Highland Park appeals water bill ruling

The city of Highland Park has asked the state Appeals Court to reconsider its Nov. 15 decision to clear the way for Metro Detroit’s regional water authority to collect more than $19 million in unpaid water bills from the city.

The city’s attorneys, William Ford and Calvin Grigsby, said Monday they filed their motion Nov. 30 asking the Michigan Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision that allowed payment to the water authority.

The court is scheduled to issue its response Dec. 14, according to its website docket.

City officials said they would ask the court to rethink its ruling to allow the Great Lakes Water Authority to collect the debt. The authority is a spinoff from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department that provides water and waste water services to 127 municipalities in seven southeast Michigan counties.

In April 2015, a judge ruled the city had to pay the water utility and Highland Park officials appealed his decision.

Ford and Grigsby said in a statement that the motion was based on the court’s failure to rule on the primary issue in the case — whether the Headlee Amendment to the state’s constitution bars the imposition of ad valorem taxes for delinquent sewer fees and charges.

“The motion argues sewer fees and charges, even under the guise of a court judgment, must be allocated in proportion to use — not in proportion to property values,” they said.

In their Nov. 15 ruling, the Appeals judges said: “If this Court were to accept Highland Park’s interpretation of the federal statute, the city of Detroit would be left with no avenue by which to enforce its judgment and Highland Park would be relieved of its obligations.”

At the time of the ruling, water authority officials praised the judges’ decision.

“We are pleased with the court’s ruling, and ready to move in our efforts to collect the debt owed, helping relieve our current, paying customer communities of this financial burden,” said William Wolfson, general counsel of the Great Lakes Water Authority, in a statement. “While litigation is always a method of last resort, after repeatedly attempting to work in good faith with Highland Park to focus on and to resolve its debt, this ruling affirms our legal position.”

Highland Park, a city of 11,000 residents landlocked by Detroit, has struggled with its finances and been in arrears on its water bills for years.

cramirez@detroitnews.com