City Attorney warns Mummy Cat of breach of contract

During the regular business meeting of the St Augustine City Commission on Monday, January 12, 2015, Historic City News listened as J. Michael Carr and Lura R. Scarpitti represented Mummy Cat Productions before the commissioners under the sponsorship of the 450^th Commemoration Director, Dana Ste. Claire.

During that public meeting, it was revealed that Mummy Cat Productions, who had been paid $10,000 under a questionably administered contract by Ste. Claire to produce the Journey exhibition video, had now derived a one-hour documentary from that work.

“We have contacted them to make a ten minute presentation of a promotional trailer,” Ste. Claire wrote in the agenda announcement for that meeting.  It was further revealed that Mummy Cat Productions’ Carr and Scarpitti had already negotiated a deal for program to be shown in 30% of television markets in 2015.

To the surprise of editor Michael Gold, and others, no mention was made of royalties to be earned by the City for these nationwide exhibitions in exchange for the taxpayer investment that was used to purchase the video and intellectual property.

That night, Gold published the editorial, “Is Mummy Cat Productions double-dipping?”, prompting city officials, including the City Attorney, Isabelle C. Lopez, to investigate what compensation arrangements had been established, if any.

In an e-mail exchange more than two-weeks later, Lopez informs Mummy Cat Productions, LLC, through their lawyer, James Whitehouse, that the City had learned that the video documentary at issue was to be aired the following Tuesday; and, that any further delay without a licensing agreement could simply jeopardize the process.

Lopez issued a clear warning: “It is imperative that we commence and conclude negotiations regarding the use of the City’s proprietary contractual material in your client’s derivative commercial venture before any breach of the existing contract between Mummy Cat and the City occurs”.

It is March 5th, Mummy Cat Productions is in breach of their contract, the Assistant City Attorney, Denise May, has negotiated to protect the interest of the city and its rights after the $10,000 purchase, and her solution — a five-year royalty-free license agreement for Mummy Cat Productions with automatic one-year renewals.

What may be worse is the fact that, at May’s request, the item was hidden from those who glance over the agenda every two weeks – it was buried as item 11 in a 12 item “Consent Agenda” which could be approved without discussion.

If you plan to attend, the regular meeting of the St Augustine City Commission will be held Monday night, March 9th, beginning at 5:00 p.m. in the Alcazar Room of City Hall located at 75 King Street in St Augustine.  You can watch the meeting live on Comcast Government Television channel 3. Meetings of the City Commission are available for live and on-demand viewing at COSATV.com.