I have previously filed official complaints with FDLE about this same matter but FDLE has done nothing to protect us from apparent illegal/criminal activity which is harming us.
I have also filed complaints with the Pensacola Police Department, the Escambia County Sheriff's Department, the State Attorney's Office (Mr. Golden and then Mr. Eddins), the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the Florida Commission of Ethics,the Florida Attorney General's Office (Mr. Crist and then Mr. McCollum), the Governor (Mr. Jeb Bush and then Mr. Crist), our U.S. Representative (Mr.Jeff Miller, Republican), our U.S. Senator (Mr. Bill Nelson, Democrat)the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the FBI(apparent illegal actions on the part of public officials falls in their jurisdiction). All appear to protect the Pensacola City Officials and not the victim of crimes apparently committed by the Pensacola City Officials.
We own an art gallery/antique shop holding functions, an historic property listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. This has been listed as such since approximately 1980. City Officials determined in 2000 that in addition to being grandfathered, we met all current requirements for parking, zoning and use and were sanctioned to reopen after restoration.
We were completely closed down on a Saturday afternoon, during a wedding, on March 19, 2005, by a Pensacola City police officer with no prior notice or warning. According to City Officials, we were closed down for every use (art gallery, antique shop, functions) and for good which is in violation of many Pensacola City Ordinances.
We discovered the next day, March 20, 2005 (Sunday) from a front-page news article that the city had agreed to finance about $40 million in public money for the Community Maritime Park which is to be built at the foot of our street, Spring Street. Suddenly our property became very important.
Saturday Morning we were an art gallery/antique shop holding functions, had never had any complaints and had never received a notice that we were breaking any codes or that there was any problem with our operation. Monday morning we were completely closed down by the Police Department, by Mr. Cowper’s Department and by the City Manager and were being threatened if we reopened.
It appears that these individuals conspired to illegally close us down since we had operated peacefully for five years, after the restoration, and on the weekend of March 19, 2005, at least three Pensacola City Departments suddenly decided, within 48 hours, that we were operating illegally and took action.
As I stated above, it appears: that they conspired to close us down, that they closed us down, that they conspired to lie, that they lied, that they conspired to commit extortion against us, that they committed extortion against us, that they conspired to commit grand theft against us and that they committed grand theft against us and are continuing to do so.
According to Florida Statutes, local officials appear to be using extortion (we were forced to refrain from operating our legally sanctioned business or we would be charged with committing a crime), grand theft (business income) of persons 65 years of age or older and conspiracy to initially close us down and keep us closed down even though we have pointed out, numerous times, that we were authorized before we reopened and that we have complied with the law. We have repeatedly reported these illegal activities to the State Attorney, FDLE, the Governor, and any agency that might be able to help us. No one will stop the illegal activity against us, an elderly couple who had served their country (both in the Army) and worked hard all our lives.
It appears that the actions of City Officials fall into the categories listed above, all of which are either a second or first-degree felony.
These apparent criminal actions also violate our rights under the United States Constitution pertaining to an individual’s right to use their private property if it is in compliance with the law – which ours is.
City Officials consistently lie to and about us with the end goal apparently to keep us illegally closed down until we have to sell because of lack of funds or die as we are both elderly. Since our illegal closing, my husband of 39 years, Gene Mead, passed away. It seems that they are right to hold on as it is now one down and one to go.
We insist on the law being followed instead of false interpretations of the law and false accusations being used to bully us around about the use of our business property.
These illegal activities drastically impacted our lives by denying us our income from our investment property. Also, it pains us that we can’t afford to keep this historic mansion in the condition we did before the City staff illegally closed us down. We won the award for best-restored house in 2000, the year we finished the restoration. In addition, I have had to spend an enormous amount of time endlessly writing and calling officials in an effort to get the illegal activities against us stopped and the appropriate, approved use of our property returned to us. All have denied us, in violation of the law and our rights under the Constitution. I would like to resume the legal operation of our business and enjoy dealing with artists, family events and beautiful antiques again before I die.
I again asked Mr. Bailey’s Department, FDLE, for his help to stop the illegal actions which are violating City Ordinances, County Ordinances, State Statutes, and Federal Laws.
