www.starbeacon.com/news/local_news/faire-litigation-costs-spark-argument-in-trumbull-township/article_b7492a04-8f06-5f33-b630-c1aca56fe05f.htmlTRUMBULL TOWNSHIP — Tempers flared during a three-hour township meeting Tuesday.
A heated argument between township officials and fire personnel over the amount of trustees' legal expenses in the ongoing Great Lakes Medieval Faire litigation — some of which was paid with fire levy funds — led fire Chief Larry Morse to attempt to resign.
"When are we going to get new equipment? Because this (expletive) is falling apart," Morse said. "You're responsible for adequate fire protection and when that equipment starts failing and starts putting people's lives on the line, that is not adequate.
"You think I like it when I go up on (state routes) 534 and 6 and the (vehicle) lights go out? It's pitch black."
According to township financial records, trustees have spent more than $350,000 on costs related to the legal dispute with the Faire, which began in 2008 after trustees and the state Attorney General argued Faire owner Larry Rickard misappropriated charity funds intended for the fire department to pay mortgages on Faire property.
Close to $48,000 of that came from the fire department's budget according to the township's records — with about $10,400 this year alone — but Morse put that figure closer to $61,000 on Tuesday. He questioned why that money couldn't go toward replacing some of the department's aging vehicles.
Trustee Ron Tamburrino said the township placed two fire equipment levies up for a vote, and voters denied both. When the township contracted with Northwest Ambulance District in 2008, a 3.5-mill levy that had gone to the fire department was essentially shifted to the new service.
The township fire department now operates on about $22,000 per year, Morse said.
When the argument reached a fever pitch, Morse suggested shutting down the volunteer fire department for lack of support from trustees, and trustee Willis Clay motioned to immediately terminate him.
The motion died without a second, and Morse currently remains in the role. He told the Star Beacon following the meeting he would step down — fed up with trustees' management — if trustees passed a motion releasing him, but will stay on for now.
Morse said a similar argument during a trustees meeting early last month turned ugly, and he quit and walked out of the meeting. He said the department's volunteers decided to follow his lead, leading to rumors Trumbull Township was without fire protection.
Morse said he and the trustees later smoothed things over, and he decided to stay with the department, requesting a condition that trustees leave revenues from the township's 1-mill fire levy alone.
During Tuesday's meeting, former assistant fire chief John Berlinski questioned the $350,000 figure, as well as the township's decision to assume about $230,000 in mortgages for two Faire properties, on which trustees conceded earlier this month Rickard likely won't pay.
"How much more money are we going to spend on this?" Berlinski said. "It sounds like we're not going to get anything out of it, period.
"When are we going to say 'enough is enough?'"
"Not today," Tamburrino said.
Trustees said a last resort would be foreclosure and a sheriff's auction, but Berlinski countered that won't return nearly the amount the properties are worth. He argued the township would be in a better financial position if it didn't chase after the misspent funds at all.
"We're protecting the public trust," Tamburrino said. "The primary reason the taxpayers are in the better position today than they were before ... is because everyone knows now if you attempt to misappropriate assets from the township, the township trustees will protect the interests of the taxpayers."
Tamburrino recapped the years of proceedings in the Great Lakes Medieval Faire battle, citing tacked on costs due to misconduct on behalf of Rickard and his attorneys in the last six years.
Rickard reportedly swapped attorneys at the most inopportune times, filed for bankruptcy in his home state of Florida — the township hired a Florida attorney to stop him — and stopped paying mortgages entirely, to push his Faire properties into foreclosure and remove any opportunity for relief to the township.
"At every turn, we looked at the case and we looked at what we had spent and we looked at what was reasonable to spend," Tamburrino said, adding that the county prosecutor's office and the state Attorney General also recommended the township stay in the fight.
"Every time we got to the next stage, there was a further delay."
Though a county Common Pleas Court judge ruled in 2014 Rickard was liable for all the claims made in the case — Tamburrino estimated past damages at about $560,000 — the court’s final judgment tossed out Trumbull Township’s claims and only acknowledged a third of what the AG’s office sought, Tamburrino said earlier this month.
The township is appealing the decision.
