BURLINGTON — A judge is now considering the case of a Boone County landowner and his wife who are trying to keep a Northern Kentucky utility from taking part of his family farm for a sewage-treatment plant.

        Donald Stites, a 72-year-old retired Procter & Gamble employee, and his wife, Marian, have fought Sanitation District No.1 of Fort Wright since 1999 over condemnation of a 147-acre portion in the center of the Stites' 500-acre farm on Ky. 20.

        Testimony ended Thursday after about an hour. Boone Circuit Judge Joseph “Jay” Bamberger did not say when he would issue his ruling.

        “I think the Sanitation District is obviously essential to the public health of Northern Kentucky,” said Gerald Dusing, an attorney representing the district. “(Condemnation) has only been used as a last resort.”

        The Stiteses live in Wyoming. Their Boone County property is about 26 miles south of downtown Cincinnati and nine miles southwest of Interstate 275.

        “We're maintaining (that the case) affects all ratepayers in Northern Kentucky,” Mr. Stites said. The proposed plant “will interfere with the coastline from Petersburg to Rabbit Hash. It violates the (Boone County) comprehensive plan.”

        In a 46-page motion for dismissal, Stites' attorney, Robert Manley, wrote that the case should be dismissed in part because the Sanitation District ignored mandatory procedural requirements to “ramrod its desired location of a sewage plant through.”

        “Sanitation District No.1 has pledged large sums of money to this location despite the fact that numerous mandatory prerequisites to the location had not yet been complied with,” the document stated. “This act in and of itself is an abuse of discretion and represents arbitrary action which merits a denial of the right to take (property) in this matter.”

        Not so, said Richard Kennedy, chairman of the Sanitation District board of directors.

        “We crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's,” Mr. Kennedy said.

        Boone County Deputy Administrator John Stanton was the final witness. In direct examination by Mr. Dusing, one of two attorneys representing the Sanitation District, Mr. Stanton said an environmental review conducted by Northern Kentucky University convinced county officials there were no potential pollution problems at the Stites property.

        “I think there was a comfort level with the environmental review,” Mr. Stanton said.

        On cross examination, Cincinnati attorney Todd McMurtry, who also represents the Stiteses, pointed out that the NKU report does not specifically address the Stites farm.

        Neither the Sanitation District nor the Stiteses can discuss the monetary offers made before condemnation proceedings began because both parties signed a confidentiality agreement.

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