ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

June

1,

1995

COUNTY

OF OGLE,

Complainant,

v.

)

AC 94—37

(SA—R—l002)

CITY OF ROCHELLE and

)

(Administrative Citation)

ROCHELLE DISPOSAL

)

SERVICE,

INC.,

)

Respondents.

CONCURRING OPINION

(by J. Theodore Meyer):

I concur with the majority’s acceptance of the stipulation

and settlement in this case.

However,

I believe that attorney’s

fees and costs should be included in all penalties imposed in

administrative citations.

Section 42(f)

of the Environmental Protection Act

(Act)

provides that the Board may award costs and reasonable attorney’s

fees in cases brought on behalf of the citizens of Illinois.

(415 ILCS 5/42(f)

(1992)).

This section should be construed

broadly and include administrative citation penalties brought by

the State,

or by any unit of local government vested with the

authority to impose such citations,

pursuant to Section 4(r)

of

the Act.

In addition to reasonable attorney’s fees and costs,

indirect expenses such as travel time, administrative support,

printing, copying and overhead should also be pursued.

After

all, the time spent by complainant’s attorney in prosecuting this

matter certainly could have been used to handle other matters.

Also,

the now common practice by state and local governments of

charging a “user fee” to those who use a service

(such as paying

for photocopies)

is certainly a cost that should be imposed on a

party who has violated the Act.

This case presented an

opportunity to order the complainant to submit an affidavit of

all costs,

and

I believe that the Board should have taken this

opportunity to reimburse the County of Ogle.

In this case,

the administrative citation neglects to

request the imposition of such costs and fees.

Also,

the

stipulation and settlement fails to explain whether some

percentage of costs and fees was figured into the penalty.

Attorneys’

fees and costs incurred during the administrative

citation process should be pursued on behalf of the Illinois

---

2

taxpayer, and

I urge the parties to bear this in mind in future

negotiations

in this case.

~

J. ~PheodoreMeyer

Board Member

I, Dorothy M.

Gunn,

Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control

Board, hereby certify that t

above concurring opinion was filed

on the

~~-L

day of

_______________,

1995.

~

A.

Dorothy N. Gur)~Clerk’

Illinois Pol~ion

Control Board