Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Blacksburg council faces new lawsuit seeking sewer service
Attorney Christopher Tuck said he will take the case to the Virginia Supreme Court if necessary.
Late last month, the Givens family filed an appeal of council's rejection of the Northside planned housing development. Tuesday, an attorney used the public comment period to serve a lawsuit on council members. Attorney Christopher Tuck filed a writ of mandamus with the Montgomery County Circuit Court on Tuesday on behalf of his elderly aunt and uncle, Robert and Geneva Davis, who own 30 acres of farmland in the Toms Creek Basin. The Davises are asking the court to require the council to offer sewer service in the basin.
"We don't want any money, and there are no developers involved. ... We just want council to fulfill its promise," Tuck said.
The lawsuit cites the 1970 annexation decree that transferred 15 square miles of the Toms Creek Basin from Montgomery County to the town. That annexation also required that the town build a sewer system in the basin within three years.
Council tried last year to build a sewer trunk line through the basin, but residents voted out pro-sewer candidates in May, effectively killing that plan. That was one of the reasons Tuck said he filed the lawsuit.
Neither Robert nor Geneva Davis could be reached for comment Tuesday.
George Allen has farmed in the basin for 37 years. He said he doesn't want to develop his land, but he wants the sewer for health and safety reasons.
"Every time it rains ... these old septic systems seep into the creek and make a mess. It's a real problem, and it's [the sewer] been needed for years," he said.
"It struck me in listening to this lawyer ... even the court costs of bringing such a case to court would be enough money to pay them [the Davises] to move their drainage field out of the flood plain. I just can't understand it," said Mary Houska, a longtime resident of the basin who opposed the trunk line.
The Davises are not the first to consider such a lawsuit against the town. In the early 1980s, a group of farmers living in the basin threatened to file a de-annexation suit over lack of sewer service, but that effort faded away.
Council passed an ordinance in 1985 that officials have said relieves the town of any responsibility for providing sewer service for future developments in the basin.
Mayor Roger Hedgepeth said after the meeting that he wasn't expecting the lawsuit, but he wasn't surprised.
"The people who live out there and own the bulk of the land" have over the years asked for sewer service, Hedgepeth said.
Tuck said he would take the lawsuit to the Virginia Supreme Court if necessary.
