TOLEDO, Ohio — The city will move forward with a plan to get back nearly a million dollars of your taxpayer money.
On Tuesday, Toledo City Council voted to approve a lawsuit in the Summit Street project.
Now, the company involved is asking the courts to drop the city's lawsuit.
With this vote, city council unanimously supported the effort to get back any money it spent moving utility lines as part of the Summit Street project.
Council also voted to spend another $75,000 to hire someone other than law director Dale Emch to handle the legal fight.
"There's a question in a lot of people's minds, not just on council, but in the public that how close are folks to this entire situation that may be in the law department, that may be in administration," Councilman Rob Ludeman said.
This all centers around construction on Summit Street.
The city agreed to pay to move fiber-optic lines belonging to Buckeye Broadband owned by Block Communications.
Now the city is suing Block Communications to reimburse it for the $973,000 it spent.
Buckeye Broadband's parent company says it shouldn't have to pay the city administration, council and the lawsuit argue they should.
"Are we on the same page? Yes, but I think council was really at the forefront of making this happen," Ludeman said.
The main argument centers around whether the road project is an aesthetic fix or a reconstruction.
If purely for looks Buckeye would not be required to pay for utilities to be moved an argument BCI's lawyers made in today's motion to dismiss the lawsuit saying: "Though the City's Complaint fails to mention it, City Law Director Dale Emch issued a legal decision that Buckeye was not required to pay for the relocation, because the project was for aesthetic purposes."
WTOL 11 obtained an email where Emch makes that argument and that's part of the reason city council put forth money today to have another law firm handle the case as opposed to the city law department, which Emch leads.
"City administration hasn't signaled that they are going to be forceful about it, they made a policy decision last summer without coming to council, then they changed the tone," Komives said.
In a statement today, Block Communications says the city agreed to and did pay for the work and can't change its mind and turn back the clock a year later.
So, what's next? The judge will determine whether to dismiss the lawsuit and if not, the city and Buckeye head to court.