Wednesday, April 07, 2004
SEWER: Hearing is Friday in Pulaski
Opponents claim council left itself vulnerable when it set aside its charter to finance the project.
CHRISTIANSBURG - Opponents of Blacksburg's Toms Creek sewer filed legal papers Tuesday asking a circuit judge to block any contracts for the project and invalidate the $7.6 million bond issue that the town council approved last month to pay for the work.
David Bailey, an attorney from Hanover County who is representing Toms Creek Basin residents Hyman Rogol and Harriett Cooper, said he hopes his motion for a temporary injunction halting the project will be considered at a circuit court hearing Friday in Pulaski. Blacksburg Town Council is scheduled to award $7.56 million in contracts for the project Tuesday. "What we're about is to defend the town charter," said Mary Houska, a spokeswoman for the Toms Creek Basin Vision Group Legal Fund, a citizens group that opposes the sewer. "We didn't want to sue. None of us did. But it seems to be the only pathway left."
Town Manager Gary Huff declined to comment on the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon, saying he had not had time to review it.
Debate about building a sewer through the Toms Creek Basin, the town's least developed area, has surfaced periodically for 30 years. But in the past year as the council set aside various alternative sewer plans, the issue became especially polarizing, sparking outcry at town meetings and seeming likely to play a pivotal role in next month's council elections.
Bailey said that while challenges to bond issues are rare in Virginia, he thought the town council left itself vulnerable when it took the unusual step of setting aside Blacksburg's charter to finance the sewer. The charter requires that five of the seven council members approve any measure to incur debt. But with only a 4-3 majority supporting the sewer, four council members voted to issue bonds under the authority of the Virginia Public Finance Act, which requires only a majority vote.
The council then voted to amend its budget to include money from the bonds, again with a 4-3 vote. Later, a 4-3 vote gave a blanket authorization to condemn property to gain the easements needed for the work. Last fall, in another 4-3 vote, the council approved amending Blacksburg's comprehensive plan to clear the way for a conventional, gravity-fed sewer through the Toms Creek Basin.
The sewer opponents argue that there were a number of problems with this process.
While the lawsuit contains eight counts, they fall into two general areas, Bailey said. First, the bond issue itself improperly mixed general obligation and revenue bonds, categories that state law defines for different purposes, the lawsuit charges. And though the bond issue was to pay for the first phase of a larger project, the public notice for the bond issue did not mention the overall projected cost of the sewer, a figure that the town sets at $10.8 million and that opponents predict will be at least $16 million. This should have been included, Bailey said, so residents would have a better idea what sort of debt the town council was planning.
The second area addressed by the lawsuit is the budget, condemnation and comprehensive plan votes that occurred before and after the bond vote. They all involved incurring debt, but none had the five-vote approval set in the charter, and none fell under state authorization to disregard the charter, Bailey said.
Cooper and Rogol's lawsuit asks the court to declare invalid the bond issue "and any and all votes which commit the town to budget amendments, future debts or taxation without a 5-2 vote."
David Bailey, an attorney from Hanover County who is representing Toms Creek Basin residents Hyman Rogol and Harriett Cooper, said he hopes his motion for a temporary injunction halting the project will be considered at a circuit court hearing Friday in Pulaski. Blacksburg Town Council is scheduled to award $7.56 million in contracts for the project Tuesday. "What we're about is to defend the town charter," said Mary Houska, a spokeswoman for the Toms Creek Basin Vision Group Legal Fund, a citizens group that opposes the sewer. "We didn't want to sue. None of us did. But it seems to be the only pathway left."
Town Manager Gary Huff declined to comment on the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon, saying he had not had time to review it.
Debate about building a sewer through the Toms Creek Basin, the town's least developed area, has surfaced periodically for 30 years. But in the past year as the council set aside various alternative sewer plans, the issue became especially polarizing, sparking outcry at town meetings and seeming likely to play a pivotal role in next month's council elections.
Bailey said that while challenges to bond issues are rare in Virginia, he thought the town council left itself vulnerable when it took the unusual step of setting aside Blacksburg's charter to finance the sewer. The charter requires that five of the seven council members approve any measure to incur debt. But with only a 4-3 majority supporting the sewer, four council members voted to issue bonds under the authority of the Virginia Public Finance Act, which requires only a majority vote.
The council then voted to amend its budget to include money from the bonds, again with a 4-3 vote. Later, a 4-3 vote gave a blanket authorization to condemn property to gain the easements needed for the work. Last fall, in another 4-3 vote, the council approved amending Blacksburg's comprehensive plan to clear the way for a conventional, gravity-fed sewer through the Toms Creek Basin.
The sewer opponents argue that there were a number of problems with this process.
While the lawsuit contains eight counts, they fall into two general areas, Bailey said. First, the bond issue itself improperly mixed general obligation and revenue bonds, categories that state law defines for different purposes, the lawsuit charges. And though the bond issue was to pay for the first phase of a larger project, the public notice for the bond issue did not mention the overall projected cost of the sewer, a figure that the town sets at $10.8 million and that opponents predict will be at least $16 million. This should have been included, Bailey said, so residents would have a better idea what sort of debt the town council was planning.
The second area addressed by the lawsuit is the budget, condemnation and comprehensive plan votes that occurred before and after the bond vote. They all involved incurring debt, but none had the five-vote approval set in the charter, and none fell under state authorization to disregard the charter, Bailey said.
Cooper and Rogol's lawsuit asks the court to declare invalid the bond issue "and any and all votes which commit the town to budget amendments, future debts or taxation without a 5-2 vote."
