By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

If it rings like a phone and it conveys voice like a phone, it’s probably a phone, said Brian Head, Joplin city attorney.

And the courts agreed, encouraging settlements between cell-phone companies and numerous Southwest Missouri cities on years of back taxes owed. City councils of Joplin, Webb City, Carl Junction, Carthage, Neosho, Monett and Aurora all recently passed ordinances approving settlements with national cell-phone companies for two years of back taxes.

The cell-phone companies sued the cities in an effort to recoup taxes they paid under protest. The companies asserted the cities didn’t have the right to tax wireless phone service, arguing their business was radio signals, not telephone signals.

“There was a lot of debate on both sides, but it was a ridiculous point,” Head said.

Joplin

Head said Verizon Wireless agreed to pay Joplin $170,000 through the settlement reached in October, U.S. Cellular will pay $500,000 as of December, and AT&T;/Cingular will pay $1.25 million due to the council’s action Jan. 7.

Sprint/Nextel has reached a settlement with Joplin, Head said, but it has not been approved yet.

Carthage

Lynn Campbell, Carthage city clerk, said the council will approve a proposed AT&T;/Cingular settlement for $169,147 at the Jan. 22 meeting. Verizon settled in October for $31,408 and U.S. Cellular settled for $48,485 in December.

Campbell said Carthage had not received a settlement from Sprint/Nextel yet.

She said Carthage is giving 5 percent of its settlement money to the Missouri Municipal League for its help in the lawsuit.

Webb City

Steve Garrett, city administrator at Webb City, and Troy Salchow, city attorney, said the council approved a settlement Jan. 7 with AT&T; Mobility for $202,000. Verizon settled in October for $31,000, and U.S. Cellular settled in December for $57,000.

Salchow said the city will settle soon with Sprint/Nextel for $41,000.

Carl Junction

Carl Junction will decide on a settlement with AT&T; by Feb. 11, according to city clerk Maribeth Matney. Verizon settled in November for $18,545 and U.S. Cellular settled Jan. 8 for $34,417.

Matney said the city had not heard about a settlement from Sprint.

Neosho

The city of Neosho has settled with most of the cell-phone companies in the issue. Bob Blackwood, Neosho finance director, said Verizon settled in October for $16,000 and U.S. Cellular settled in December for $34,000. Blackwood said the city is currently in negotiations with AT&T;, but was not at liberty to discuss the amount. He also said the city should be settling with Sprint soon. The city did not have T-Mobile customers.

Blackwood said he hopes to have the protested payments in hand within the next two months.

Monett

Dennis Pyle, Monett city administrator, said the city settled with Verizon in November for $14,080 and U.S. Cellular in December for $29,292. Pyle expects the city to settle with AT&T; later this month for $153,366, and with Sprint next month for $10,416.

Alltel is the largest service provider in Monett, but Pyle said the city hasn’t gotten any settlement information or payments from the company.

“We are going to address it with our attorneys,” he said.

Monett will start discussions with T-Mobile next, Pyle said.

Aurora

Kathie Needham, city clerk and finance director for Aurora, said the city settled with Verizon in October before joining the coalition of other cities requesting back taxes from the cell-phone companies. Verizon settled for $2,249. Needham said the city settled with U.S. Cellular in December for $7,873 and just passed an ordinance Jan. 7 approving a settlement with AT&T; for $68,672.

The council will approve a Sprint settlement Jan. 22 for $12,402. Needham said Alltel is probably the largest cell-phone provider in Aurora, and expects it would be the largest settlement, but said the city hadn’t heard anything from the company yet.

While most of the cell-phone companies have paid at least part of the back taxes in protest, Salchow, the Webb City city attorney, said the cities have not been able to count that money into the budget until the settlements came through. Most of the cities have not received the settlement funds yet, but expect them before the end of the fiscal year in June.

Head, of Joplin, said one of the requirements of the cell-phone settlements is that the companies don’t push for legislation on the issue for the next five years, but he thinks the issue will come to the forefront before then.

“If legislation gets passed anyway, we could end up back in court,” he said. “As with a lot of these things, they don’t actually ever die, they just change form.”





Settlement status

The majority of the settlements are complete, but several local cities are still waiting to hear from the last few companies.