Mr. Bailey delegated Mr. Ramage, an attorney, to handle my complaint. Mr. Ramage called Mr. Wells, the Pensacola City Attorney for information. Mr. Well's response follows:
Mr. Ramage wrote me quoting to me Mr. Wells' statements, which were false, and ignoring the documentation I had sent him.
I wrote Mr. Ramage and again sent documentation which, I believe any reasonable person would see, proved that it appears that Pensacola City Officials had repeatedly broken the law in closing our business and keeping it closed for over 5 years. Mr. Ramage wrote back.
I filed a complaint against the Pensacola City Attorney, Mr. William D. Wells, with Florida Bar Association for making false statements to the Florida Law Enforcement Department, for conflict of interest and for unprofessional behavior during Pensacola City Council Meetings.
Ms. Annemarie Craft of the Florida Bar Association sent my complaint to Mr. Wells and gave him an opportunity to respond. His response follows:
I was given an opportunity to rebut Mr. Wells' answer. My rebuttal follows:
Ms. Annemarie Craft, Bar Counsel
Attorney Consumer Assistance Program
The Florida Bar
651 E. Jefferson Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-2300
Dear Ms. Craft
This is in response to Mr. Wells’ letter to you dated December 13, 2010.
In the second paragraph of his letter, Mr. Wells stated, “For approximately the past 11 years, Ms. Mary Mead has been in contact with numerous City officials and employees regarding a commercial property which she owns in Pensacola. The Pensacola Police Department, the Inspections Department, our Zoning and Planning Office, and the City Attorney’s Office have voluminous files of correspondence, responses and investigations into Mr. Mead’s allegations of wrongful conduct on the part of City officials throughout this period.”
Ms. Craft, we bought our business, an historic property which was and is an art gallery/antique shop holding functions (which had been in operation since 1980), in the summer of 1998 and were immediately told by the Pensacola Building Inspections Department Head (Mr. Wilkinson) that we had to get a Certificate of Occupancy as his Department required it on change of tenant.
My husband and I had built our residence on a little bayou in 1978 – we were the contractors. I had become familiar with the Standard Building Code, which had been adopted by Escambia County and Pensacola as the official law in construction and building matters, and knew that Certificates of Occupancy were tied to the house’s use and, almost always, only one Certificate of Occupancy was required for the life of the house.
Our residence had a residential Certificate of Occupancy and we will only require a new Certificate of Occupancy if we change the occupancy type or use from residential to another type or use, perhaps commercial.
Our property downtown had a Certificate of Occupancy of commercial; we were going to use it as commercial so the Certificate of Occupancy was appropriate. Even though the Standard Building Code stated that a Certificate of Occupancy on change of tenant was not appropriate, City Officials “interpreted” this to mean that a Certificate of Occupancy was required on change of tenant. Contractors who would not acquiesce to this misuse of the law were not permitted to have building permits issued in the City.
I immediately notified the City Manager and other City Officials that this policy was illegal as it was in violation of the Standard Building Code. To change the Standard Building Code to support this policy, public notification must be made, hearings would have to be held and the City Council Members would have to approve this change. There would have been a public outcry.
Instead of the legal process, the City Attorney, Mr. Caton, the City Manager, Mr. Bonfield, and the Head of the Building Inspections Department, Mr. Wilkinson changed the Land Development Code (not the Standard Building Code) to include “minor changes.” The “minor changes” (kept secret until the LDC was approved and published in February, 1999) were a requirement to have a new Certificate of Occupancy not only on change of use but also on change of tenant. City Officials then illegally used the Land Development Code instead of the Standard Building Code, in violation of City Ordinances which specified the Standard Building Code as the law. This “minor change” affected every building in Pensacola.
Inspections Department personnel used this illegal procedure to continue, as they had previously done, to require unnecessary work and require the hiring of their approved contractors which resulted in harm being done to properties, especially historic properties such as ours (built in 1883 and listed on the National Registry of Historic Places) as many of our artifacts were ordered removed from the building by Pensacola Inspections Department personnel and were then promptly stolen by the contractor we had been forced to hire due to the above illegal requirement.
Since we bought the house in 1998 and the LDC was not changed until February, 1999, we did not fall under this false requirement since we had not had a change of tenant since the LDC was passed in February of 1999.
