Town "forgot" lease and now owes more than $16K in fines.
By speakeasy
@speakeasy (4171)
United States
February 13, 2007 3:01pm CST
That is right. My home town - Lake Havasu City - has managed to "forget" about a lease and now owes $16,660 in fines and they are adding up at the rate of $28.09 every additional day.
Our city has been plagued with poor management at the city level for several years now. But back in 1995, our city signed a 10 year lease with the state of Arizona to get the right-of-way we needed for running some water pipes between a well and a booster station.
The person in charge of that department is no longer there and the new person "never knew about the lease". So when it expired Jan 06 and started to accrue fines; no one was aware of it. Of course, the fact that it took the state until May 06 to bring it to the city's attention did not help matters; but, then it has taken an additional NINE months for our city to get around to taking care of this matter.
In the mean time, the fees just keep adding up.
1 person likes this
1 response
@ElusiveButterfly (45941)
• United States
21 Feb 07
Geez, don't these people ever pay for an outside agency to audit the accounts. Actually they shouldn't have to do it. It should be done automatically by the person hired to do the job.
@speakeasy (4171)
• United States
21 Feb 07
I know; it is so hard to believe that this was "overlooked". You would think that there would be some way of passing on information from one city official to the next; but, if there is, it sure didn't work this time! Our city council finally passed a resolution to pay it; but, I don't know if the check has gone out yet.
