Response from Councilman Don Kimsey and Looming County Deadline

In response to our email, only one Councilman has responded to our request so far.  Councilman Don Kimsey was very open and answered our questions to the best of his knowledge.  He did inform us that he still has yet to receive an acceptance by another Council Person to meet and discuss the petition.  


Councilman Kimsey also wanted to bring up the fact that for approximately 2 weeks he has been aware that the County Officials have requested that the City come up with payment IN FULL of the back impact fees from 2006 & 2007 amounting to $531,000, if no interest is assessed, by Friday, October 22nd, 2010.  In the last October 12th City Council Meeting this issue was on the agenda as one of the City Manager items. Unfortunately, the only thing that Vice Mayor/Acting City Manager Trudy Block had to say about this agenda item was that they were still working on negotiating a payment plan with the County.  She then quickly stated that there would be no further discussion on the matter.  Now we see why.  One would think that when the Council members are able to ALL meet together that important issues like this would be discussed with ALL the individuals holding positions with authority to make decisions for the City.  Apparently, there are a few Council Members that don't feel like that is the case, unless they are just trying to keep the public in the dark on the issue.

After presenting the last check to the County for the $348,779.34 for the past due payments on the Mt. Olive Utility System, the City's finances were running pretty low at best.  A copy of the City's bank account balances several days after cutting this check can be seen here on a previous blog post.  Current Financial Situation of Polk City  Based on the approximate cash flow the City receives monthly from Utility Fees, the main revenue source for the City, and approximate operating costs of running the City on a daily basis, it does not appear that the City will be able to come up with another check to the County for over a 1/2 Million dollars by this Friday.

Since the last City Council Meeting did not provide the public with any information on this issue, we can only presume how the City will respond to this request.  Will the City Officials run down to Bartow with a check in the amount that they would like to pay without a mutually agreed upon payment plan?  Will the City Officials scrape the bottom of the barrel again and clean out the accounts to present a check for as much as the city can afford?  Will the County ACCEPT a check for PARTIAL Payment when they are requesting payment IN FULL?  In a situation where an individual can not come up with their entire mortgage payment, usually the bank refuses partial payment so it will not appear to have accepted lower payment terms.  This action many times results in the bank initiating foreclosure proceedings.  Will a similar thing happen to the City by the County notifying the Governor's Office of the delinquent payment resulting in the State declaring Polk City in an OFFICIAL state of Financial Emergency as outlined in State Statute 218.503 - Determination of Financial Emergency?  This reporting to the Governor's Office was voted on and approved at the County Meeting on September 15th as a next step in the event that the City did not come up with the past due payment on the Mt. Olive Utility System loan by the September 20th deadline, so it may not be out of the question.