Today the county was notified that the challenge to the latest sector plan opt-out approved by Escambia County---has been denied. Again.
This is the latest in the string of such challenges by citizen Jacqueline Rogers that have been defeated. One by one, one after another. Every single one......defeated.
A win for private property rights, a win for the county, and a crushing defeat to community "activists."
You can read the special magistrate's order here.
16 comments:
Thank you for posting this, Commissioner Bergosh.
I know folks have very busy lives and no time to do a deep dive into this esoteric thing called a "Sector Plan" that was approved by a former Board of County Commissioners in what now seems like a land far, far away by people wearing kaleidoscope glasses. So they mostly skim the surface and believe the thought leader they are inclined to believe.
My advice? Don't believe anyone. Not me. Not Jacqueline Rogers. Read the plan for yourself. It's on the county's website. Go to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (FDEO)'s "public pages" for Escambia County and do the homework of reading all of the opt-out cases. Most importantly, then, go to the DOAH (Department of Administrative Hearings) website case look-up page and search for petitioner Jacqueline Rogers. See how many times she has petitioned DOAH challenging sector plan opt-outs, losing every one but nonetheless persisting with her theories. Read the proceedings. Look at the video where available. Do the research and come to your own conclusions. Determine for yourself where the intellectual honesty lies.
And if you are inclined to learn for yourself why this Sector Plan was doomed to failure from the start and why the victims are the small landowners who have fought and still are fighting to get out of it and have their property rights restored, I will be glad to provide you with a roadmap to follow. But be warned: it's for the research-willing, not the faint of heart.
Frank and I are out. We fought and litigated our way out. It was painful and expensive, but now we have the roadmap. It's an important story to tell - a cautionary tale of grandiose master plans, shiny objects, would-be gurus, and winners and losers.
Write or call me if you're curious: ejwestmark@gmail.com or cell phone 850-777-7594.
HaHa.
Will the county fllow through with the vexatious litigant designation?
Will you present a trophy or plaque like Civic Con?
An editing note here: The DOAH hearing Frank and I endured for our opt-out from the Sector Plan was finally successfully concluded with an Agency (DEO) Final Order on August 12, 2021. Yesterday's Recommended Order from DOAH Judge E. Gary Early was for the most recent opt-out challenged by Jacqueline Rogers. It involves land owned by the Owen family. We stand in solidarity with them and other land owners caught up in this mess of a so-called plan that should never have been approved and has hurt a lot of folks, but helped absolutely no one.
We call upon the Board of County Commissioners to do what they have previously voted to do and dismantle the Sector Plan. Otherwise, despite the BCC's unanimous votes approving each opt-out individually, the nearly inevitable DOAH challenge from Mrs. Rogers that follows will continue to cost taxpayers and small land owners a lot of money and time defending her challenges.
Please bear with me tacking on a crude Cliff's Notes to your eloquent articulation of the issues, Elizabeth.
Jacqueline encourages people to be confused between her litigation on the Agricultural Lands versus her serial litigation on the opt-outs.
The agricultural lands had zero to do with the opt-outs. All I'll say about that here is that Underhill had a very strong hand in what analysis staff was (not) allowed to bring in the first go-round. If not for Doug's constant threats on staff, Jacqueline would have never had that winning day in front of the governor's cabinet, because the analysis staff had actually done would have been entered into the docket the first time around. Once the proper analysis was performed, she was of course overturned. (Sadly, her sucking up all the bandwidth on that issue precluded more reasonable, voices urging rational environmental protections from being heard.)
In addition, Jacqueline is very adept at fudging the number of times she has brought her cookie cutter approach to her harassment of individual land-owners through the DOAH system, even snowing the judge during the last hearing in what, in my opinion, constituted something that--if not technical perjury--was very close to it.
Here is the list of attempts at fighting opt-outs from the Sector Plan, with every suit a cut and paste job from the same groundless arguments:
--Wilson Robertson property (I believe 2 separate opt-outs on that, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.)
--Westmark property
--Jolly property
--Arnold property
--Cottage Hill First Baptist Church property
--Stafford/Pine Top property
--Owen property
In order to deal with the mess she was bringing, DOAH consolidated three separate opt-outs into one hearing: the Westmark, Jolly, and Arnold properties. These were all *separate* opt-outs--they all went through the Planning and BCC separately--and were simply condensed for the purpose of the hearings (which says a lot in and of itself).
