By Erica Solvig
Enquirer staff writer

DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP - A group of 20 residents is asking a judge to overturn township trustees' approval of a Wal-Mart Supercenter because, they allege, township officials worked out a deal with developers behind closed doors.

In an appeal and a lawsuit filed last week in Warren County Common Pleas Court, the residents accuse Law Director Doug Miller of mediating an agreement between the two voting trustees and developers during a nearly hourlong break in a meeting that started June 23 and continued into the early morning June 24.

Not long after that break, Trustees Randy Kuvin and Lee Speidel voted to approve the final plans for the 203,000-square-foot supercenter and preliminary plans for outlying restaurants and a retail strip for Mason-Montgomery Road.

"Doug Miller was shuttling between them," said the residents' attorney, Timothy Mara, who attended the planning commission and trustees' series of public hearings. "It turned into being a 50-minute break. When they resumed, all of the sudden there was a consensus."

The break came during lengthy give-and-take between developers and the trustees. The trustees wanted to have an executive session, but Miller advised them that they could not, according to the suit.

Kuvin and Speidel referred questions to Miller, who could not be reached for comment Monday.

Residents want a judge to declare the trustees' decision invalid and award residents $500 plus court costs. In addition, the residents are asking the court to declare that no more than 41 percent of the property can be used for retail. That condition , which had been on the land years ago, when the county controlled the zoning, would make it impossible for the supercenter project to be built, Mara said.

Wal-Mart and the developers' attorney, Joseph Trauth, said Monday that the appeal does not stop the project from moving forward.

As for the allegation that the township broke the law by negotiating out of the public eye, Trauth says, "there's no substance to that whatsoever."

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E-mail esolvig@enquirer.com