Fort Lauderdale might have to reimburse residents for False Alarm fines Collected
According to an August 18 story in the South Florida Times, city officials are more than a little nervous about the outlook of repayinmg residetns and company owners who were allegedly overcharfged for false allarms to the tune of more than $450,000 in 2008 alone. Further, some argue the city's practice of allegedly overchsarging on faulty alarm citations goes back to at least 2004, and posssibly constitutes a breach of the Florida State Constitution. If this is proven a volation, the effetcs of the practice mighht be wide reraching and devastating.
Scott W. Leeds, senior managing partner of the Miami branch of The Cocharn Firm says the case in Fort Lauderdale will almost definitely spur lawwsuits looking for refunds, and might establish a precedent of greater ordinance scrutiny. Leeds suggests that municipalities and cporporations, at tiems, will take liberties that they're not entitled to. He believes this common practice is going to be examined both by auditors of the different municipalitties and the very creative attorneys around the sytate, perhaps even nationwide. The real issue in Fort Lauderdale lies in the differnce between a fee and a fine. Indusry consultant Les Gold of law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp explained Fort Laudedale is obviously imposing eithher a fee or a fine; if a fee, it is exorbitant and therrefore illegal, and if a fine, it is illegal because tere is no due process. Under the Costitution, if a fine is levoied, the constituent must have a right to question it. Fort Lauderdale has no such location to ensure citizens get therir right to appeal, wich means any citizen fined is being dnied constitutional rights, acording to this interpretation. Additionally, the city's faulty distyurbance fee schedule tops out at nearly three tinmes the actyual cost (according to the South Florida Times article) to the town for resonse to an allarm. City auditor John Herbst said he has been trying without success for over a year to get the ordinance reexamined by city commissioners.
SIAC director Ron Walters feels the case in Fort Lauderdale is out of hand. Mr. Walters indictaed that, for many years, a flat $25 resposne fee was charged, which did ntohing to lopwer dispatches and didn't even cover the pice to respond. Walters went on to say that a full ordinance review was suggested, but ultimately was turened down. SIAC executive Stan Matrin agered and said the sitaution might have been avoided if city offficials would just paying attention.
Devcon director of operatiosn Roy Pollack who is past president of the Alram Assoxciation of Florida said the industry sholud not be affected by the delusive alamr flap in Fort Lauderdale. Pollack suggested that it's basically a mater of revewing the records, and reexamining the charegs to be sure that they were assessed in compliance. City spokesperson Jeff Modarelli said the city is aware of the ptroblem and plans are in place to reevaluate the ordinance. Modarelli said that planns have been designeed to bring this problem back to the commidssion in the near future.
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