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Dispute between Warren and Trumbull County over sewer charges continues
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County commissioners have given notice to the city of Warren that the board plans to end a sewer agreement with the city in 180 days that could affect the price of sewer service for residents of the northeast part of Warren.
The notice is apparently in response to a lawsuit the city filed against the county six weeks ago asking a judge to order the county to pay more than $3 million in wastewater bills the county owes Warren for sewer service in Champion and Lordstown.
Warren Law Director Greg Hicks said the county’s notice is a “threat to hold hostage Warren citizens to try to get a contract in a whole different part of the county,” adding that the county commissioners “should remember that the citizens of Warren are also citizens of the county.”
The area the county is talking about is in the city’s 3rd Ward and 5th Ward to the east of the Trumbull Country Club and along North Road north of East Market Street. About 650 sewer customers would be affected, but Gary Newbrough, deputy Trumbull County sanitary engineer, said it’s unclear whether the county’s action would raise those customers’ rates.
The dispute first became public in May, when the county sanitary engineer’s office first asked the commissioners to approve the notice. The commissioners held off at the time.
Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa abstained from voting Wednesday because his brother, Enzo Cantalamessa, is Warren’s safety-service director. Commissioners Frank Fuda and Dan Polivka voted for the notice Wednesday.
Trumbull County Sanitary Engineer and County Engineer Randy Smith provided a news release at the meeting, criticizing the city’s filing of the lawsuit.
“It is hard to conceive a greater waste of taxpayer dollars than the litigation now initiated by Mayor [Doug] Franklin,” the news release says.
Atty. Joseph Cavassini, who the commissioners hired to defend against the city’s lawsuit, said Wednesday the county has been paying about $1 million per year to the city to treat wastewater for Champion and Lordstown, but the city has demanded that the price rise to $2.7 million per year, which he said the county cannot pay.
There are about 3,500 sewer customers in Champion and Lordstown, Newbrough said.