body,td,th { font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; }
Earlier this week you heard about the dispute between City Shuttle Limited and the City Council over the implementation of e-buses.
Well, in what looks like an unrelated development that may actually be related, on June 12, 2024, Tony Novelo wrote to the City Council seeking to collect on a council debt that's almost two decades old.
It relates to a judgement against the council in 2011, when the council lost in a lawsuit against Novelo and was ordered to pay his legal fees of about 17 thousand dollars.
Well, successive councils never paid - and Novelo;s attorney now says the debt is just about half a million dollars. Today he told us via zoom it can be easily settled:
Arthur Saldivar, Attorney for Tony Novelo
"It is sad that we have come to this pass. One would have expected that reasonable people, business people or otherwise would be in a position to put aside differences, whatever they may be we wheel or perceive and come around the table and deal with things maturely. But at the end of the day, the debt has to be settled. I don't think Mr. McCullough wants to wait another 17 years, and I don't think it's fair to ask him to wait another 17 years.:
"The book has to stop somewhere."
We asked Saldivar is the resuscitation of this old debt has anything to do with the dispute over e-buses:
Reporter:
"There's an allegation out there that Phillip Jones is fronting for the Novelos in relation to City Shuttle."
Arthur Saldivar, Attorney for Tony Novelo
"Philip Jones is the general manager of City Shuttle Limited. So the Shuttle Limited is a legal person, a company with shareholders."
Reporter:
"Do the Novelo's have shares in city Shuttle? Does Phillip Jones have shares in city shuttle?"
Arthur Saldivar, Attorney for Tony Novelo
"Philip Jones is the general manager of city shuttle. I do not know who the shareholders are."
Reporter:
"So is it the case that perhaps your client is pulling out this card because the City Council is about the issue a stop order on city shuttle services."
Arthur Saldivar, Attorney for Tony Novelo
"A stop order on City Shuttle Services, I'm not aware of that. And what would be the reason for that?"
Reporter:
"Well, maybe the the mayor and ask him."
Jules Vasquez:
"Are you using this is your client using this as leverage against city hall, who it appears wants to play hardball in regulating city transport? Is this being used as a means of leverage to pressure the city to oh you want to escalate? Well, let us escalate, how about that."
Arthur Saldivar, Attorney for Tony Novelo
"Well, I cannot say that it is because this information was not made public by my client. Now one would want to say, yeah that given the timing of things. It would look that way. I am just now being informed of this stuff. This reputed stop order for which I would not know what the basis would be. But suffice it to say I will find out later on if that is the case or not."
"But no, it's not being used as any kind of leverage."
