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| City of Benson Arizona Won't Take Responsibility for their actions Benson, Arizona |
| 17th of Oct, 2011 by User607055 |
On May 23, 2008 representatives of the City of Benson visited our business at 581 West 4th Street,
handed my wife a Notice of Condemnation, demanded that she sign it and told her to comply with its content. When asked why the City was condemning our suite my wife was told that the purpose of the notice was to “light a fire†under the building owner. At this point we trusted that the City of Benson was sincere and made plans to relocate our business. We found a new suite and moved to our current location. Unfortunately, several months later Mike Locket rescinded the Condemnation Notice. I guess that Mr. Locket was just kidding when he condemned Butterfield Plaza. After moving as instructed by the Condemnation notice, we were sued by Butterfield Plaza, LLC for breaking our lease. Believing that we had Arizona Statutes on our side and trying to work with the City of Benson against Butterfield Plaza LLC, we counter sued. Unfortunately, both the Superior Court and the Arizona Appellate Court ruled that our suite was not condemned due to the City of Benson rescinding their Condemnation Notice. As a result of following the Condemnation Notice, having to relocate our business and subsequent lawsuits, we have:
- Lost thousand of dollars in sales
- Owe a enormous amount of legal fees
- Had to divert much needed cash flow to pay for new facility improvements
- Have to pay higher rent
- Had our excellent credit history damaged
- Suffered both physically and emotionally
- Run the risk of losing everything that we own We believe that the City of Benson represented by Mr. Mike Locket, made a gross mistake by issuing a Condemnation Notice and then subsequently rescinding it. This mistake is affirmed by Mike Locket’s statement in his deposition that he did not do any tests or calculations with regard to the structural condition of Butterfield Plaza. Mr. Locket further stated that he relied upon Tenant complaints as his reason for issuing the Condemnation Notice. This act along with comments from City Staff about “lighting a fire†under the building owner, leads us to believe that the City did not have our best interest at heart. Further, the fact that Mr. Locket was chastised by the City Council for not following proper procedures and his response that he was a Department Head and could do whatever he wanted, demonstrates further that the City was not acting in our best interest. As a result we believed that we had no other choice, but to file a damage claim against the City of
Benson. On September 13, 2011 attorneys representing the City of Benson invited us to participate in a settlement conference. After spending almost eight hours at an attorney’s office in Tucson, having to
pay our lawyer $2,500.00 to represent us and being told we had to pay a share of the conference, we were told
that the attorneys representing the City of Benson had absolutely no intention of settling with us and were only going to offer $100,000.00 to Butterfield Plaza. It appears that they were just kidding too. On September 19, 2011 we attended a hearing in Bisbee to see if the attorneys representing the City of Benson were correct in their accusation that we had not filed our claim in a timely manner. It was our hope that the judge would render a decision about this claim, but instead the matter was put off until November 29, 2011 to give the attorney representing the City of Benson “more time to prepareâ€. I guess that the attorney representing the City of Benson was just kidding about the hearing. We find it troubling that a representative of the City of Benson erroneously told us to move and then an insurance company representing the City refuses to pay for this error. We find it insulting that those same attorneys offered to settle with us, but then after making us wait, said that they had no intention of even speaking with us.
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