Unity Township Municipal Authority this week filed two civil suits in Westmoreland County — protesting in one of them how an appointee was chosen to represent the township authority on the board of the Latrobe Municipal Authority.

In the other suit, the Unity authority (UTMA) is challenging the 199-year length of a 1973 service agreement it entered into for construction and maintenance of a system needed for Latrobe Municipal Authority (LMA) to treat sewage generated in the township.

Communities that have sewage treated by LMA — Latrobe, Youngstown, Unity and Derry Township — and the Derry Township Municipal Authority were parties to the 1973 agreement and are named as defendants, along with LMA, in both suits.

Represented by attorneys Romel Nicholas and Timothy Appelbe, UTMA argues in its suit that LMA lacked the authority in 1973 to enter into an agreement extending beyond its existence — which, at the time, was set to expire on Jan. 1, 2010.

UTMA also maintains that the 199-year term is “violative of public policy since it binds the plaintiff and the other tributary communities to terms and provisions that are outdated and irrelevant to the current conditions and dealings among the parties…”

More recently, the parties have become subject to a state consent order regarding their combined efforts to alleviate conditions, such as storm water infiltration, that could cause an excess of waste water to bypass the Latrobe treatment plant.

UTMA said it has proposed a reduction in the term of the 1973 agreement but Latrobe and LMA have refused to consider it.

“At this early stage, I am unable to respond to the allegations asserted by the UTMA,” LMA Solicitor Lee Demosky said, noting Tuesday afternoon that the township had yet to be served with the lawsuits.

Latrobe Solicitor John Greiner said the city, over the last several months, “has made different proposals to try and resolve the issues, and the proposals have been rejected. It’s unfortunate that we can’t come to an agreement and this has to resort to litigation, which will affect all of the municipalities involved and their budgets.”

In a news release, UTMA said it supports extending the term of the 1973 agreement to cover the term of any bond issues to which the participating communities have agreed. The suit proposes terminating the agreement in 2037, when LMA is scheduled to make the final payment on its outstanding bond obligations.

In the second suit, UTMA argues that Latrobe’s city council violated an oral agreement with UTMA by recently appointing Neal Fenton as the Unity representative on the LMA board — disregarding objections by Unity Township and UTMA, which submitted other names to be considered for the appointment. The alternate names included Paul Upson, who was a UTMA board member at the time, and Mike O’Barto, who continues to serve on the UTMA panel and who also is a township supervisor.

Up until then, according to the suit, appointees to the LMA board matched the names recommended by UTMA, through Unity Township.

UTMA cites testimony by LMA’s legal counsel, in a 1976 Commonwealth Court hearing, indicating that the appointee “would be a resident of Unity Township and would have been by name suggested by the representatives of Unity Township.”

O’Barto said the objection is to the way Fenton was appointed to LMA, not to Fenton himself. O’Barto and fellow Unity supervisors earlier this year appointed Fenton to the UTMA board, to fill a vacancy created by Upson’s resignation.

Greiner said Latrobe, as the incorporating municipality, is empowered to appoint members of the LMA board.

“They have, in many instances, appointed persons who have been requested by another municipality,” he said, “but there have been some instances where they have not appointed that municipality’s first choice, and there has never been a legal challenge to that when it has happened.”

UTMA indicated it filed the civil suits after more than a year of discussions failed to achieve an agreement among the parties.

“It is unfortunate that we could not gain alignment amongst the communities without resorting to legal action,” UTMA Chairman Tom Couch said in a prepared statement. “However, the UTMA board strongly believes that ensuring Unity Township’s recommendations for LMA board representation be respected in order to protect the Unity Township Municipal customers.

“UTMA represents over a third of the customers treated by LMA, while our representation on the board is only one of the seven board members.”

UTMA noted that “one of the benefits of the legal complaint process is to provide an independent third party to ensure all parties participate, a time line is set and met, and that parties must clearly state their position going into the action.”

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