10/17/1995 - Laserfiche WebLink

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BOOK 96 F'AE Gary Brandenburg, attorney from the law firm of Carlton Fields in West Palm Beach, advised that he represents Ell -Cap 38, which is a subsidiary of Ellenburg Capital Corporation which is based in Oregon, which currently owns all the assets of the water system and the mobile home park that is in question here. Chairman Macht inquired about the ownership of the wastewater system, and Director Pinto explained that wastewater is handled now by the County, it is not part of the franchise. Attorney Brandenburg commented that the County certainly has gotten their attention. There is a bad situation here and has been for some time. Ellenburg Capital regrets that the previous owner created such a bad situation with respect to the delinquencies in the fees that they owed to the County. He felt it is important to point out Ellenburg has applied for a transfer of the franchise. They have submitted to the County a full accounting and full payment for all franchise fees and sums that are due pursuant to the franchise from the very day that they acquired the system until the end of the current accounting period. A lot of the back fees that are owed relate back as far as 1985 and they are very sorry that those fees were not collected from the previous owner. They are surprised at the amount of some of those fees and the fact that they were outstanding for so long without collection effort. Attorney Brandenburg explained that the franchise fee part of that would have been passed through to the customers who are here today. Ellenburg does not want to put the customers through the burden of attempting to charge them now for fees that they should have paid to the County since 1985. They don't think that it is fair to them or fair to the County to try to impose that 6% fee on the current residents of the mobile home park. Attorney Brandenburg noted that as most of the County's water and sewer franchises evolved over the years, the County charged a franchise fee in return for allowing the water and sewer utilities to utilize the streets and right-of-ways and to put their lines within County -owned property. This particular situation was unique because none of the lines crossed any County rights-of-way and there was no use of any public land. One has to question whether or not there was any justification for the imposition of the 6% franchise fee to begin with, particularly in light of the fact that this utility did not send bills to its customers. There was no bill, so to speak, to collect a franchise fee or tax which is what it really is because it goes into the County's general fund. Attorney Brandenburg felt there is real justification for the County Commission to take a look at that and say that these people ought not pay that f ee and put that behind us and to move ahead 13 OCTOBER 17, 1995 - M M _I