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Trumbull County weighs in on MVSD refund issue
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Trumbull County officials are writing a letter giving their take on the idea of Youngstown, Niles and McDonald getting $5 million in refunds from the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District.
Jim Brutz, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said Tuesday he will write a letter on behalf of the county’s water department and the county commissioners saying county water customers ought to share in any refund Niles gets.
Brutz told the county commissioners Tuesday at their weekly planning meeting that county water customers together make up the largest water customer Niles has.
Trumbull County, through its sanitary engineer’s office, buys all of its water from public water systems such as Niles and resells it to customers in the county.
Brutz said the county paid higher rates to Niles for water because of the capital improvements projects MVSD is planning. So if the refund Niles gets is from capital-improvement funds, as the MVSD has said, then Trumbull County water customers helped pay for that.
The MVSD recently approved a resolution granting refunds of $3.7 million to Youngstown, $1.2 million to Niles and $100,000 to McDonald because of excess funds MVSD has accumulated.
The MVSD has said the reason it has excess funds is because capital improvements such as a $28 million upgrade to the Meander Dam have taken longer to carry out than expected.
But the two judges of jurisdiction over the MVSD, Judges Lou D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court and Ronald Rice of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, recently have questioned the $5 million refund.
The judges wrote a letter and issued a judgment entry asking that the MVSD clarify what Mahoning Valley communities use MVSD water and have questioned why the $5 million in refunds should only go to Youngstown, Niles and McDonald instead of the water customers down the line that pay Youngstown, Niles and McDonald for water.
The MVSD sells treated water from the Meander Creek Reservoir to Youngstown, Niles and McDonald, which supply it to Girard, Canfield, Lordstown, Craig Beach and portions of 10 townships in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, according to Vindicator files.
Brutz said county officials are not telling the MVSD or the judges what to do with the refunds. They are only suggesting that if there are any refunds, the money should trickle down to users such as those in the county water system.
Thomas Scarnecchia, Niles mayor, said after the hearing and decisions are made regarding the refund, Niles will talk to the county about that.
Judges D’Apolito and Rice recently issued a judgment entry setting an Aug. 29 hearing at the Trumbull County Courthouse on the proposed refunds.
They also have asked the MVSD and its attorney to answer several questions 10 days before the hearing, such as why the MVSD does not have an advisory council composed of all of the communities that receive water down the line from MVSD, as Ohio law says it should.