The legal battle between St. Joseph Township and Lincoln Township over the use of the Maiden Lane sewer line remains at a standstill, but there could be movement as soon as Thursday.
St. Joseph Township last week issued a statement saying the most recent settlement offer from Lincoln Township over maintenance of the sewer line doesn’t satisfy the need. Then on Tuesday of this week, Lincoln Township Trustees were asked about the status of the situation during the public comment section of their regular meeting. A resident said she’s concerned about the legal costs of the year-long fight. Township Supervisor Glenn Youngstedt said, “We are, too.”
The township board met again Wednesday morning, in a closed session, to discuss its next steps. Following the meeting, Youngstedt told us the board will issue a statement Thursday. We’ll be watching for that statement.
The dispute over the Maiden Lane sewer line goes back to 2023, when St. Joseph Township moved to terminate a 50-year-old agreement that allows Lincoln Township to use the sewer line owned by St. Joseph Township, free of charge. Negotiations over maintenance of the line then began, but have so far resulted in no new agreement.
When a resident told the Lincoln Township Board Tuesday night that she hopes there will be a resolution, Youngstedt replied, “You and me both.”
St. Joseph Township Manager Denise Cook has sent us a statement from an attorney on behalf of the township. You can read it below:
“St. Joseph Charter Township’s Board held a special meeting on Monday March 3rd to discuss the ongoing dispute with Lincoln Charter Township regarding the Maiden Lane Sewer Line and review the most recent proposal from Lincoln Charter Township.
Since St. Joseph Charter Township established the Maiden Lane Sewer in the 1970s, Lincoln Township has contributed an increasing amount of sewage into the line and through St. Joseph Township’s downstream sewer system infrastructure without paying anything for the administrative, operational, or maintenance costs associated with their sewage flow. It is an inherently unfair situation. Users in Lincoln Township are contributing a substantial and increasing percentage of the sewage flowing through the Maiden Lane Sewer and St. Joseph Charter Township and its sewer customers have carried 100% of the burden for operating and maintaining the sewer line and transporting Lincon’s discharges downstream through its sewer system continuously since 1974. Lincon has not paid us a dime. Meanwhile, Lincoln continues to enrich itself by billing its own customers connected to the Maiden Lane Sewer (at substantially higher rates than what St. Joseph charges its customers) and pocketing the money. That is why last spring, St. Joseph Charter Township filed a lawsuit against Lincoln Township for breach of contract, unjust enrichment and declaratory relief to get a court to weigh in and force Lincoln to pay its fair share.’
In November, the townships participated in facilitative mediation and came out of that process with a framework for a settlement which was memorialized in a term sheet. Among other things, the term sheet included a lump sum payment from Lincon Township to St. Joseph Township, and specific monthly payment amounts that Lincoln Township would pay St. Joseph Township for operation, maintenance and infiltration costs attributable to Lincoln’s use of the Maiden Lane Sewer moving forward for the next 30 years.
For its part, St. Joseph Township approved the term sheet as agreed to at mediation and conveyed that approval to Lincoln. Weeks later, in early January, Lincoln reneged on the term sheet and responded with a completely new and substantially different proposal. In its new proposal, Lincoln drastically reduced the lump sum payment agreed to at mediation and further cut the monthly operation, maintenance and
infiltration payments to St. Joseph Township by 40% from what was discussed and agreed to at mediation.St. Joseph Township’s Board met in closed session on January 20th and discussed Lincoln’s new proposal. Our Board has been very discouraged that Lincoln continues to change the deal from what the parties agreed to in principle at the meditation back in November. Ultimately, we approved two alternative counter proposals that tried to find a middle ground and address Lincoln’s concerns. We followed up on our two alternative proposals with a detailed clarification of the underlying analysis and data supporting the dollar values in each proposal in response to questions from Lincoln.
Unfortunately, Lincoln essentially ignored our counterproposals and came back last week with virtually the exact same settlement proposal it made in early January with no explanation whatsoever.
At our special meeting this past Monday, our Board decided to re-convey the two alternative proposal options provided to Lincoln in late January in the hope that Lincoln will accept one of them or at least provide a good faith rational basis and data to support the reduced dollar values in its re-stated offer. While Lincoln has expressed a desire to reach a settlement and has conveyed that they believe we are “close to a deal,” Lincoln’s most recent “settlement offer” is inconsistent with those sentiments and suggests to us that Lincoln is not serious about trying to resolve this dispute at all. We hope that is not the case, but St. Joseph Charter Township is tired of carrying the full burden of maintaining the Maiden Lane Sewer. St. Joseph Charter Township is seeking fairness for all customers of the Maiden Lane sewer and believe that this dispute should and can be resolved. However, the Township is prepared to move this forward through the litigation process to get a fair and just result from the Court if we must.”
