HomeMy WebLinkAboutRequest for Refund for Steve C.Tammy de Weerd
From: Steven Christensen [stevec1972~yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2004 8:23 PM
To: Tammy de Weerd
Subject: Refund
Dear Mayor De Weerd,
Copied below is the Meridian City Code 11-19-3, which
I obtained from Anna Powell. Please note in Section D
that a refund is allowable "where a petition or
application is withdrawn at least one week before the
date of its scheduled public hearing." As I noted in
my email to you last week, I notified Anna Powell of
our application withdrawl approximately 17-18 days
before the scheduled hearing date of July 1st.
Please let me know when I can receive my refund.
Best Regards,
S. Christensen
11-19-3: SCHEDULE OF FEES, CHARGES AND E%PENSES:
A. Zoning And Planning Fees: A petitioner or
applicant for any of the subdivision or development
application matters in this Title shall pay the fees established by the City Council by
resolution. No petition or application, except as hereafter provided, shall be accepted by
the City unless accompanied by the required filing fees. (Ord. 562, 11-6-1991)
B. Fee Calculation: For any requested public hearing
involving more than one classification of a petition
or application, the filing fee shall be calculated on
the basis of the highest fee for an individual
classification or application.
C. Fee Waivers: Notwithstanding any of the preceding
fee schedules, the City Council shall have the
authority to waive in whole or in part any fee for any
hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission for
petitions by any governmental agency or for any other
party when such a fee would present a hardship. An
applicant for a hardship waiver must present his
request in writing to the City Council, outlining the
degree of such hardship.
D. Refunds: The fees to be charged for the various
procedures stated above are not refundable, except
where a petition or application is withdrawn at least
one week before the date of its scheduled public
hearing, and then only by order of the City Council.
(Ord. 430, 4-2-1984)
E. Payment Of City Costs: If all fees are not paid,
the City may revoke any zoning permit, conditional use
permit, accessory use permit, variance, occupancy
permit, zoning certificate or other grant of authority initially given the applicant, and
in the case of an annexation procedure, the City may de-annex said property. (Ord. 557,
10-1-1991)
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Tammy de Weerd
From: stevec1872~yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 12:39 PM
To: Tammy de Weeni
Subject: Steve Christensen
Message for Mayor Tammy de Weerd from Steve Christensen at stevec1972@yahoo.com. The date
and time that this email was sent were: 6/24/2004 12:39:24 PM.
The message is as follows:
Dear Mayor de Weerd,
I am writing you to express my disappointment in the way my opposition to the fence waiver
was handled by the Planning & Zoning Commission.
From the first day I spoke to Sonya Allen at the office of the Planning & Zoning
Department to present my letter of opposition to the original fence waiver application, to
my dealings with Anna Powell, I feel, at times, there has been a lack of professionalism.
My feeling is that because my opposition to a fence waiver was a first for the Planning &
Zoning Dept., they were not prepared in handling this situation. I also feel that because
my opposition was not the norm and required a little more work for the department, it
probably frustrated them to a point that they didn't want to be as helpful with me as they
would have been with someone else.
As you know from my attendance to one of the council meetings, I don't feel that I was
fairly accommodated to allow my attendance at the original public hearing. From talking
with the city clerk, the date was not a normally scheduled date for a public hearing and
she said the date could have easily been changed. But as you know, my request was denied
by Anna Powell.
Although I paid the $150 appeal fee, 2 notified Anna Powell 18 days before the scheduled
appeal hearing date of July 1st that we wanted to withdraw our appeal because our
subdivision would not approve the fence waiver and sided with us. Anna replied back to me
a few days later and said the appeal fee was non-refundable because the amount of work
they did on the appeal had already exceeded $150.
I really have trouble believing that is the case. Beside the point, I don't feel it is
warranted to pay an appeal hearing fee when the-hearing will never take place. The reason
for my strong opposition to this is based on the principle that you don't pay for
something that you didn't receive and the fact that I gave much advanced notice of our
withdrawn appeal.
I am writing to you to see if we can deal with this matter ourselves. I would like a full
refund of the $150. If you are unable to grant me a refund of the appeal fee, please
provide with me the city fee schedule and any ordinances related to this fee schedule. I
will forward this information to my attorney for review.
Please understand that I am pressing this issue only because I firmly believe that I have
been treated unfairly throughout this whole process and have been forced to pay fees
because of the lack of information provided to me by the Planning & Zoning Department on
how the actual appeal process would be.
My background includes many years in business management and volunteer leadership.
Currently, I am in Senior Management for an S&P 500 company and I report directly to the
President of our company. I bring this up because in all my years of experience, I cannot
recall a time that I have been treated more unprofessionally. Please understand that I
will not go away until i feel this matter is resolved fairly.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to attend to this matter. I look forward to
hearing your comments. I can be reached via email at steveC1972@yahoo.com.
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Kind Regards,
Steve Christensen