When I pointed this out to City Officials, they forced and bullied us to abide by this illegal requirement or, according to them, our house would sit until it rotted. We had already obtained a building permit in January, 1999, further excluding us from the illegal LDC change but we were still forced by the above individuals to submit to this illegal requirement. I am including some behind-the-scenes emails I was able to obtain which show that this change in the LDC was directed at me personally, also against the law.
I reported the grand theft of our artifacts to the Pensacola Police Department and they accepted the complaint only on our fifth reporting. Even though the contractor admitted to taking our property, the police investigation excused the contractor’s grand theft by saying that he kept our property as we owed him money. I submitted a copy of all invoices, marked paid in full by the contractor, and notified the Police Chief that if the contractor felt that we owed him money, a mechanic’s lien was appropriate and not grand theft. He ignored this and continued to excuse the grand theft of the contractor.
I repeatedly asked for the return of our historic artifacts, especially 3 overmantels carved from heart pine and mahogany with beveled mirrors and over 400 heart pine spindles, with accompanying railings, built specifically for the house in 1883 but my request was refused.
The expense to fabricate over 400 spindles which matched the stolen originals and do the other unnecessary work was over $300,000.00 – we are still paying for it – and the quality of the lumber we were able to get was far inferior to the original heart pine. This does not include the value of the stolen artifacts themselves. We did not make an insurance claim on the stolen artifacts so if they are ever found, they belong to us and not an insurance company, so we can return them to the house they were made for. In addition, whoever has them can be charged with receiving stolen property.
Santa Rosa County suspended the contractor’s license for 5 years for bilking an elderly couple in that County and he was later arrested for contracting without a license. He should have never had a license in Esambia County as he had a history of complaints, fraud, and unpaid judgments. I also wrote to the Police Chief and other City Officials about this and included his police record. None of then took any action to correct this situation.
Even though we pay taxes to the Pensacola Police Department and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office on the property downtown, the Pensacola Police Department would take no action and the Sheriff’s Office said they have an agreement to not practice law enforcement in the City. This is against the Florida Constitution which states that municipal citizens cannot be charged county taxes for services limited to unincorporated areas. We pay tax money given to the County Sheriff and the County Sheriff refuses, then and now, to provide the services we are paying for.
It appears that City Officials used this illegal requirement to control who could open a business in the City and which contractors could work in the City.
We were instructed to appear before the Pensacola Construction Board of Appeals – which I did. The Board sided with the City Attorney and said the City Officials could continue this illegal requirement. I researched the Board and found that almost all of then had contracts with the City which appeared to be a conflict of interest situation in violation of and forbidden by State Statutes.
I researched the other Pensacola Boards and found the conflict of interest situation in all of them. I have pointed this out over the years but this apparent illegal arrangement continues to this day.
It took hundreds of pages of correspondence and one and a half years to get City Officials and the Pensacola City Council to stop the illegal requirement for a Certificate of Occupancy on change of tenant. As you can see from the following page taken from the City Council Meeting report of January 27, 2000, they finally stopped the illegal practice of requiring a Certificate of Occupancy on change of tenant and the City Council Members praised my insistence that City Officials obey the law but no action was taken against the City Officials who apparently defrauded the public, including us, and stole from us nor against the people, such as the contractor, who defrauded and stole from us, apparently in corporation with the City Officials.
While Mr. Wells complained about our “allegations of wrongful conduct” he did not say these allegations were wrong as they were not wrong and I always furnished ample documentation to support these allegations. My allegations have usually been ignored and not corrected apparently in order to protect government officials who are breaking the law.
Mr. Wells further stated, “In addition, she has contacted numerous outside agencies such as the State Attorney’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”
I have diligently reported all of the above (and more) to outside agencies whose functions are to prevent or stop the kind of illegal actions we have faced, and it appears that, in each of these instances, City Officials have made false statements about the situation to these outside agencies and it appears that these outside agencies have ignored my documentation of the facts and have chosen to “cover up” wrongdoing on the part of City Officials.
This should stop as the people of Pensacola deserve the protection of the law but we have not gotten it in the past and are not currently getting it. Many City Officials appear to be predators harming the people of the City by abusing their authority and refusing to obey the law instead of being public servants abiding by and enforcing the laws made by our elected representatives.
