Legal advice on threatened lawsuit to be offered

The policy board for the Joint Regional Sewer Authority is scheduled Monday to exercise its right to take up a threatened lawsuit behind closed doors.  The court action, on behalf of Seneca, should it come to be, would pit the county’s largest user of the system against the two smaller ones.  According to Monday afternoon’s meeting agenda, the purpose for the executive session is “Receive legal advice regarding threatened litigation by the city of Seneca against the OJRSA, the City of Walhalla, and the City of Westminster.”  A recent letter from a Seneca attorney put the others on notice that, short of action to re-align the board giving Seneca greater say in the business of wastewater treatment, the city would seek a court ruling that the others have breached the voting provisions laid out in inter-municipal agreements in 2007.  Lane Davis, the Seneca attorney, has called attention to the provision that “At no time shall representation of the cities collectively be less percentage-wise as they bear to the whole.”  And, in Seneca’s case, that city is the largest wastewater treatment customer and pays 68% of the overall bills.  Earlier on Monday’s agenda, there’s a proposal to authorize the JRSA attorney and its bond counsel to research and give their opinion regarding board re-alignment, including what actions would be necessary to change board make-up.