Fruitland Park commissioners voted Thursday night to play hardball – and possibly file a lawsuit – against the owners of Burke’s BBQ over a failed agreement to hook up to the city’s water and sewer system, install a fire hydrant and pay a significant amount in impact fees.
The restaurant, owned by T.D. Burke and his family, agreed on April 12, 2012 that they would have a six-month window to hook up to the city’s water and sewer system when access became available, as well as put in a fire hydrant outside the restaurant, located at 311 County Road 466A.
Currently, the initial plan for fighting a fire at the wooden eatery is about 10,000 gallons of water from a nearby swimming pool that would be pumped out through a high-pressure hose. The closest fire hydrants are quite a distance away at the corner of CR 466A and Micro Racetrack Road and their use would require the major thoroughfare into The Villages to be shut down if the city’s fire department had to run hoses from them to battle at blaze at the barbecue restaurant.
After the city sent two letters last year giving Burke until Oct. 6, 2018 to hook up and pay about $41,000 in impact fees, City Manager Gary La Venia said Burke paid him a visit and “raised holy hell.”
“He said absolutely no way am I doing this,” La Venia said. “And he didn’t. He just didn’t want to pay the money.”
At a meeting last Oct. 11, the commission came up with an amendment to the original agreement that would have allowed Burke to avoid paying the fees and hooking up to city water and sewer until he sold, leased, added onto or changed the property in any way. The new agreement also called for him to take care of the obligations immediately if his septic system or potable water well failed.
At Thursday night’s meeting, however, the commission rejected the plan to give Burke the extension. Commissioner Patrick DeGrave, who along with fellow Villages Commissioner John Mobilian wasn’t on the board when the original agreement was discussed, said he wasn’t in favor of any kind of waiver or extension.
“It seems like we’re bending over backwards because the individual has decided not to honor the agreement,” he said.
DeGrave also asked City Attorney Anita Geraci-Carver if the initial agreement with Burke “had any teeth.” She said his failure to follow through would be considered a breach of contract, so the city could pursue legal action against him.
“It seems like we’re trying very hard to find every loophole that there may be so that we can give him an amendment or an extension on a promissory agreement that he decided not to live up to,” DeGrave said. “We’re really bending over too far backwards. If there’s a remedy on the initial agreement, perhaps we should be discussing pursuit of that remedy rather than trying to cover all these loopholes that we’ll never cover in the first place.”
After some discussion, the other four commissioners agreed with DeGrave and instructed Geraci-Carver to enforce the original agreement and pursue legal action against Burke if he fails to comply.
DeGrave said it’s important for the city to stick to its guns when signing such agreements in the future.
“I’m not happy with the city entering into a contractual agreement with anyone that we’re not willing to pull the trigger on,” he said. “If you enter into an agreement, you have to be willing to pursue it if there’s a breach of that agreement.”
