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The Greenwood Board of Alderman deserted...
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The Greenwood Board of Alderman deserted Greenwood Citizens
July 1, 2010
After a long, hard fought legal battle with the Hunt-Martin rock quarry south of Greenwood, the new Mayor and Board of Aldermen suddenly decided to surrender just two days from winning the state jury award with accumulated interest, or about 14 million dollars. The attorney for Martin Marietta Materials flew in to make the deal with the inexperienced BOA. The result of the settlement was to allow big gravel trucks to resume using the residential street for a haul road. All of the lawsuits and appeals were dropped before the appeals cases had been decided. The United States Supreme Court had decided not to hear the quarry’s appeal of the state case which the city had won in state court, in the state appeals court, and the Missouri Supreme Court. Martin Marietta Materials had appealed that case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The settlement was made just two days before the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision not to hear the MMM appeal and; therefore, upholding the state jury decisions.
As part of the settlement with the quarry, the BOA agreed that the city would maintain the road which quarry trucks have damaged through decades. The Mayor has refused to impose a fee or tax on the quarry trucks to pay for repairs to 2nd. Avenue. Heavy trucks have done all of the damage to 2nd. Avenue that have occurred through the years. This was damage that ordinary traffic could never have done to that road.
The settlement agreement paid 4 million dollars to the attorneys who had represented the city in all of the legal battles. The previous BOA had signed an agreement for a flat fee to insure that the attorneys would represent the city in all future quarry related cases. The city will get 3 million dollars from the settlement. Had the board not rushed into that agreement, the city would have received approximately 14 million dollars from which it would have paid the attorneys’ fees. The state of Missouri would have been paid, 3.5 million from part of the punitive damages award. Greenwood would have had 5.5 million dollars from the law suit with 2 million of that set aside in the event that the federal case was upheld in the federal appeals court. In the worst case, if the federal case was upheld, the city would have realized 3.5 million from the jury award.
The worst part of this settlement is that it totally overturned the jury decision. The work of the jury and their efforts to end the nuisance for Greenwood residents was thrown out with the new settlement. Now, residents on 2nd Avenue will have to live with diesel fumes, the dust and the noise of big trucks running back and forth on their street. They were sacrificed by a Mayor and BOA whose job it is to protect the citizens of this town.
Gene W. DeVaux
Greenwood, MO
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