Gateway School District pushes back in legal battle with Monroeville over stormwater sewage fee

Gateway’s school board president issued a strong statement Tuesday in response to comments made by Monroeville Council last week about its lawsuit over a rain fee.

“The attack on the tax payers and the religious institutions in this community are coming from the council and the council alone and they are now trying to use the district as the scapegoat for this poorly planned and illegally written ordinance,” said Mary Beth Cirucci before the school board’s meeting began.

During its Sept. 8 meeting, Monroeville Council voted 4-2 in favor of eliminating a 25% discount offered to houses of worship to help offset the municipality’s fee that has been established to maintain Monroeville’s stormwater sewer system. Also known as MS4, the system works to keep sewage out of waterways during heavy rainfall.

The move essentially put Monroeville’s houses of worship in the middle of a legal battle that will eventually determine if Gateway is required to pay the annual MS4 fee.

The MS4 program was established in Monroeville in October 2018. As a result, property owners, including houses of worship and other nonprofits, received bills for the fee – money that would pay for the municipality’s steep costs in maintaining and repairing aging storm sewer systems. Municipal officials said the program would raise $3.2 million a year to be used on flood reduction projects.

The reason houses of worship came up is tricky to understand. Simply put, Monroeville solicitor Bob Wratcher responded to Gateway’s initial complaint in December. In his response, he argued Monroeville’s defense: the MS4 fee is a fee, not a tax – requiring it to be imposed uniformly to all property owners.

When Wratcher made that argument, Gateway’s solicitor in the case, Chelsea Dice, refuted it by pointing out that Monroeville does not, in fact, apply the fee uniformly because of the 25% discount offered to religious institutions and parochial schools.

And before council’s Sept. 8 vote, Mayor Nick Gresock approached Cirucci, asking her to consider removing Dice’s above argument from its legal filing. Cirucci refused, saying Dice’s argument strengthens Gateway’s position in the legal battle.

Cirucci said council’s stance is out of line and misleading.

“The true disaster is that the municipality imposed an illegal fee on the Gateway School District, while acting in a discriminatory manner against the district, and then they have the gall to blame the district for calling them out on it. This board is committed to protecting taxpayers. It’s high time council shows the same commitment,” Cirucci said.

Gresock was not immediately available to comment.

Court records do not show a hearing date for the case.