Rehearing on septic tank special assessments denied

It's on to "Plan B" for Citizens Advocating Responsible Environment Solutions (CARES) in its court battle over septic tank special assessments.

After persevering to have Collier Circuit Court Judge Frederick Hardt rule that the city's method for assessing property owners for the Septic Tank Replacement Program was unfair, CARES learned last week that its request for a rehearing was denied.

"It's something we expected, but out of an abundance of caution, we decided to go ahead and give it a shot," said CARES attorney Kevin Dees. "The motion for rehearing is very rarely granted. I actually can't think of the last one that was granted."

The organization's next move, as promised last month, will be to appeal to the Florida Su preme Court. It will have 30 days, starting from the day Hardt's second ruling was issued, to file that motion.

"We're moving forward with the appeal, which is an entirely different ballgame," he continued. "We want to get this done pretty quickly and we have all our ducks in a row."

City Manager Bill Moss was pleased that Hardt decided not to hear the case again.

"We didn't know what to expect, but we are extremely pleased that the judge denied the rehearing," he said. "We suspected that CARES was attempting to further delay the project by filing that motion."

Hardt ruled in the city's favor on May 15, stating that courts have a limited ability to overturn the decisions of the city council when every step is documented and the public has had ample opportunity for input.

State law allows municipalities to create their own special assessments for capital projects, he said.

CARES contends that the assessments are inequitable because only new sewer customers will be paying for the expansion of the wastewater treatment plant despite the fact that old customers wore it out, they claim.

City councilors have been working for months to find a payment method that distributed the cost more evenly and seemed to have struck gold last month when Chairwoman Terri DiSciullo proposed that new customers pay their assessments immediately in today's costs, with a 6 percent discount until solid construction bids came in for their district.

With this money up front, the city could borrow money for each district as construction starts. Once those real bids come in, however, residents will be required to pay the real cost.

If the actual costs are higher than the projected cost that residents pre-paid, the difference and loan interest would be transferred to the rate base, where all users would contribute to the cost.

Although Hardt validated the bonds, the city cannot issue them until the lawsuit is settled, said city Finance Director Bill Harrison.

"If they are not going to take that appeal then the city is free to issue bonds — we cannot as of today," he said.

Until then, money for the program will be taken from general operating funds, including payment on the bids awarded June 21 for the engineering services for the North Marco, West Winterberry and North Barfield sewer districts, at a cost of nearly $800,000 to Boyle Engineering. Harrison supported this practice at last week's council meeting.