City Attorney Legal Staffer Sent To Beef Up Contractor's Crew
In Winter of 2009, the Planning Commission convened to
discuss the Lafayette Park Historic Designation and Rezoning
application. At that time, the Commission attorney, Chris Bentley,
announced the application which was sent up from the Architectural
Review Board failed to include their formal findings upon the
contributing/ non-contributing nature of the individual properties
within the neighborhood.
This omission would require that the
Architectural Review Board re-convene and discuss the specific findings
of the properties, vote upon these findings, and re-send application
back to the Planning Commission. This would have to be done as a
public-noticed meeting of the Architectural Review Board.
Rather
than wait upon their next regularly-scheduled meeting, the rush was put
on: ARB members scrambled to find a common time-slot when they could
meet, the City Commission meeting room was scheduled, notices were
designed, written and printed, and all of this was with the constant,
unrelenting push from the City Attorney's Office.
There
was no
need for a rush, unless one were worried about the fast-growing
neighborhood opposition to the plan. People were finding out how
many
crooked acts had been committed to get the application as far as the
Planning Commission in the first place. At any moment, the uproar
may
spill into "pitchforks and torches" at the next City Commission
meeting. The rezoning plan to obtain control of the properties
within the neighborhood may get derailed....
As
an example of the extreme partisanship of the Assistant City Attorney
against the huge majority of neighborhood residents and property
owners who were opposed to being railroaded into having their property
rezoned, we present this documented glimpse into just how far she was
willing to go.
In the photo below of a printed email, Linda
Hudson is sending her city-staff personal legal secretary to act as an
envelope-stuffer for the City's contractor, Tallahassee Trust for
Historic Preservation. This is a clear misuse of City
resources. It provides real insight into the runaway train within
City Government.
The Tallahassee
Trust for Historic Preservation had stumbled and failed to perform
their contractual obligations so many times on this issue, that without
Assistant City Attorney's continuous intervention, the
application would have been rejected on August 6, 2008, and numerous
times thereafter. The defects were abundant. The justifications indefensible.
We continually wonder at the CAO's intense,
unjustifiable collaboration with the supporters of this ill-conceived
plan. And, when we look at who received copies of this, we wonder at the silent complicity of city management.
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and, confirming, thirty minutes later:
Supplemental
to creating the "rush" to push through a defective application, is the
hope for minimum participation from opposing viewpoints. One of
the factors in minimizing this participation is the balance between a
mandated public meeting and creating major inconvenience to attendance.
The City is an old pro at this. They know exactly how and
where to hold a meeting that no one can/will attend.
In this
particular instance, the meeting was scheduled for lunchtime on a very
busy Legislative Session workday at City Hall, where the Capitol was
right next door. In other words, "traffic jam time."
Imagine
the "har har har" belly laugh emanating from City Hall as neighborhood
resident Farr Miller is ever-so-sweetly told to take the bus, when she
expressed her concerns. See photo reproduction of email, below. |
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