Lake Worth takes action to Preserve Legal Rights in non-payment issue involving our Sub-Regional Sewer System

Carol Spawn Desmond

Although they all appeared once again to tell us that we were just flat wrong and that our attorney didn’t know her stuff, Attorney Carol Desmond, brought in to protect our interests in the sub-regional sewer system non-payment issue, proved herself to the people of Lake Worth Tuesday night. It was her job to preserve our rights and she did by giving all the reasons to initiate a Contract Resolution procedure under the Florida Governmental Conflict Resolution Act. We must do this by August 12.

Commissioner Maxwell wanted to know where she came from and who hired her. Ms. Desmond was recommended by our Bond Counsel, Rick Miller. She is with Satterlee, Stephens, Burke & Burke in New York City and she is smart as a whip! As it is the City Manager's job to hire, I am sure Stanton can take credit for this wise choice.

The Town Manager of Lantana as well as the Town Manager of Manalapan spoke before our Commission telling us that they were willing to negotiate but oh, they just didn’t have the time to get a tolling agreement, whatever. A tolling agreement is an agreement to waive a right to claim that litigation should be dismissed due to the expiration of a statute of limitations.

Now think about this one more time. These cities, all six of them plus Palm Beach State College, owe us to the tune of $10,418,237. One more time—we have been trying to collect this money for over 5 years. And again—we have not been able to collect nor have we been able to negotiate one darn dime.

Thomas Heck of Manalapan even threatened Lake Worth saying that the cost of a law suit will be taken out of his payment to Lake Worth. We got to hear Trela White once again, the attorney for several municipalities as well as the dreaded League of Cities. None of them had a chance. Their arguments fell on deaf ears.

These cities signed a Contract to pay us monthly. Whether they receive a bill or not is immaterial. They owe it. Just because we pay off a Bond does not mean they now don’t owe us the money on our sub-regional sewer system. If your doctor forgets to bill you for a service, does this let you off the hook for payment?

Commissioner Maxwell, once again, worried about our “partners” who are customers that owe us a bundle, rather than worrying about collecting the money owed to us (all $10 million of it) and protecting the interests of the taxpayers of Lake Worth. He even asked if we were going to sue ourselves since we owed money (on the books) towards the special obligations.

In order to preserve our right to collect the money owed to us, we have to adopt a Governmental Conflict resolution with Chapter 164 of the Florida Statutes. The City Manager, Susan Stanton, pursued this Resolution after Lake Worth received the comprehensive independent audit by Rampell and Rampell. The Commission did just that on Tuesday night on a 5/0 vote.

Time for talking is over.