A PROPOSAL:
Settle The 110 S. Main St. Dispute Now!
The Climax Crescent, in the November 28, 2025, issue reports:
“The Council also holds a lien at 110 South Main Street for what was stated at previous council meeting is a $25 per day fine for permit non-compliance through a court order that totals $10,675. Is has noted at previous council meetings the Council has also absorbed approximately $2,000 in attorney fees during the process at the location.”
Anthony Bates, the owner of the property, is believed to have paid approximately $2,275 of these fines. Bill Lewis, from information disclosed at Council meetings, has given no indication of how much the fines actually total. There is no excuse for this. Lewis has hidden the pea under the cup and at least some of the Council members, the public, and Anthony Bates are left to guess where it is. All parties are left going back and forth as to what is owed and how the matter should be resolved.
Trustee Denise Pyle, with what appeared to be Lewis’s support, has said that the Council should recover only its costs of $2,000 or so that Lewis claims the Village absorbed in attorney’s fees in connection with the case. In other words, the Council should forgive the fines. The cost of attorney’s fees keeps going up as the time the Village attorney spends dealing with the matter increases because Lewis is unable to deal with it. Enough already!
A proposal to settle the matter goes like this. Limit the fines to $7,500 and deduct the $2,275 or so that Anthony Bates has already paid. The Village was not awarded attorney’s fees and cannot lawfully collect them.
The Village would pay over to the registry of the 8th District Court the monies that Bates has already paid. The fines were not awarded to the Village but were a part of judicial administration. Bates would then pay over to the Court the balance of $7,500 less what he has already paid to the Village. Then the Village and/or Anthony Bates would seek the blessing of the Court to conclude the matter. Court approval is required since it is the Court’s money.
Since Bill Lewis has given no public proposal for settlement and the public does not know what Lewis has instructed the Village attorney to do in the “negotiations” that were authorized by the Council, this settlement would conclude the unknowns left by Bill Lewis. It would also involve the Council members and public that Lewis has left in the dark.
These fines are civil in nature. They are intended to preserve the effectiveness and sustain the power of the courts and to preserve and enforce the rights of parties to suits and to compel obedience of orders and decrees made to enforce those rights and administer the remedies to which the court has found the parties are entitled. Simply put civil fines are coercive sanctions to force compliance with court orders. But they cannot be excessive or go on forever.
Legal disputes are expensive and rarely leave the parties completely happy. That’s where settlements come in. While the parties may not be totally satisfied, they stop the bleeding, the parties control their own fates, and the outcome is known without further stressing those involved.
It is time that the current case be resolved. If there are other Code insufficiencies, the Village should seek an amicable resolution and failing that, issue another ticket to go through the process again.
Whether that will be necessary or not will be up to the parties.
END
