After an hour long executive session, Mercer County Industrial Development Authority board members voted unanimously this morning to take action to recoup past-due fees owed to it by Winner Development LLC.

Winner Development owes the authority $31,386 in fees associated with a project to redevelop the former Westinghouse Electric Corp. plant in Sharon, authority officials have said.

The authority plans to send Winner Development a "demand letter," which would give the company up to 20 days to respond and make payment arrangements, according to authority solicitor Thomas Kuster.

If there is no response, the authority will take legal action to recoup the money, Kuster said.

The fees are for work the authority did preparing an application for a $7 million state grant for Winner, who proposed a multi-million dollar development at the site.

"The real issue is (the authority) had advanced the fees," said authority Chairman Charles Bestwick.

"We are not in the habit of paying bills that we do not owe and not paying bills that we do owe," Bestwick added.

Authority officials said most of the fees stem from the "excessive time" spent on the project due to the lack of information provided by Winner Development. For more than a year, the authority said Winner did not provide information required by the state.

Early this month, James E. Winner Jr., chairman of Winner Development, said his company was no longer trying to secure the state grant for creating a multi-tenant industrial park at the plant along Sharpsville Avenue.

Winner's take on the administrative fees: "Our position is that we don't owe them nothing. If we owed them, we certainly would pay them."

Since 2000, Winner has paid the authority $13,000 in administrative fees. It last made a payment in January of last year. The most recent invoice went out a couple days ago, according to Shane Rosenfeld of the authority.