posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 10:17 AM
by
klehan
False Alarms Will Cost Money in Polk City, Florida
Polk City, Florida Residents and business owners who have multiple false alarm calls will now be fined if Polk County sheriff's deputies are called to go to the home or office.
At their meeting Tuesday night, Polk City Council members unanimously approved a new ordinance that sets fines for repeated false alarm calls where a deputy is called by a monitoring company.
"This ordinance also requires the alarm holder to have someone's name on file who can respond when an alarm is going off,'' said Sheriff's Office Sgt. Dan Cone, who oversees the deputies assigned to patrol Polk City. "It also sets the fine amounts for repeated false alarms."
Fines do not start until after the second false alarm in a year period of time. The fine is $50 for a third false alarm at a house or business and goes up from there. A fourth false alarm is $75; a fifth is $100; a sixth is $150; a seventh is $200; an eighth is $300; a ninth is $400; and 10 or more is $500 each time.
City Manager Cory Carrier said the ordinance was part of the contract agreement between the city and the Polk County Sheriff's Office, which handles law enforcement services for the city.
Councilwoman Kristin Eilertsen suggested the city take the cost out of the business's water bill and then the customer would be delinquent with its water bill, and if someone still didn't pay their water could be cut off.
"That would be one way to handle it,'' she said. "This is the second notification that the bill is due. They really need to come forward and pay it.''
Carrier said she liked the idea and would run it past the city attorney.
"Because it is a tax, I think we can take it out of the utility payment and put it against what they owe for the tax,'' Carrier said.
Then if someone's water was turned off, it would also become a city code enforcement issue.
Sims said all of the delinquent businesses are active businesses.
"Some of them have been in business for a long time. They know they have to pay this and when it is due,'' Sims said.
Carrier said the city's ordinance is unclear what to do in cases of delinquent payment, which is why they were seeking direction from the council.
She said staff is looking at revising the ordinance.
"We need to put some teeth in that ordinance,'' Carrier said.