Sewer Politics

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Trela White
Attorney for everyone and the one who gave Retha Lowe legal advice.
The attorney who joined the lawsuit with the City
against a Lake Worth neighborhood.

The beginning of our problems with our sub-regional sewer customers started years ago…circa Romano administration would be about right. We are now at a serious stage that has come to a climax—We finally have a City Manager who wants to take action as her fiduciary responsibility is to the residents of Lake Worth. The problem? City municipalities will not pay what we believe and our auditors say they owe us. It was determined that the funds outstanding are $13,597,802.

I can well understand why a City does not want to pay us all this money but just because it never received a bill for many years does not relieve it from its obligation to the City of Lake Worth. And just because we paid off a Bond, does not mean they are relieved of any contract obligation to pay us what they owe.

The City has now hired outside counsel that has advised us that in order to collect unpaid obligations, the statute of limitations expire on August 12, 2010. The City contends that in order to preserve the City’s legal right to collect these funds, it is appropriate to formally adopt a Governmental Conflict resolution in accordance with Chapter 164 of the Florida Statutes.

This matter was discussed last night, with several city managers from cities that owe us a lot of money, speaking in front of the Commission. They decided to play politics in front of our residents when they have had years to negotiate in good faith. Our City manager said that this was “bizarre” and I agree. Who alerted them to our Commission meeting? Who wanted to sabotage the process and stick a knife into our best interests? Trela White, city attorney for most of the cities other than Palm Beach, spoke against the idea of our City protecting its rights. Commissioner Maxwell also had some problem with it. He is the Liaison to the League of Cities where Trela White is also the attorney.

Crappy, deplorable politics got in the way of good fiscal and legal sense and I find it really horrible and totally disloyal that anyone on the Dais could go against our own City Manager and City Attorney as well as outside counsel and attempt to sabotage and belittle their initiatives to take action for the best interests of the City of Lake Worth. Those in the chamber speaking against our City, wondering why we didn’t do this or that, were at times, disrespectful such as the lawyer from College Park—Not only was it what they said but how they said it. It was all politics. You would think that they want us just to forget about Thirteen Million Dollars.

So, we pay for an Audit. We have professionals on Staff who make good administrative and legal opinions. We hire outside counsel. All have determined that these cities owe us a heck of a lot of money and we need to protect our interests.

Instead of taking action last night, we are giving these cities, once again, more time to protest what they owe. Perhaps they will come to some settlement agreement now that they realize we just don’t want to talk this to death any longer. It will be back on the agenda on August 3.