Businessman John Beck said Wednesday he will not drop his lawsuit filed against the City of Lubbock in August 2015 regarding storm water drainage fees.
“We continued to ask questions, and then some of the answers, we didn’t like,” Beck said, “We were being stonewalled a lot, but some of the answers we were getting weren’t making sense. So we pulled out state law, and we looked at that.”
The law mandated that storm water fees could not be used to create revenue. Beck’s suit asked the City to pay back what he believed was taken.
“When you ask questions as a citizen, you deserve a straight answer. I got frustrated with it, and if they want to play that game, I’ll play it with them,” Beck said.
In 2015, Former Mayor Glen Robertson said there were problems with the rates, and he would have liked billing to be re-distributed more evenly.
In a vote of four to three, city council members decided not to reestablish a storm water rate committee that would study the rates.
At the time, Robertson blamed the suit for the confusion.
“And so now, this council, who is trying to solve a problem with storm water rates, we were working diligently on debt, we were working diligently on transfers in the form of franchise fees and pilot fees,” Robertson said, “Because of this lawsuit, we are now unable to do that at a critical time in our budget session.”
Beck said he didn’t want to take legal action, but he’s committed to ending what he believed is public officials overstepping their boundaries and breaking the law.
“When you catch someone stealing from you, the first thing you have to do is make them stop. So that’s injunction portion of our suit, which is going to make them stop collecting these illegal fees. Then you’ve gotta make them return what they’ve stolen from you,” Becak said, “So I’m asking them to return to the citizens of Lubbock what they have overcharged for this service. The third thing you’ve got to do is punish them. And I intend to do all three.”