My husband I finished the restoration of our business property in 2000; we won the North Hill Preservation Association’s award as best restored historic property for the year. We were on the Tour of Historic Homes that year to announce our reopening as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions.
I met with the Head of the Pensacola Planning Office, Mr. Doidge, to resume operation of our art gallery/antique shop holding functions. Mr. Doidge determined that we were legally grandfathered (in lieu of a conditional use) and, in addition, met all current requirements regarding zoning and parking. Parking was grandfathered to the parking available in 1994. Since our current parking requirement was 14 on-site spots and we had over 20 on-site spots we exceeded the current requirements by quite a lot in addition to being officially grandfathered. Also, our property is on a corner on a one-way 4 lane major artery, both outside lanes are demarked for parking and this on-street parking is available to anyone.
In addition to being grandfathered for functions (assemblies), since we restricted, by contract, attendance to less than 100, our business classification permitted assemblies of less than 100. The Head of the Pensacola Planning Department officially declared that we were legally grandfathered and approved our continued use of the property as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions. He gave me a checklist to get the approval of other agencies and departments, which I did and properly turned it in as directed.
From May, 2000, until March, 2005, we operated our business as authorized by officially being grandfathered. We operated an art gallery/antique shop where functions were held as we were legally authorized. We enjoyed collecting antiques and art pieces for resale. We also enjoyed the gallery nights, meet-the-artist nights, children’s tea parties, poetry readings, weddings, reunions, and other social functions which took place in our beautiful historic building especially the candlelight weddings (I supplied the candles and flowers free of charge) for young servicemen and women where I performed the marriage ceremony as I am a notary public.
It was a win-win situation. The people holding the function hired photographers, caterers, florists, even a limo a few times and out-of-town guests stayed in the nearby motel. Several local schools conducted walk-throughs of the historic neighborhood and I always invited them in for a tour of our building which was constructed before electricity, refrigeration, cars, and indoor bathrooms.
Since we had worked so hard all our lives, we wanted to enjoy our retirement by doing things we loved and, at the same time, add income to our fixed retirement income. Our life savings and personal account for retirement were wiped out by the illegal actions of City Officials and we also went deep into debt to comply with City Officials’ illegal demands. We have followed the rules and have done no harm to our neighborhood. Neighbors and guests have indicated that we have added greatly to the appearance of the neighborhood. There were no complaints from our neighbors, customers or City Officials.
In the first paragraph on Page 2 of Mr. Wells’ letter dated December 13, 2010, Mr. Wells stated, “In short, Ms. Mead is free to utilize her commercial building for any of those authorized uses, but for reasons known only to her, she has declined to utilize her building for any of those authorized uses. She repeatedly claims City Officials have “closed” her building and that is simply not the case.”
I believe that the following facts show that Mr. Wells made a false statement.
On March 19, 2005, without notice and out of nowhere, a police cruiser showed up at 7:00 PM on a Saturday night, during a wedding, causing a disturbance by going the wrong way on a one-way street with lights flashing. The police officer said, loudly and repeatedly in front of many witnesses, that we were not authorized to have weddings. He said we were closed down altogether as we were breaking the law by having functions.
He told us to turn the sound down as a neighbor, Mr. Joe Taylor had complained. The father of the bride promptly had the music turned down. I pointed out the Pensacola City Ordinance concerning noise abatement stated that complaints before 11:00 must be made by a reasonable person of normal sensitivities. The Pensacola Police Department is well acquainted with Mr. Taylor and knew that he is supersensitive, based on his many and repeated complaints mostly about people parking in no-parking areas, people smoking weed, young people gathering a few blocks over, etc. to various agencies. I also told the police officer that we were authorized to have functions and had been approved and sanctioned by City Officials. He said we were closed anyway.
I called the desk sergeant the next morning, Sunday, and told him that we were authorized to have functions but that we were closed down by a police officer. He said that if we had functions a police officer would be dispatched and hung up.
On reading the Sunday paper later that morning, I discovered that City Officials had decided to spend approximately 40 million dollars on a Community Maritime Park to be built at the end of our street, Spring Street. Suddenly our property became very important.