Before that consolidated hearing was finished, she brought the next two. At that point, she was asked to enter a written stipulation to allow the Court to hold those two new cases (Cottage Hill and Pine Top) in abeyance, which she did, along with agreeing to drop them if she lost the three consolidated cases (Westmark/Jolly/Arnold). Again, this was stipulated on the court docket, in writing. She then pretended to the judge during the most recent (Owen) opt-out hearing that she was forced to drop the Cottage Hill and Pine Top litigation for personal reasons, and because she was being pressured to do so under threat of lawsuit.
After abusing County staff throughout the most recent Owen hearing, and conning her environmental expert through an extended, embarrassing, and erroneous exchange, she then topped things off by abruptly letting the judge know that she had to leave the hearing early--so she could stand on the stage at CivicCon and receive an award for governmental transparency.
You can't make this stuff up.
Sadly for everyone caught up in her abuse of the DOAH courts--and that includes the taxpayers who have foot the legal bills for this atrocious nonsense--it really is just that bad. And it simply cannot be allowed to continue.
What relief is available to us to protect us all from this insanity and abuse by this individual?
Rogers, at that last hearing, on video said "it is her right" to challenge these.
Not too hard to look at FL law and see the property owner has the right to revert back to the original land use. Personally I saw that years ago when she was denigrating the past commissioner Wilson Robertson. Opt outs are legal. Simple as that.
Seems she has no intention nor the ability of self correction.
Also not to hard to see how a judge declares one a vexatious litigant.
The pro se litigants would have to have permission to file another of these obnoxious filings -- usually these are a means of an obviously disturbed individual who takes pleasure in harassment to accomplish those goals.
Mr Westmark is gracious and classy, sticking to the matters and issues.
I find it shameful an elected official uses his blog for official use and then trashes a voter he is supposed to represent for simply exercising their constitutional right and then uses his comments to intimidate anyone else inclined to file their own grievance. What’s even more disturbing he then allows Miss Pino to throw down a narrative as if it is firsthand knowledge, factual and then libels Mrs. Rogers in an attempt to damage her reputation and character further. It’s about time someone stands up to Miss Pino and her bullying tactics and files a civil complaint. If she has a good attorney, they will just maybe pull you both into court.
10:26--I said nothing that was not factual, so please stop the dramatic pearl clutching. The fact is this is the latest in multiple such complaints that Ms. Rogers has filed---every single one of which has now been quashed by the state. Fact. I'm not doing anything to prevent her from doing it again--although at some point if she keeps losing over and over--she may be subject to costs and fees as allowed in statute. But she can file whatever she wants. I could care less. Just like "Super-Dave" put himself in a box over and over and blew himself up while wearing a crash helmet and racing suit. People can do what they want. And just like "Super Dave" it is amusing to watch. About this blog: yes, it is a bastion of free speech and anonymous speech is free speech. Unlike her site, where she deletes comments and blocks users that don't chug her kool aide and routinely allows the most caustic, bombastic LIES to be posted about me, other commissioners, and other citizens--I publish comments and block nobody and will only hold a comment for disgusting obscenities--which is why your comments are being added and replied to. And many others that are in fact simply ad hominem attacks against me. Finally, I'd simply say you conveniently gloss over the pain and suffering (physical and mental) these frivolous (yes, I said it) complaints by Ms. Rogers have caused great people like Frank and Elizabeth Westmark, not to mention tens of thousands in legal fees---and as a commissioner I represent THOSE voters too. Remember that. Now, run along, back to your buddies on escambia hate chamber. :)
What a novel idea, 10:26--that somebody would sue me for telling the truth.
Woops! Apparently you've been living under a rock, because they already tried that:
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"Escambia County medical director will have to pay court costs in defamation lawsuit" --Jim Little
"Escambia County's medical director will have to pay the court costs of a local activist she sued in 2019 for defamation, an Escambia County Circuit Court judge ruled last week."
https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2021/03/09/escambia-medical-director-rayme-edler-ordered-pay-court-costs-defamation-lawsuit-mel-pino/6924051002/
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There's no doubt that if a couple of republicans don't scramble together some common sense over in Tallahassee and kill Andrade's defamation bill, this blog and every other word written by anybody anywhere will become targets of political abuse of the court system.
