By: Lydia Crawley – The Parsons Advocate
The City of Parsons will be moving forward with plans to begin collecting the first of several delinquent Fire Fees. City of Parsons Attorney Timothy Stranko drafted a total of four complaints in both Circuit and City Court to collect from delinquent property owners.
Three of the cases will be heard in City Court with one case being filed in Circuit Court due to the amount exceeding $10,000.
“The reason there is a Circuit Court one is because the jurisdictional amount of City Court is $10,000,” Stranko said. “That particular land owner owes us more than $10,000.”
Attorney Stranko said he anticipated the City Court cases to go to hearing sometime in August. There was no word on they Circuit Court case.
City Manager Michael Simmons and City Attorney Stranko agreed to file the four largest debtors first. The remaining delinquent fire fee property owner cases will all be filed in City Court, Attorney Stranko said. Thirty day notices have been sent to those who are delinquent and if payment is not received, complaints will be filed in City Court after July 1st, Attorney Stranko said.
“In the meantime, Mike and I are working to try to keep these people informed so they’re not ambushed and know that we have drafted these complaints and we can even send them copies of the complaints saying this is what we are going to do next,” Stranko said.
Attorney Stranko said that he feels he and City have been “up front” about the process since the beginning and have tried to accommodate residents as much as possible.
“I hope you agree, we’ve been up front about this all along, including advertising in the newspaper,” Stranko said. “So nobody should be surprised. We expect people to pay what the law expects people to pay to support our fire and emergency services.”
