AN INSIDE LOOK AT ST. LEON'S SUIT TO FORCE SEWER HOOK-US

"Can government FORCE citizens to give up their property and force them to buy government financed products?"

What if the Federal government forced every citizen to switch to hydrogen battery powered cars [because it believes they are more beneficial to mankind]. Then the government set the price for those battery powered cars to 10 times greater than what the members of the governing body paid for theirs. And, they didn’t allow the issue to be voted upon by the people it affects the most.

The above analogy essentially describes the issues in the lawsuit between St. Leon Sewer Board and the county residents they are attempting to force onto their sewer system.

The basis of the suit has several points:
The cost. We can't afford it. Another aspect under this heading is the inequity of hook-up fees [$4,150], the maintenance [owner's expense], the pipe and trenching [owner's expense - in several cases in excess of 500 feet to 1,300 feet] and the grinder pumps [$2,600 average cost]. The three sitting council members connected for $400 and everything else was free with lifetime maintenance, in gratis. Doug Farrow, President of Town Council, signed up for the $400 while the cost of hook-up for the community was $4,000. This, after he became President of the Town Council. No election was held - it was a caucus decision!

Next, the fact that this ordinance [law] was in-acted to apply to citizen's living out of the jurisdiction of the Town of St. Leon, in a 10 mile radius of St. Leon. Yet those homeowners cannot vote for representatives in town elections. We have absolutely no say as to the governance and practices that are affecting our property rights [septic systems - or more succinctly, the forced discontinuance of using our systems].

Then there is the dispute about the wording of the ordinance. The initial wording of the ordinance, when it was offered to the town folk, stated they "may" hook-up instead of the newly revised [2001] "shall" hook-up. It wasn't mandatory when first proposed in order to get passage - then sometime after it passed it became a mandatory requirement. Also, it initially stated ...if the sewer line was within 300' of the dwelling the homeowner MAY hook up... Now the wording states ...if the sewer is within 300' of the property line the homeowner SHALL hook up... This makes a huge difference [cost for pipe and labor for trenching] if you have a substantial set back from the road, sewer line.

Next, the fact that we can't sit on the sewer board, or planning board, or council [in St. Leon] because we are not citizens of that town disenfranchises us from having any input in the operation, fee structure, or management planning of the sewer, sewer expansion, and placement of pipeline.

We are constituents of the county of Dearborn and should be governed by the County standards. The County states ...within 300' of the dwelling... and the county does not FORCE citizens to connect. This is the position that all three commissioners agreed to back in February of this year. This position was expressed in the initial letter Commissioner Thompson wrote to the County attorney, Ewbank, in order for him to formalize the position of the County on this matter. Ewbank is politicking when he states he's not going forward with this because there is a pending law suit. The statement of the County Commissioners in this matter is their collective reasoning for sewer connections within their jurisdiction. We simply want to refer to it, if and when, we appear before a judge to plead our case. It seems that every time we turn a corner we get sabotaged by yet another lawyer. The real rub in all this is that the longer the lawyers stretch this out the longer they can provide themselves with legal fees [at our out-of-pocket expense for our attorney and tax payers expense for Watson and Ewbanks]. This is beginning to appear as an annuity fund for Watson, Ewbanks, et al.

Now, for the status of the case. Watson, St. Leon's legal consultant, filed for a summary judgment. This was after Dearborn County's, Judge Humphrey, recused himself and the case was assigned to Judge Todd from Madison, in Jefferson County. Seems that Watson didn't even want us to have our day in court to ask for our considerations in the matter. We [George Leininger, our attorney] have responded to that motion. This was postponed numerous times, since early May of this year. It was filed the last day of September, 2007. Now the ball is back in the court [no pun intended] of Watson, and the St. Leon mafia, to respond to our response. Again, we have to accept the decision of a judge that we can't vote for. Will he be as sensitive as he might be to our case given that we cannot vote one way or the other for his seat?

There is a feeling of grave discomfort in all of this. My impression is that they are deliberately trying to wear us down and cost us out of our constitutional rights. Laws and liberty come at a steep cost and it is not just pecuniary, it has cost us personal stress and anxiety along with some very serious time consuming expenses. Action [conducting and attending meetings - our own and theirs], communication activities [among ourselves, our attorney and the local media] and the responsibilities that are required to keep the group together are things we can never recover. The true pain in watching this melee unravel is the "system".

The justice [or injustice] is that good, decent, noble people know there is something very wrong about forcing rural property owners to shut down their working septic systems and twisting our arms [squeezing our wallets] to pay for something we did not ask for, nor need.

Thom Hammond
Logan Township