RUSS continues legal action against Mt. Union

BY BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

Legal skirmishes between the Regional Utility Service Systems (RUSS) and the City of Mt. Union are continuing.

The matter began several years ago when some Mt. Union residents refused to pay their sanitary sewer bills to RUSS after the utility service system installed a new sewage system in the Henry County community.

RUSS Executive Director Bruce Hudson told the RUSS board during its regular meeting Wednesday that the two sides had a court date about a month ago after RUSS filed a lawsuit against the community, attempting to recoup some of the delinquent fees. Last year, RUSS won a garnishment of city funds in a similar lawsuit.

?No one from Mt. Union, not even its attorney, showed up,? Hudson told the board, ?so, in essence, we won the case.?

Mt. Union was given 10 days to file a quash order, which it did ? on the 10th day. ?Since they filed the quash order, who knows what will happen next,? Hudson said.

RUSS also learned that it would have to revise and resubmit its preliminary engineering report for the Mooar-Powdertown sewage system project. The reason given for refusal of the report was that new guidelines, established by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), were not followed. The news was not kindly received.

?I am very, very disappointed in the USDA,? Hudson said. ?We didn?t know about the new guidelines, we weren?t even told about them.?

RUSS spent $14,000 to have the report compiled.

?We do this for small communities who need to save money in constructing a sewer system,? Hudson continued. ?I am completely baffled. We were told these guidelines were implemented on July 1, 2015, but nobody let us know. I am definitely not happy. We basically threw a $14,000 report in the trash.?

He said a new revised report would cost between $5,000 and $10,000. RUSS board members asked Hudson to set up a meeting between RUSS, USDA Rural Development and the engineer to come up with a solution.

In other business, Hudson said he is continuing his attempts to collect delinquent accounts in several communities. RUSS? procedure is sending delinquent customers a note, offering to work with them on a payment plan before taking the matter to small-claims court.

Currently, Hudson is working with customers in Kinross and said he doesn?t know which community he will target next. ?I just know we can?t continue to do this for the next two years,? he remarked.

Finally, Hudson said the Ollie sanitation system project is about 99 percent completed and should be done in the next two months.

RUSS directors meet again in regular session Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 1 p.m., in the Henry County Emergency Management Building, located in Mt. Pleasant.