Millcreek’s legal fees mount in flooding fight
“The flooding dispute between Millcreek Township and one of its wealthiest residents features a torrent of rising legal fees.
Since 2005, the township has paid its lawyers $1,014,470 to handle a series of legal cases involving the Angela Cres Trust, whose trustee is Laurel Hirt.
She is a granddaughter of H.O. Hirt, the late co-founder of Erie Insurance Group, and she inherited $14.5 million from her mother, Audrey Hirt, who died in 2009. H.O. Hirt’s descendants are worth a total of more than $1 billion, mostly in company stock.
The Millcreek legal cases are connected to the flooding dispute, in which the township unsuccessfully sued to condemn about 800 feet of a drainage ditch on the 42 acres of trust-owned property where Laurel Hirt, 55, lives in the 5800 block of Sterrettania Road. The property is just northeast of the intersection of Heidler and Sterrettania roads in southwestern Millcreek.
The township said the dredging and straightening of the ditch would alleviate flooding of houses in the area during heavy rains. The trust refused to grant the township an easement for the ditch, which empties into Walnut Creek. The rejection led the township to sue for condemnation.”
Palatella, ED. Go Erie.com 17 November 2013.