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| Those that did the "Finger Wag" over sector plan opt-outs had their fingers painfully and forcefully hyperextended backwards and taped to their collective wrists (metaphorically speaking, of course 😉) via today's final agency determination from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Ouch, that's gotta hurt.... |
Commissioners were notified this afternoon that the opt-outs
to the county's sector plan that the BCC approved last year and that were subsequently
challenged by local activists Theresa Blackwell and Jacqueline Rogers have now
finally, once and for all, been affirmed by the Department of Economic
Opportunity.
From our attorney:
“Commissioners,
Attached is the Final Order associated with the three
Sector Plan Opt Outs, to include the Westmarks.
The County has been successful in defending all three opt ours. This represents final agency action; the
appeal at this point would be to the First District Court of Appeal and must be
filed within 30 days.”
Today’s final agency action by DEO is a devastating,
stunning, and spectacular rebuke to Jacqueline Rogers and Theresa Blackwell---and
a huge victory for Frank and Elizabeth Westmark, The Escambia Board of County
Commissioners, and folks county-wide who respect and support private property
rights.
Not a single exception from the 44 filed by Rogers and
Blackwell discussed in this order was found to have any merit; they were---- each
one of them---- summarily denied.
Ouch. What a wreckage
job.
Read
the stunning and devastating rebuke to Jacqueline Rogers and Theresa Blackwell here.
Lmao Not to rub salt in the wound but from what I’ve observed most everything JAR says is hardly factual.Just junk living room lawyering, Paranoid speculation, conspiracy theory like assumptions, bullying..and hate hate hate..
ReplyDeleteJob well done Westmark’s.You set a fine example for standing up to busy body bullies that think they’re smarter than everyone and thought they could tell you what to do with your 100 acres you worked hard for and deserve to get top dollar for if you sell it. A win for the good guys. A blow to the the batty old losers.
Does anything Jacqueline says have merit? She’s wasted another year of her life glued to her computer chair trying to ruin lives. They had no business meddling with private property rights.
ReplyDeleteDid the Westmark family have to pay a lawyer to fight Blackwell and Rogers? If they did, are they entitled to reimbursement of the cost and the time they spent to unnecessarily fight for their property rights?
ReplyDeleteFrank & Elizabeth Westmark are both very intelligent people and well respected in the community. They’ve protected the value of our investments and kept our rights from being violated. Thank you for your perseverance.
ReplyDeleteConsider sending this over to PNJ editorial board or the real news with Rick's blog.
ReplyDeleteI think the Westmarks told their story via a reporter named Madison at the PNJ earlier during the fiasco.
Maybe the Patron will direct Marlette to draw a cartoon. :-)
Thank you Frank and Elizabeth for protecting our property rights. Jacqueline Rogers is playing victim and trying to say this win is about money but we the people know better. You represented us well.
ReplyDeleteCongrats Elizabeth & Frank. Commissioner Bergosh I think this is going to make the hateful pitchfork and torch lady very mad at you. Shes going to be on another warpath to destroy Pensacola.
ReplyDeleteThis is a big win for property owners. What the opposing parties tried to do was depreciate the Westmarks property value. Shame on them.
ReplyDeleteClip from PNJ- - The Westmarks argue that this neighborhood designation cuts the potential value of their almost 90-acre property on Kingsfield Road in half without any sort of compensation by the government. The couple, along with multiple neighbors, are going through a process to opt-out of the sector plan, which will eventually be voted on by the Board of County Commissioners.
You end up with a situation where a landowner is not going to sell for half price and shouldn't be required to, and a builder or a developer is not going to buy for half value, so that's the essence," Beth Westmark said, adding she calls the 50% rule a "poison pill."
Frank Westmark originally purchased the property in 1974 and the couple has lived on the land for the last 20 years. While the couple doesn't have any immediate plans to sell for development, they are working to create an estate plan now that they're older.
If I invested in 90 acres and the county tried to essentially take half from me I’d fight back too.
ReplyDeleteCan the Westmark family sue the ladies that tried to hold them up in court?
Nathan Monk should sue the admin of ECW too for approving defamatory allegations.
ReplyDeleteWatching these commissioners rape Escambia County is mind boggling. I didn’t believe everything I was seeing and hearing these last couple years. But 2 of these guys are arrogant as hell.
ReplyDeleteAnd I get it. The comments are screened. Will let folks know.
ReplyDeleteScreening comments reveals a lot
ReplyDeleteTest
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Westmark posted this a day ago. She’s 100 percent right.
