On 1370 WCOA's Real News with Rick Outzen Tomorrow Morning at 7:10

 

Rick Outzen, host of the Pensacola/Escambia County area's best, most trusted and popular morning drive news program "Real News with Rick Outzen" on 1370 WCOA-- has asked me to appear tomorrow morning at 7:10 as a guest on his show.

Rick has asked me on the show to discuss my latest blog posts on the COX bid protest and also the other post--- about how one citizen is costing the county and ordinary citizens hundreds of thousands of dollars with multiple identical and unsuccessful challenges to opt-outs from the county's very unpopular sector plan.

Interesting to me that the COX bid protest was picked up off of my blog by literally every local media outlet as I was the first to break that story.  They all ran that story with no attribution of where they got it but that is standard and I could really care less;  I put things on this blog that they all read and I only put things on here I want them to pick up and cover.

But the other story----the one that is more important in many respects--has been all but ignored  and has received no follow-on coverage by the local media.  This is perplexing as that blog post on this site is getting much more volume/comments/attention from the readers of this blog.  It is getting crushed.  It is a compelling story, how one citizen can weaponize a legitimate process to force property owners to spend tens of thousands of dollars even as every single such complaint this serial plaintiff has filed has been unsuccessful.

Perhaps this is because the citizen that is causing all of this consternation via this vexatious litigation is actually slated to win an award from CIVICON (PNJ) tomorrow.  What?!?This is emblematic of just how out of touch the PNJ is with what is really happening here in the county as they are rewarding a serial petitioner who has cost the taxpayers and ordinary citizens literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and expert witness fees over the last several years utilizing antagonistic, never winnable cut and paste complaints that have been rejected by DOAH multiple times over and over.  PNJ ignores this.  Just totally tone-deaf to what really is going on around here--that's the PNJ.

Anyway--hopefully we will have ample time to discuss both tomorrow morning on Rick's show.

I'm glad he's willing to entertain the discussion.  Once Rick publishes the podcast I will post it here.

This Abuse of the System is Costing Ordinary Citizens and County Taxpayers HUNDREDS of Thousands of Dollars

At what point does a perennial loser in administrative hearings on the same topic costing hundreds of thousands of dollars get labeled a vexatious litigant and shut down?

Everyone in America understands we are a nation of laws, rules, and justice.  There are multiple avenues where citizens can challenge rulings, bring lawsuits, file protests and or petitions, and appeal the rulings and outcomes of such court cases. Federal, state, local, municipal and other jurisdictions have multiple venues where citizens can challenge practically every decision governments make.

Locally, many of our land use decision, when challenged, go to the Division of Administrative Hearings.

One serial petitioner is local citizen and activist Jacqueline Rogers.

She (Rogers) has filed multiple challenges to the opt-outs from the sector plan in District 5 allowed by BCC action and vote.  None of her previous attempts at preventing property owners from opting out have been successful.  This Monday, this same individual (Rogers) will be testifying at a hearing to be held here in Escambia County at the Fairfield Drive one stop location.  Yes, it is another challenge to another family's move to "opt-out" of the county's sector plan.  According to multiple lawyers and citizens with whom I have now spoken on this topic---it is the same arguments being put forth by Jacqueline Rogers as in her previous, unsuccessful attempts at stopping property owners from getting out of the overly onerous and costly provisions of the sector plan--some of the requirements of which (including the 50% rule) cost these property owners $Millions in valuation of their respective large parcels. 

It's simply a copy and paste job by her (Rogers) according to most observers with whom I have spoken.   A mimeograph of the same losing arguments, copied and pasted with names and addresses changed but containing the same losing arguments she has put forward numerous times previously.

Monday's hearing is the result of the fifth petition Rogers has submitted to DOAH specifically challenging opt outs.  Two other cases in 2018 related to future land  use designation categories that were related to former County Commissioner Wilson Robertson's case but they weren't specifically challenging opt out.  Because of consolidation of some of the cases, the actual number of opt out challenges including this one is seven, which include landowners Wilson Robertson, the Jolly Family, the Arnold Family, the First Baptist Church of Cottage Hill, Billy Campbell, and now this latest one involves a 90+ acre parcel owned by the Owen family.

The costs associated with defending these duplicate challenges over and over are becoming too burdensome and many feel these "copy and paste" job challenges are an abouse of the system.

According to one individual intimately familiar with whom I spoke  "This is costing citizens and the county taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend, all for this one citizen who appears to be obsessed with preventing opt outs--even as she has been unsuccessful over and over."

In Monday's hearing, the county will be asking the judge to allow the county to recover court costs and fees expended in defending this what will be the 7th similar/identical complaint from the same citizen who keeps losing.  Good, I hope the judge allows for this.

Meanwhile, I have asked the county attorney why we cannot petition the hearing officer to rule that this

Big Win for the County and for Property Rights!

 

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.”

 After initial approval last year, Jacqueline Rogers, a land-use activist that runs a facebook chat site, and fellow activist Theresa Blackwell challenged the county’s action and the ruling in Tallahassee that upheld the county’s action--- by filing dozens and dozens of exceptions to the initial DOAH Administrative Law Judge’s ruling in favor of the county’s resolutions allowing multiple residents to opt out of the sector plan.

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.