Maumee City Council has repealed a widely condemned ordinance that required sewer inspections before homes were sold.
At a special meeting Wednesday, council voted unanimously to repeal the ordinance.
Mayor Jim MacDonald recommended the repeal to council.
“We tried to tackle the problem the best we could,” the Maumee mayor said. “We thought that was the best course of action. Our residents obviously did not.”
Mayor MacDonald said this will be a reset, and new ideas are needed.
“The problem is still monumental and it still exists,” he said. “We are going to have to come up with a solution.”
No public comment was allowed. The meeting was immediately adjourned amid shouts of “recall.”
After the meeting, Councilman Jon Fiscus said people have clearly made their feelings known about the ordinance.
“It’s the right thing to do to take a step back, think things over, and get some more input,” he said.
Valerie Giovannucci, Midfield Drive, said she moved to the city in 2004 to put her daughter in a good school district. Now 67 years old, she’s considering her future and selling her house. She doesn’t think her home, which was built in the 1950s, would pass an inspection.
“I’m a senior on disability and I cannot afford any big expense like this,” she said before the special meeting started.
A new sewer inspection ordinance had been on the initial council agenda. It had provided a grant fund. There was no vote or first reading on that.
Ms. Giovannucci said she does not trust any future legislation coming from council.
“It’s an old magic trick, sleight of hand,” she said of a new ordinance. “I don’t have any trust in that whatsoever.”
Brad Reynolds, a Realtor in Maumee, said all council members should be booted out of office after this debacle.
The new ordinance, he said, is full of fees and fines and will be no better than the one that was repealed.
Vicki Richardson, Colwell Street, said the ordinance needed to be repealed.
“I’m glad they’re doing something,” she said. “I don’t have that kind of money.”
Before voting, council went into a 45-minute executive session to address pending or threatened litigation.
City officials in the last few weeks have been talking about repealing the ordinance, amid extreme levels of public disapproval that have resulted in numerous city and citizen-led meetings, city spokesman Nancy Gagnet said Tuesday.
Some people trying to sell homes and getting inspections found more than $30,000 worth of sewer work was needed to comply.
Citizens gathered more than 1,000 signatures last week to try to get the issue on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The city’s law director, Alan Lehenbauer, said the signatures would be turned into the Lucas County Board of Elections, which would have to decide how to proceed with an ordinance that is no longer on the books.
“We’ll do what we have to do,” added Mayor MacDonald when asked about the citizens’ initiative. “We’ll meet those requirements.”
He was asked how long the city could go without an ordinance to clean up illicit connections in residences. In a 105-page required Sewer System Evaluation Study submitted to the Ohio EPA this month, the city laid out a 20-year plan to bring its sewers into compliance.
It named private properties as the root cause of overflows that have overwhelmed the sewer system, resulting in raw-sewage discharges into the Maumee River.
The total cost of bringing the city’s sewer system into compliance has been previously estimated at $150 million — a figure that does not include repair or replacement of sewer laterals located on private property.
“It’s a monumental task,” Mayor MacDonald said. “We’ll have to come up with a definite plan moving forward. We just want to give our residents a chance to weigh in. We’ll see how that goes in the next couple months before we come up with a revised plan that they can live with.”
The city will continue holding community roundtable discussions on its sewer issues.
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