ReplyDeletePrivate Property Rights and the Comprehensive Plan - Part 1
Have you ever lost something precious that you didn’t know was missing until it was restored, and then you went weak in the knees with relief?
A little background:
Until 2011, Escambia County’s Comprehensive Plan contained private property rights protection language to safeguard the rights of all landowners, large and small.
But a rewrite and redesign of our current Comprehensive Plan was contracted out to the same out-of-town consulting group that wrote our failed Sector Plan. They were both approved by an earlier Board at the same BOCC meeting in January 2011.
Here’s the thing:
It only came to light about two years ago when Frank E. Westmark and I were researching the Sector Plan that the strong original private property rights protection language that had been in all of our historic Comp Plans and mirrored the Florida Comprehensive Plan, had VANISHED.
Frank and I do not believe the “50% taking rule” contained in the Sector Plan Detailed Specific Area Plan (DSAP) regulations in the Conservation Neighborhood district could have happened if the private property rights language hadn’t been removed. We and others have gone through a Byzantine, arduous, time-consuming, and expensive process including county and state approvals and a lengthy DOAH hearing to opt out of that overlay and restore the fair market value of our land.
The old property rights language was not merely aspirational, “feel good” motherhood and apple pie stuff. During its absence from our Comp Plan, real harm was done to real people.
Thanks to Florida Representative Stan McClain, Senator Keith Perry, and our local delegation, especially Michelle Salzman and our entire local delegation, a new 2021 law was voted in on a bipartisan basis and signed by Governor DeSantis. It amended Florida Statutes 163.3177 to require local governments to adopt a private property rights element into their comprehensive plans within a specified timeframe and provides “bare minimum” suggested language for them to use.
Thursday evening, August 5, our Board of County Commissioners voted 4-0 with Commissioner May off the dais, to approve an amendment (the “Option B” ordinance) to our Comprehensive Plan that will create a new Private Property Rights “Element” to the plan that includes not only the new bare bones model language but restores the original language with its protective muscle, sinew, and teeth. The BOCC catches a lot of flak from all quarters, but we should thank them for this important vote., especially Robert Bender, Jeff Bergosh and Steven Barry.
They're over there on their chat site now, griping and moaning about how badly they've been called out. Rogers is apparently oblivious to the fact that she's been doing this exact same thing to people for years now. She's gaslighted and attacked and insulted and accused and used her position as the first local civic board on FB to do nothing but lie and assassinate people's character in a public setting. If there really is a law of karma, then she has a LOT more coming her way.
ReplyDeleteI think people are taking advantage of being able to use anonymous names to give bullies a taste of their own medicine. ECW has hurt many people’s reputations over the years. They get too carried away. Adult bullies do try to control opinions and the attacks I’ve seen to control dialogue is bad sometimes. Some of the bullying happens offline too. Lately it’s been 4 main commenters that do the controlling and bullying to control the agendas.
DeleteSome Prominent people won’t comment there anymore because they don’t want their good names to be associated with the bullying. Get mad at my comments but it’s the truth. Mel Pino and Jeff Bergosh get blamed because they’re not afraid to stand up to the bullies but trust me a lot of people are tired of the way they act and some people are scared to fight back or say anything about it. I remember the day Elizabeth Westmark was booted from ECW because she stood up for herself and her husband. She got tired of the personal attacks too. Jacqueline Aimee Rogers made it personal when it shouldn’t of been. They rightfully won the fight for their property rights. 50 percent of their property value was at stake and they won the right to keep their full investment. I would of fought too. Done and done.
I’m glad this had a great outcome. I think the nasty things Jacqueline has said about Frank and Elizabeth is unfair. She’s attacked them personally by attacking their character. Theresa had more class and didn’t make it personal like Jacqueline did. Jacqueline’s pitch fork and torches activism has made her irrelevant in the scheme of things. The last bocc meeting she went to she had two other people from ECW with her. One of them took pictures of someone’s text messages over their shoulder and posted it on his fb page. He also had a fake coughing fit while someone was talking at the podium to interrupt them. The two of them were obnoxious and rude at the podium and had threatening attitudes. They’re a circus. It’s no wonder they’re not taken seriously by the people that really matter. The Westmarks wanted to protect their property rights and their investment of acreage. Good on them, Sandra, and the other neighbors for not letting anyone violate their property rights and take 50 percent of their personal investment away.
ReplyDeleteI think the county might have been sold a bill of good with that sector plan because there were too many individual owners. Of course if someone purchased a large tract they should be able to use it-- perhaps in their Golden years as they downsize.