Monday morning I called Mr. Cowper, Director of the Community Development Department and told him that we were grandfathered and had been properly reauthorized or vetted for operation, to include functions in 1999-2000, and that neither Code Enforcement nor any City Official had given us prior notice that we were in violation of anything.
Mr. Cowper said that we were not authorized to have functions and were completely closed down. After 25 years of authorized operation as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions, in the same location, our business was closed down with no reason given other than functions were not authorized and we were having them so we were closed down as punishment.
I tried constantly and consistently to get Mr. Cowper and his Department, Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Morris, to follow the law and stop refusing to let us operate our legally sanctioned business as it was depriving us of our income from our business property - to no avail.
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Excerpt from our letter to City Officials letting them know they had acted improperly.
AUTHORITY TO ISSUE CITATIONS AND CITATIONS PROCEDURE
Pensacola City Ordinance Sec. 13-2-2. Authority to issue citations and citations procedure.
(a) Prior to issuing a citation, a designated code enforcement officer shall provide notice to the person that the person has committed a violation of a code provision and shall establish a reasonable time period within which the person must correct the violation. …
Your office ignored proper procedures. You claim that we broke the ordinances of the City by having functions. If so, the procedures stated above, by City Ordinance, must apply. Your office ignored the city ordinance regulating what is considered a code enforcement violation. Instead, a police officer informed us, at 7:00 PM during the celebration of a wedding, that we were breaking the law as we were not authorized to have weddings on our property and that we were closed down. We are authorized to have weddings on our property. No prior notice was given and no citation was issued.
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City Officials were and are in violation of this ordinance as they refused and still refuse to let us operate as grandfathered and City Officials did not follow the official procedure required by City Ordinance to close a business. We are still closed and did not and still have not received due process. There appears to be a conspiracy among City Officials as, after 25 years of peaceful operation, three City Departments closed our business down within 48 hours.
I contacted Ms. Melanie Nichols, the President of our North Hill Historic Preservation Association, where our property is and where we are members, about the illegal closing.
She wrote to the Community Development Department for clarification for the Association. Ms. Morris responded:
-----Original Message-----
From: Sherry Morris [mailto:SMorris@ci.pensacola.fl.us]
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 15:46
To: Nichols, Melanie CIV COMTRAWING SIX PENSACOLA FL
Subject: RE: Req. for info
Hi Melanie, according to City records, the Meads have a business license for an office use (a consulting business). This is a general employee license which would cover most office uses with the exception of medical offices and things of that nature. According to Inspections Services, hosting wedding and other special events would change the occupancy of the building due to the fact that any gathering in excess of 50 people for events such as this would require an Assembly Occupancy, and that would in turn require improvements such as fire rating for exits, bathroom requirements, floor loads, parking requirements, panic hardware on doors, etc. Basically, this type of event isn't currently covered under the existing business license. The permitted uses allowed in PR-2 don't list this particular type of business specifically either...PR-2 allows the following uses as "Conditional Uses . . .":
Ms. Morris and Mr. Wilkinson made false statements. We are not and have never been an office building, we have had a license for a retail shop since 1998, we classify for assemblies of less than 100 people, etc. Evidently Mr. Wilkinson, Inspections Services, and Ms. Morris deliberately supplied false information to Ms. Nichols to justify their wrongdoing. I contacted Ms. Morris and Mr. Cowper requesting that they send an email to Ms. Melanie Nichols, North Hill Preservation District President, with the true facts. They refused to do this.
After trading phone calls and emails for approximately 5 months, on Aug 15, 2005, Mr. Cowper sent an email where he finally put in writing what he had stated verbally from the beginning: that we were closed completely and not allowed to operate an art gallery/antique shop and were not allowed to have functions:
“we have no record that a conditional use permit was ever approved by the planning board and city council for an art gallery.” And, “While I do not wish to see you sell your property I’m sure that you can understand that I must enforce the applicable zoning regulations. I encourage you to review the applicable zoning regulations and to restrict the use of your property to those allowed. “
I believe that this is sufficient to show that Mr. Wells’ statement of “She repeatedly claims City Officials have “closed” her building and that is simply not the case.” is a false statement.
In addition, Mr. Wells stated in his email to Mr. Ramage, FDLE, that “Ms. Mead’s building was conditionally permitted as an art gallery and an antique shop with no outside displays permitted when she purchased it and it still is today.”
