A lawsuit against the Warren County Board of Supervisors and others should be dismissed and the plaintiffs ordered to pay the defendants’ costs, says an answer filed by two of the county’s co-defendants in federal court.

The federal case is one of at least three pending that center on a dispute, initially private, over ownership and use of a road off Mississippi 465 that leads to Paw Paw Island.

The plaintiffs, owners of Issaquena and Warren Counties Land Company, accuse supervisors of civil racketeering and myriad other wrongdoing and say the county aligned with Paw Paw Island Land Company to use supervisors’ official powers illegally to favor one private landowner over another.

The 35-page answer filed last week by Vicksburg attorney R.E. Parker Jr. on behalf of Paw Paw Island Land Company and its owner, John Lindigrin, said the plaintiffs have misstated the facts and that the county has every right to do what it was doing – enforcing the law, especially the countywide flood plain ordinance.

Enforcement of that ordinance is required of all cities and counties that wish to have citizens able to purchase federally subsidized National Flood Insurance Plan policies. Under its terms, the county must not allow any construction below known flood levels.

&#8220Warren County’s federal flood insurance over the entire county is at risk if the county fails to make these plaintiffs …. some of (whom) are millionaires and some multimillionaires comply,” Parker wrote in a separate letter. &#8220The question is why should they be allowed to build luxury hunting lodges in the right-of-way of Paw Paw Road in 2006 and 2007 when in 1988 Paw Paw Road was declared a public county road by county ordinance?”

The federal case was filed May 16 and seeks at least $6 million damages.

Additional suits were filed about the same time or remain pending in Warren County Chancery Court and Warren County Circuit Court.

In the chancery court, the 19 landowners have asked the court to declare Warren County’s subdivision ordinance not applicable to them and to declare the flood plain ordinance satisfied.

Supervisors are the plaintiffs in the Warren County Circuit Court case seeking a judgment that the landowners must obey the subdivision ordinance and the flood plain ordinance.

Supervisors are believed to be represented by Vicksburg attorney Ken Rector in the federal case. In addition to Lindigrin and Paw Paw Island Land Company, other defendants are county board attorney Paul Winfield, County Prosecutor Richard Johnson and private surveyor Joseph G. Strickland.

In the chancery court case, principals in Issaquena Warren say supervisors in 2006 joined a three-year pending lawsuit in that court involving the two firms in which Paw Paw was seeking an easement to access its property in northwest Warren County.

No judgment was rendered in the case, with testimony ending in April without supervisors &#8220offering any evidence whatsoever regarding violation of said subdivision ordinance,” the landowners’ petition says. It also says the plaintiffs are more than willing to comply with local ordinances and have repeatedly volunteered to do so.

Passed in 2004, the county subdivision ordinance sets forth rules regarding property developments and what developers must do to meet minimum standards for roads, drainage and other infrastructure.

Master plans must be submitted to the county engineer before work can begin on developments.

Parker’s response traced the history of the road at the center of the dispute to the 1930s. It indicates the current round of disagreement began when onetime Paw Paw hunting club member Marty Elrod formed Issaquena and Warren Counties Land Company in 2002 and bought from Anderson-Tully Company the property on which the club hunted.

Elrod is the vice president and general manager of the Jackson office of Baton Rouge-based billboard provider Lamar Advertising Company, the largest outdoor advertising company in the United States.

Others identified as landowners in the Warren and Issaquena Counties firm are Gary K. Blakeney, Kenneth D. Blakeney, Ernest K. Blakeney, Rose C. Blakeney, Robert Daryl Ainsworth, Pam Haley, Keith Hawsey, Tommy L. Thrash, Josh L. Thrash, Mike Sutton, Michael R. McTurner, Donna M. McTurner, Ervin Ray, Fay Ray, Gary Ray, Hugh J. Parker, Cynthia B. Parker and Joey Havens.

They are represented in both cases in which they are plaintiffs by Lisa A. Reppeto of the Jackson firm Watkins, Ludlam, Winter & Stennis.