Opinion ID: 2265565
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Public Sewer Usage Limitations Ordinance

Text: The Superior Court in granting plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment ruled that the Sewer Usage Limitations Ordinance was an invalid exercise of municipal regulation in violation of the Home Rule provisions of 30 M.R.S.A. § 1917 (1978) and also found that the ordinance violated plaintiffs' due process rights. We hold that the Superior Court erred in both rulings. We find no violation of the Home Rule Statute in the Town's action in imposing future limitations on sewer usage within Ogunquit. On the due process issue, we find that a genuine issue of material fact existed, thus preventing a declaration as a matter of law that the ordinance was unconstitutional. Initially, we note that it is well established that whether a public utility is stockholder-owned or, as Ogunquit Sewer District, is publicly owned, it is subject to the exercise of police power by the State and its political subdivisions. See Central Maine Power Co. v. Waterville Urban Renewal Authority, 281 A.2d 233 (Me.1971) (undergrounding of facilities required of a stockholder-owned public utility); Brunswick and Topsham Water District v. W.H. Hinman Co., Inc., 153 Me. 173, 136 A.2d 722 (1957) (relocation of mains and pipes required of public utility created by the legislature); Hampton Roads Sanitation District Commission v. City of Chesapeake, 218 Va. 696, 240 S.E.2d 819 (1978) (relocation of sewer mains required of public utility created by the legislature). However, a town's exercise of the State's police powers is not unlimited. A municipality has the right to use those powers only as authorized by Maine's Home Rule Law, 30 M.R.S.A. § 1917. By that law, municipalities may exercise only a power or function which the legislature has power to confer upon it, which is not denied either expressly or by clear implication. (Emphasis added) Id. [4] Our analysis in each case must focus on the enactments of the legislature in the area that the municipality is undertaking to regulate. If the legislature intended to create a comprehensive and exclusive regulatory scheme, then the municipal ordinance must fail as a violation of the Home Rule statute. See, e.g., Ullis v. Town of Boothbay Harbor, 459 A.2d 153 (Me.1983); Schwanda v. Bonney, 418 A.2d 163 (Me.1980). In the case at bar we are faced with the question whether the legislature in chartering the Ogunquit Sewer District, P. & S.L.1963, ch. 87, expressly or implicitly limited the Town's power to control its growth and development by forbidding the Town from regulating in any way future sewage disposal. See Begin v. Town of Sabattus, 409 A.2d at 1275. We find that nothing in the sewer district's charter prohibits the Town from restricting future access to the sewer system as a legitimate regulation of a public utility and as one tool in the Town's efforts to control its growth and development. Ogunquit's sewer district charter provides that the purpose of [the] district ... shall be to take over, control, operate and manage [Ogunquit's] sewer system.... P. & S.L.1963, ch. 87, § 1. Every building within the district ... within 150 feet of a public sewer, shall ... be connected with the sewer.... Id., § 12. The only prerequisite to connecting to the system provided for in the charter is the permission of the district's trustees, and payment of any applicable entrance fee. Id., § 7. Based on these sections of the charter, plaintiffs argue that the law sets up a comprehensive scheme, and prevents the Town from enacting any ordinance restricting future buildings within 150 feet of the sewers from connecting to the system. The grant of powers to the District to run the sewer system in Ogunquit is broad, but not absolute. The Town is only divested of the right to build, maintain, and repair sewer facilities. Id., § 29. The Town is not expressly divested of its general police powers to control waste disposal, nor is it in any way limited in planning the future growth and development of the municipality. Similarly, the law grants no police powers to the sewer district and, importantly, grants the district no mechanism to control future growth of the system. [5] Nothing in the charter indicates that by creating the sewer district the legislature was attempting to carve out one of the many methods the Town might otherwise use to regulate its future growth. [6] The charter is correctly interpreted to mean that the Town of Ogunquit retains its police power to regulate future sewage disposal as a planning tool for the good of the townfolk, while Ogunquit Sewer District, a public utility, operates its system within long-range development plans made by the Town. This case can be distinguished from our holding in Ullis v. Town of Boothbay Harbor, 459 A.2d 153, where we held that a municipality may not impose requirements for obtaining a liquor license in excess of those mandated by the State, and from our decision in Schwanda v. Bonney, 418 A.2d 163, where we ruled that a town could not mandate additional requirements for a license to carry a concealed weapon. In our prior cases the legislature had enacted comprehensive, statewide schemes to exercise the police power for regulating important matters of the public safety. In the case at bar the legislature merely created a utility to render public utility sewerage service within the territory of the Town of Ogunquit. In neither scope nor in geography was the sewer district's charter as comprehensive as the general state statutes at issue in Ullis v. Town of Boothbay Harbor and Schwanda v. Bonney . We cannot read that charter to prohibit the Town, expressly or by implication, from regulating future sewage disposal in the exercise of its police powers to control growth and to plan for future development. Having held that there is no threshold bar to the Town's exercise of its police powers over future sewage disposal, we must next consider whether summary judgment was appropriate on any other ground. We examine the Sewer Usage Limitations Ordinance for a violation of due process by the criteria outlined in State v. Rush, 324 A.2d 748, and discussed in part II(B) of this opinion. Such an analysis ultimately comes down to a question whether there is any set of facts upon which the legislative body could find that the ordinance was necessary. Evidence on that issue is contained in the purpose section of the ordinance, and the language of that section conflicts with the testimony at the June 6 hearing. Accordingly, as with the validity of the moratorium on development, the validity of the Sewer Usage Limitations Ordinance involves a genuine issue of material fact, and could not have been decided on a motion for summary judgment.