Lawyers investigating a class action against Wodonga Council are confident they will get the numbers required to move forward with the case.
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National special council with Shine Lawyers Jan Saddler said they were expecting 100 people, if not more, to attend tonight’s town hall meeting.
The proposed class action would seek to recover the $18 million which the Victorian Ombudsman deemed Wodonga Council had overcharged ratepayers through the waste charge levy.
Ms Saddler could not provide an exact number of participants needed for the class action to move forward, but a decision on whether to proceed would occur quickly.
“We’ll make a decision in the very near future,” she said.
“These are not complicated issues, in the sense that it’s a very simple straightforward interpretation of the legislation and we have the benefit of the Ombudsman’s report so that gives us a great opportunity to get things started quickly.
“Clearly the Ombudsman found the flavour, tenor and expectation of the local authorities is not to charge more for waste than it actually cost them.”
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Ms Saddler said Wodonga Council had a case to answer to, and should ratepayers decide to move forward with the class action she believed it would be a quick case, with compensation could be paid within a couple of years.
She said she had worked on previous class actions with different ratepayers, and while she couldn’t reveal their outcome due to confidentiality agreements, she said the ratepayers were satisfied.