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Law360 (November 18, 2020, 6:08 PM EST) -- The small Pennsylvania city of Clairton needs a do-over on its vote to sell its sewer system after most residents could access the city council meeting where the issue was decided only through a pay-per-minute teleconference line, according to a lawsuit the sewer authority and two Clairton residents filed in state court.
The Clairton Municipal Authority, along with residents James Cerqua and Doug Ozvath, said the Nov. 10 council meeting included agenda items on dissolving the authority, conveying the water and sewer infrastructure to the city and hiring an outside firm to evaluate the city's options for selling the system off. But the city's pandemic protocols meant only 16 people could attend the meeting in person, and any other participants had to use a pay-per-minute conference call line that made it difficult to follow the discussion, Monday's complaint said.
The pay-to-participate setup violated Pennsylvania's Sunshine Act, which governs how open, public government meetings must be conducted in the state, the plaintiffs said. They are seeking a declaratory judgment from the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas that the law was violated, a do-over on the votes with all the public participating, and an injunction blocking the implementation of the council's earlier vote until the meeting is conducted correctly.
"Defendant violated the Sunshine Act in mandating that anyone who was not permitted to attend the council meeting live [had to dial] into a conference call line which required a fee, to listen, participate, or speak at the council meeting," the complaint said. "Simply put, the Sunshine Act does not permit any agency to charge residents to attend a public meeting."
State legislators had passed Act 15 in April 2020 modifying a number of rules for local government operations in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, including allowing municipalities to set up alternatives to attending government meetings in person, the complaint said. To maintain social distancing at its council meetings, Clairton, poplulation 6,500, made tickets available for up to 16 people to attend the meetings in person, the suit said. All others had to call in.
But the system used at the meeting required at least some participants to pay by the minute, according to the complaint. It was also such a poor connection that some people on the line could not hear the council's deliberations, which continued despite the participants trying to bring the problem to the council's attention, the suit said.
"Providing an alternative means that did not provide the public at large a sufficient — let alone complete and full — ability to hear the ordinance being presented and/or any public comments or deliberations goes directly against the entire purpose of the Sunshine Act," the complaint said. "It would be akin to the members of an agency meeting in public but then having the public not be able to hear the discussions and/or deliberations of agency business."
The suit said it wasn't asking the court to declare the council's passage of the resolution invalid, just to order a redo of the vote with a fuller opportunity for the public to participate. An injunction blocking implementation of the ordinance was necessary to prevent the authority from being dissolved before the lawsuit was resolved and the vote redone, the complaint said.
Clairton and its authority had been embroiled in another lawsuit with some neighboring communities over agreements to share the authority's treatment facilities and the financing of an expansion of the facilities to reduce sewage overflows. The authority asked for an injunction in that other case earlier in November seeking to block the ordinance dissolving it.
"The city is taking actions with respect to the Clairton Municipal Authority fully permitted under the Municipal Authorities Act, and these allegations are believed to be a distraction to those efforts," said Nicholas Poduslenko of Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP, representing the city.
Counsel for the authority said the plaintiffs strongly believed the Sunshine Act had been violated.
Cerqua, Ozvath and the Clairton Municipal Authority are represented by Gary J. Matta and Joseph R. Dalfonso of Dodaro Matta & Cambest PC.
The City of Clairton is represented by Nicholas Poduslenko of Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP.
The case is Clairton Municipal Authority et al. v. City of Clairton, case number GD-20-011761, in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
--Editing by Jill Coffey.
Update: This article has been updated with a statement and counsel information for the City of Clairton.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
