spent by the city” to all its customers for the past eight years.
The city handles wastewater for only Youngstown residents. It sells water to city residents as well as to those in Austintown, Boardman, North Jackson, Liberty, Girard and Canfield.