City Attorney's Office Admits to Applicant Substitution to Evade Property Owners' Consent
Planned Avoidance of Property Owners' Approval Paramount Feature in City Attorney Letter.
Written
Admission: An illegal substitution of applicants, manipulated by an
assistant City Attorney (Linda Hudson) through the Tallahassee Trust
for Historic Preservation was designed to evade the Tallahassee Land
Development Code requirement of "advice and consent of the property owner(s)."
In
a letter written the day before the critical September 10, 2008 vote by the
Architectural Review Board, the assistant city attorney responded to a
letter written by long time neighborhood resident Bob Davis to City
Attorney Jim English.
The substitution of applicants, with no
legal notice, never has and never will erase the fact that the application
was initiated by the Tallahassee Trust for Historic Preservation.
Yet, in this letter exchange, that pretense is a given fact in the City
Attorney response, as she admits the goal of the City Attorney Office was
to deprive Lafayette Park Property Owners the opportunity to give the
legally-required consent to the HPO process.
$25,000,000 THEFT-IN-PROGRESS
Considering
that control of their own property was being taken away, in perpetuity
(with no compensation) from the nearly five hundred property owners of
Lafayette Park, any reasonable person would conclude that a grand theft
was occurring. A truly grand theft, as approximately twenty-five million dollars worth of
property rights were being stolen through illegal trickery by the City,
courtesy of the attorneys office. ($50,000 average value on permanent conservation easement X 500 properties =
$25,000,000.00 -- yes, 25 millions!)
This kind of arrogance on the
part of our City Attorney is certainly "beyond the pale", to use
Commissioner Mark Mustian's words.
(History note:
During the June 6, 2011 commission meeting, Mr. Mustian said he was
going to re-appoint two ARB members who were guilty of voting for the
illegal application, unless they committed some act "beyond the
pale." In this usage, Mr. Mustian affirmed the City position of
reappointing one ARB member who had received the ethically-compromising
gift of $100,000 through the agency of the Tallahassee Trust (with the
appearance of having sold her votes) and another member who was
illegally exceeding the code-specific number of TTHP members, thereby
benefiting the TTHP foundation of which he is a board member and
effectively destroying the impartiality of an appointed citizen
advisory board)
It is time to get vocal and demand the removal
of our City Attorney along with the two assistant-attorney staff involved in this
ongoing theft. Their choice to favor a few close friends at the expense
of thousands of residents of Lafayette Park should be seen as a choice
to leave public employ.
Until our city makes a conscious
choice to get rid of this openly crooked behavior, it will continue to
spread harm through every facet of city life. Those attorneys are
wreaking havoc with the perception of Tallahassee on the national
stage.
Further, no one in Tallahassee needs to have a
rogue private contractor operating through the City and County budget
constantly conniving to take anyone's property rights without
permission. This contract must end.
The Tallahassee
Trust for Historic Preservation has acted to fill the Architectural
Review Board with members who have good reason to "owe their votes" to
the TTHP Director in return for tens of thousands of dollars of City
largesse received through the agency of that director's position on the
City Grant Board. In addition, this contractor has openly
violated the code limit of two members on the Architectural Review
Board, packing it with their own board members and taking control of
this citizens advisory group.
It is pretty hard to
imagine that each of these members is acting with the highest ideals
when their voting record shows unanimous acceptance of nearly blank
applications while overlooking the obvious substitution of applicants
with no legal procedure, knowing the harm being caused.
The
citizens of Tallahassee are being sold down the river, and our property
rights are being taken with no compensation or permission.
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Scroll down to see Bob Davis Letter followed by City Attorney Letter:
Also,
on the last page of Ms. Hudson's letter, take note of who she copied
with this response to a private citizen who is objecting to what is
happening: Mr. Jon Moyle! He is the attorney for one of the
substitute applicants. This breach of
professional conduct provides a clue to just how "close" this assistant
city attorney is to the small group involved in the effort to steal the
right of control of every property owner in Lafayette Park Neighborhood.   
City Attorney Response
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