Minutes 04/24/1984 - Laserfiche WebLink

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:31 TUESDAY APRIL 24, 1984 - all of which may be expensive to defend, and by which their fiscal integrity can be threatened because of treble-damage penalties under the Federal anti-trust statutes, Council went on record, in the form of the following resolution, as being in support of such proposed legislation, particularly that introduced by The Honorable Hamilton Fish, Jr., through H.R. 3361: WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court, in Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341 (1943), established the "Parker Doctrine", a state action exemption test granting immunity to states from federal antitrust liability; and WHEREAS, subsequently, the United States Supreme Court, in Community Communications v. City of Boulder, 455 U.s. 40 (1982), held that the Parker Doctrine, heretofore assumed to apply to local governments as well as to state governments, does not automatically give local governments immunity from federal antitrust liability; and WHEREAS, the Boulder decision not only exposes local governments (and their special-purpose units) to time-consuming litigation and suits, some of which may be frivolous and all of which may be expensive to defend, but also ~o threats against their fiscal integrity because of treble-damage penalties under the federal antitrust laws; and WHEREAS, the activities of local governments and those of their special- purpose units (such as authorities and commissions), not unlike those of state governments and the federal government, are particularly unsuited to the application of federal antitrust statutes and, therefore, should be declared exempt therefrom to the extent state governments and the federal government are declared exempt; now, therefore, - BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City of Martinsville, Virginia, in regular session, that it hereby urges the United States Congress to enact legislation which will fully protect local governments and their special- purpose units from liability under the federal antitrust statutes; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by said Council that copies of this resolution be transmitted to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees of the United States Congress and to the Virginia Delegation members of Congress. On behalf of Wiley & Wilson, Consulting Engineers, with which firm the City entered into a contract (authorized by Council on November 22, 1983) to conduct a study to determine the feasibility of removing and/or dredging silt which has accumulated at the City's hydro-electric impoundment dam, Mr. Conrad Dodl presented Wiley & Wilson's