HSB Council debates litigation

November 27, 2012, 7:50 pm by Alexandria Randolph

New Horseshoe Bay Councilmembers David Pope, left, and Steve Jordan, right, sign official documents for their first terms on the council in a meeting Tuesday afternoon.

The new Horseshoe Bay City councilmembers Steve Jordan, David Pope and Craig Haydon went straight to business to discuss a litigation against the city in an executive session Tuesday afternoon.

The litigation was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Austin Division of the Western District of Texas by the J.S. Haren Company, a building contractor company based in Athens, Tenn., which rebuilt the Slick Rock lift station in Horseshoe Bay.

"The company worked with the city on a utilities project,” said Tom Robertson, partner of the city attorney Rex Baker following the meeting. "This was a pay dispute... No one related to the litigation was present (at the meeting).”

According to Mayor Bob Lambert, the suit was over $58,000 that the company believes they are owed by the city for the work done.

"We obviously don’t feel that we owe them that,” said City Manager Stan Farmer.

The council also discussed the request by Mid-Com Management, owner of a 113-acre lot at the intersection of RR 2147 and TX 71, for annexation and a variance from the Extension of the Utility Main ordinance.

"The city has an ordinance called the Extension of the Main ordinance that would require the developer to pay the cost of extending water and waste water facilities from the closest city facilities to this property,” said Lambert. "I understand that’s going to cost somewhere in the magnitude of $600,000. Mid-Com, as I understand it, has requested that the city pay that rather than Mid-Com.”