|
City asks court to bump Acciona case
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · April 17, 2014
The City of West Branch last week asked a federal judge to dismiss Acciona Windpower’s lawsuit, saying the company waited too long to file suit, and that the city never breached the tax-rebate contract.
In court documents filed April 8, the City answered the wind turbine company’s initial complaint, which argues that the city cancelled an agreement to give tax rebates for investments and job creation. At issue is about $110,000 in tax rebates the city chose not to award Acciona last year.
Attorney Brian A. Melhus, of Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Des Moines, argued that Acciona had 30 days after the city council cancelled the agreement on May 20, 2013, to file at least an initial complaint, but that it actually took “several months” to do so.
Further, he argues that even if Acciona had filed the lawsuit in time, the Tax Increment Financing agreement states that if the City does not pay Acciona the money in a given year, “no rebate shall be paid for that year and the remaining rebate schedule is to be extended by one year” until Acciona has been paid for eight years. In other words, the agreement does not require the City to pay the tax rebates eight years in a row, but eight years total.
Melhus further states that Acciona did not complain that the city cancelled the agreement, but that it breached the contract.
He states several times that Acciona failed “to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”
In Acciona’s complaint, they also argue that the agreement to get the TIF rebates requires them to maintain for five years “approximately 110” full-time employees, and that they had 102 employees when the five-year mark passed in May 2012. The City does not address this argument in its response.
The City also asks the judge to allow them to present oral arguments in hopes of convincing the court to dismiss the case.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