But while it's sad that the GOP is itching to give birth to yet another monster they can't contain, it's highly unlikely that "Mrs. Rogers" is going to be suing anybody, for the following reasons:
1. She knows exactly what she has been up to, and had an intimate view of what happens when somebody with the means to defend herself uses discovery to expose malicious actions.
2. You apparently missed that I did not place the blame on Jacqueline for the Agricultural debacle, but where it really rests--on Doug Underhill. She was just a pawn wallowing in her brief moment of DOAH glory while Doug got his fleeting "win" on Commissioner Barry. No doubt there are numerous County staff who would be delighted to be deposed on that mess, now that they are out of reach of Doug's constant abuse and harassment. Per the opt-out information I posted, it's all available on the court docket, so it doesn't get much more "first-hand knowledge" than that.
3. It looks possible that she has already been dumped by one attorney, as the "precedence" she laid down in her Owen property complaint was set to be overturned--a fact that was pretty widespread knowledge among people who stay current on the court dockets. Why is this significant? Because her previous attorney was on the case that got overturned, and she seems to have had no idea she was making a pro se fool of herself employing it.
***4. The Court is already in possession of what is no doubt dozens and perhaps hundreds of messages between her and Underhill on County business, a fact she has had hanging over her head for along time now. It's highly doubtful she wants to open up discovery that will reveal ALL of her messages over her years of slandering and disinformation on this business, which could trigger many suits against her. To the best of my understanding, Mrs. Rogers has been a member of *dozens* of local chat groups that have been chewing over this land use stuff, along with other County business, for years. She would be even more delusional than I currently give her credit for if she went down that path.
*Nobody* has the "right" to abuse a court system with serial, vexatious litigation and use it to harass people who have the *right* to opt out of the Sector Plan. The County needs to step in and put a stop to the constant hammering on the taxpayer money that we keep having to shill out to defend one property owner after another from this nonsense.
It's about time someone stands up to Mrs. Rogers and her bullying tactics.
It looks like Harrassamasauras trollontheknollis needs to spend 150% of her time and resources apologizing and making amends to the community at whole and the astoundingly voluminous list of people and organizations she and her rabble have wronged.
Jrr Tolkien's Silmarillion's 22 chapter long list of characters making up the history of little middle earth pales in comparison to the simple beginnings of her sorry path to redemption.
She has never demonstrated any capacity for remorse, Kevin, and ultimately seems to have gotten lost in a hazy maze of her own making.
Doug scrambled the bot's brain on a never ending toggle of 2 + 2 = 5/ 2 + 2 = 0 for years.
On top of that, when a person lies repeatedly, day in and day out, for years on end, the cognitive dissonance created from trying to hold mutually exclusive realities in one's brain for extended periods sometimes short-circuits the wiring for good.
I truly can't tell any more what parts disinformation and what parts misinformation she is peddling, and it often appears these days that she can't, either.
Isn't it weird when one person mentions another person that just happens to live in the same home through a blog. Why don't y'all just sit down together and talk over a glass of sweet tea.
Isn't it weird when people act tough while they're posting anonymously?
We discuss plenty in this household, rest assured. There's hardly anything strange about answering Kevin the way I did because he was out in the shop when I saw his comment. Kevin's a more hopeful person than I am, so keeps fooling himself that a bad actor could turn herself around.
You know what's *really* weird? When Jacqueline knowingly allows people such as the Underhills to have back-and-forth from their real accounts with fake accounts they have created, using their real accounts to tee up heinously defamatory comments from their fake ones. That scenario would get even more bizarre when it was Sailor Jerry Sunday.
And then, of course, there was Doug having conversations between his commissioner and his regular account, referring to himself in the royal we while he did it.
Currently they seem to just use Jonathan Owens for the purpose, as he tests the water for another disastrous run at commissioner. Although it won't be surprising if some of Doug's fake accounts resurface on ECW, or he generates new ones to use, during the upcoming election cycle.
Poor Doug seems bored; he ought to apply for an internship somewhere.
And Jacqueline ought to consider taking a hiatus from social media and politics and focus on getting herself extricated from the sticky web she has woven around herself. Just a thought.
Look like the county should ask the judge for the frivolous pro se litigant to pay court cost and fees. Did you file a motion? There are laws introduced to help make that happen. Looks like the guest columnist on PNJ is worried.
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