OPINION
At the Payson Town Council meeting held on the 21st of April, the Council took action which conflicted with Town Code - code that was recently amended by this same Council.
The code they violated had to do with the payment of water development fees. In the past, said fees had to be paid prior to construction. But last year, the town allowed for developers of multi-family developments and commercial developments to pay their fees over a 10 year period as long as they paid interest on the unpaid amount.
Seems fair. But the council did not follow their own rules. They passed an ordinance that will allow a chain restaurant that wants to come to town to pay their fees over 10 years yet pay 0 percent interest.
I am sure other locally owned restaurants will be happy that their water fees are being used to help a new restaurant come to town and unfairly compete for business. Wish other Payson residents and businesses got such a good deal.
Now the Council did not take this action out of ignorance. They actually discussed it, were aware of their actions and took it anyway! They even discussed that an interest of 0 percent actually complied with the requirement to charge interest.
One interesting thing is that in another section of our Town Code, any person found guilty of violating any provision of this Code shall be guilty of a class one misdemeanor…punishable by a fine of not more than $2,500 for individuals and not more than $20,000 for firms, entities, companies, corporations, or businesses and by imprisonment for not more than six months or by probation for not more than three years.
So if a Council violates their own code, are they able to be punished by same code?
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