ReplyDeleteA quick search will indicate an OPTout is legal and not nefarious.
A large scale plan for development might work with a large land owner, In fact Mexico Beach has a new 500 acre plan in the works and St Joe Company owns the entire parcel so they can developed a planned community, there in Gulf County, post Hurricane Michael. It will probably be very nice like Seaside in Walton County.
If people want to preserve old Florida, in my opinion they should use their energy to lobby the state.
1000 acre tracts were purchased in Bay/ Calhoun county for preservation.
Santa Rosa just expanded Black Water River Forest. PNJ has an article about that.
I think I heard Michelle Saltzman say at the D5 town hall that she might be interested in that type of pursuit.
As far as forcing one's will and need for control upon someone elses' property it just doesn't work that way, in my opinion. It's wrong.
Even OLF was purchased as mainly an economic development opportunity for the entire county, not for a developer to line his own pockets and put stress on the infrastructure.
They were fighting a losing battle.
https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2021/08/09/blackwater-river-state-forest-adds-nearly-3-500-acres-land/5498923001/
I know this is a personal turnabout for all the names and things Mrs Rogers has said about you over the years also. They complain about anonymous comments, perhaps getting screen shots and helping a county employee sue a citizen contributed to that behavior as a means of protection against that type of malicious action.
The Westmarks seem like lovely people and if they want to pass on a legacy to their family in the way in which they chose, they can. If I wanted to preserve the long leaf acreage, I would have to have purchased it myself.
Sincerely,
Not Chiisia
The people that don’t like the taste of their own poison will blame Commisioner Bergosh for the anonymous comments to make him into the villain for putting up this blog post. It’s what they do when the truth doesn’t sit well with them. If you don’t like the message just shoot the messenger is how they think.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations Westmark family. It’s strange to even say congratulations for being able to keep 100 percent of the value of your own property.
How many of these comments are Bergosh acting as Godzilla? Probably all of them, anonymous comments hold no weight.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous comments hold no weight says the anonymous commenter complaining about anonymous comments LOL
DeleteTo the folks complaining about the governor saying he doesn’t know what’s going on this ones for you.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Florida Representative Stan McClain, Senator Keith Perry, and our local delegation, especially Michelle Salzman and our entire local delegation, a new 2021 law was voted in on a bipartisan basis and signed by Governor DeSantis. It amended Florida Statutes 163.3177 to require local governments to adopt a private property rights element into their comprehensive plans within a specified timeframe and provides “bare minimum” suggested language for them to use.
Thursday evening, August 5, our Board of County Commissioners voted 4-0 with Commissioner May off the dais, to approve an amendment (the “Option B” ordinance) to our Comprehensive Plan that will create a new Private Property Rights “Element” to the plan that includes not only the new bare bones model language but restores the original language with its protective muscle, sinew, and teeth. The BOCC catches a lot of flak from all quarters, but we should thank them for this important vote., especially Robert Bender, Jeff Bergosh and Steven Barry.
Frank Westmark’s property is worth millions. Their 8,000 square foot custom home is on 88 acres..The people that fought the Westmark’s opt out have nothing in comparison to the Westmark’s property. One owns 2 acres and the other owns an even smaller parcel I believe. Had the ladies and 1 gentlemen fighting this owned much more valuable parcels of land I bet they would of had a different tune. 20 years ago a lot of us from St. Regis and Monsanto purchased acreage to live on but to also have as a nest egg for our future. A couple widowers depended on their property sales to live. The land was a smart investment. I believe in conservation areas but 50 percent without any government compensation is ludicrous. I don’t see how the three that fought for the government to take away our property rights think it was okay to do.
ReplyDeleteJacqueline I won’t respond on your post on ECW about this because I know what happens to people that have a different opinion than you and the peanut gallery. I made one remark that disagreed with you and I got pounded. you make snide remarks about Jeff Bergosh on your page almost every day but you’re upset because he made a blog post about your loss? Your loss is a big win for property owners rights and keeping property values.
ReplyDeleteYou said “this is very specialized land use that not one of the commissioners has taken the time to understand. “
You filed forty four exceptions and had them all DENIED because they didn’t have any merit. A judge thinks you’re the one that doesn’t understand.
Take a look at all of your past personal attacks on your page and think about all the people you’ve tried to hurt. It’s terrible. The comments on this blog are caused by your spiteful spirit. Just imagine if all the people you’ve tried to hurt commented here. I think it would be pages of comments.