Editorial: Is Mummy Cat Productions double-dipping?

Tonight in the Lewis Auditorium of Flagler College, Michael Carr took the stage representing a city contractor, “Mummy Cat Productions, LLC” for a public airing of a video entitled “Journey: 450 Years of the African-American Experience”.

If that name sounds familiar, it should. Without the benefit of competitive bidding, on Wednesday, December 11, 2013, a $10,000 proposal was submitted by the company to Dana Ste. Clare offering to create a 15-minute “video for St Augustine 450th”. A purchase order and contract was executed by the City the following Monday.

The “air date” for the video, part of an exhibit by the same name on display at the newly remodeled Visitor Information Center, was January 19, 2014. The city stopped displaying the video when the exhibit closed on July 15, 2014.

According to the contract with the limited liability company, upon delivery of the final video product to the City, and the payment of the agreed consideration, all rights, title and interest in any intellectual property rights associated with the video “shall be deemed transferred to the City”.

City comptroller, Mark Litzinger, provided Historic City News with the check information for the two agreed payments by the City to Mummy Cat Productions LLC; a $3,000.00 check written on December 17, 2013, and the balance of $7,000.00 in a check written on January 31, 2014. Both checks cleared.

During a special appearance before the City Commission immediately before tonight’s performance, Carr and Executive Producer and Director of Business Development for Mummy Cat Productions, Lura Readle Scarpitti, told the story of how the video, originally made for the City, caught the eye of producers at a Las Vegas convention; prompting the team to stretch the 15-minute version by eleven additional minutes. The 26-minute version is what was presented at Flagler Auditorium tonight.

What neither Carr nor Scarpitti spoke to was the re-payment of the $10,000.00 paid by the St Augustine taxpayers, who own the Journey video, after making the announcement that Carr was able to score a syndication agreement with 100 U.S. television markets for its distribution.

The 26-minute broadcast documentary is at least a “derivative work” of the 15-minute “mini-documentary”, as described on the company’s facebook page.

Unless Mummy Cat Productions, LLC was willing to repurchase ownership of the film from the City, including the intellectual property rights, I’d say it is reasonable for the City to claim about 50% ownership of the new film and its future revenue.

It is a shame to see private companies profit off the backs of ordinary taxpaying citizens, as apparently happened in this case. Under former mayor Joe Boles, who also spoke from the stage with Dana Ste. Clare at tonight’s public performance, we have found dozens of single-source contracts, granted to friends and Boles’ campaign supporters, like Scarpitti, looking for ways to capture the goose that laid the golden egg.