A letter dated April 9th, 2015 was sent to the City of Brooksville from Carlos Lofstedt of SenSys America. In this letter, Mr. Hofstedt tells the City of Brooksville that they will be liable for damages “in excess of $500,000 representing Sensys’s lost revenue” if they terminate the red light camera contract in December of 2015. They maintain that their contract with the City of Brooksville naturally terminates in April 2017 since that is 3 years from the installation of the last traffic infraction detector.
However, the City of Brooksville holds that the camera installed in April 2014 was installed, but never activated. According to the contract, “The “Installation Date” shall be the latest date that a System becomes installed and operational at any of the intersections described…” The City maintains that the last system to be installed and operational was December of 2012 giving them the ability to not renew the contract with Sensys in December of 2015.
Attorney for the City of Brooksville, Cliff Taylor of Hogan Law Firm, is filing a Declaratory Judgement Action, which asks the Court to weigh in on each position. This process takes approximately 4 to 5 months to complete which will provide ample time before the City’s desired December 2015 termination date.
The City of Brooksville plans to proceed with an Executive Session (Shade Meeting) to discuss the litigation process. An Executive Session is a meeting closed to the public in which a court reporter is present to record proceedings. The reason for this is to prevent the other party (SenSys) in this case from having access to internal strategic deliberations and to allow the attorney to talk to his client frankly. Once litigation closes, the court reporter’s records are unsealed and available to the public.
UPDATE: The Shade Meeting has been scheduled for May 4, 2015. The lawsuit seeking a judgement on the SenSys America contract was filed by Assistant City Attorney Cliff Taylor.