Mr. Wells again made a false statement. We have never had a conditional use or conditional permit, we have been and are grandfathered as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions and are not legally subject to any conditional use restrictions.
Mr. Wells’ depiction of the night of March 19, 2005, is much different than what actually happened. Mr. Wells stated:
In 2005, she allowed weddings and receptions to take place on her property,
and a large wedding produced a great deal of on-street parking and other
outside activity associated with weddings and receptions. Numerous complaints
were received from her neighbors and the city did direct her to cease holding
outdoor events such as weddings. The City staff takes the position that weddings
and other outside activities not related to being an art gallery or an antique store
are not permitted, and that the area onstreet parking problems which they can cause
are not warranted. Ms. Mead firmly believes that a wedding conducted in an outside
gazebo and its attendant reception are uses ancillary to an art gallery and an antique
store, but the City disagrees. And that is the nub of the situation. She has been
complaining about it since 2005.
Mr. Wells made false accusations. Gallery nights, weddings, reunions, etc. have taken place in that building since 1980, not since 2005. We have never had what you would consider a large wedding as we protect our restored historic building. About 45 participants were present that night. All of the parking was contained in our parking lot for convenience, but there is no prohibition for our guests to use clearly defined, demarked on-street parking on both sides of Spring Street, a major artery, as the roadway only occupies the center two lanes of the four lanes of Spring Street.
There were no numerous complaints. Only one complaint, described above, was received by any agency during the 12 years we have owned the property. I asked Mr. Wells to furnish copies of these “numerous complaints” and so far he has failed to do so. The next day I checked with the neighbors as we are conscientious and had not planned to disturb anyone. No one complained with most neighbors saying they had heard nothing.
Mr. Wells said “the city did direct her to cease holding outdoor events such as weddings.” Mr. Wells gave a false interpretation of the City Officials actions as they closed us down completely as shown above. In fact, City Officials were apparently convinced that they had successfully run us out of business as several City employees called to see when our “going out of business” sale was to take place. Mr. Wells’ letter to Mr. Ramage is the first time I have heard of our closure being limited to “outdoor events,” and this is over 5 years after the incident.
Mr. Wells also said, “Ms. Mead firmly believes that a wedding conducted in an outside gazebo and its attendant reception are uses ancillary to an art gallery and an antique store, but the City disagrees. And that is the nub of the situation. She has been complaining about it since 2005.” The truth is, I firmly believe that, since we are grandfathered to hold functions, we are allowed to hold functions or assemblies which are permitted in our zoning, PR2. The true “nub of the situation” appears to be that many City Officials, especially Mr. Wells, believe they are above the law and, so far, that appears to be true.
In September, 2005, Mr. Cowper sent an email, in answer to my many emails, where he finally admitted that we are grandfathered as an art gallery/antique shop but he still, illegally, refused to recognize our grandfathered status to hold functions and still refused to allow us to hold functions. He stated, “While I agree that the occasional art showing is incidental to an art gallery I do not think this extends to weddings and similar gatherings/functions/social events in the PR-2 zone.”
Functions are grandfathered with us, especially gallery nights, but Mr. Cowper and his replacement, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Bonfield, then City Manager, current City Manager, Mr. Coby, Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Morris all refuse us our right to have functions as authorized by law by being grandfathered. In addition, our zoning does freely permit functions, to include weddings, reunions, etc.
Attachment 2 of his letter of December 13, 2010, to you was, according to Mr. Wells, “a portion of the City’s Land Development Code detailing the authorized uses in the PR-2 zoning district. In short, Ms. Mead is free to utilize her commercial building for any of those authorized uses...” The left column is a continuance of uses freely permitted in the PR-2 zone. Number 7 in that column is “Churches, Sunday school buildings and parish houses.” This category requires an assembly Certificate of Occupancy and assemblies of less than 100 require a business Certificate of Occupancy, which we have. Functions (weddings, reunions, etc.) are freely permitted in PR-2 for assembly CO’s and I am not free, by order of City Officials, to utilize my commercial building for this use contrary to what Mr. Wells stated.
“Number (b)5. Conditional uses permitted” in the right column does not apply to us as we have never had nor do we now have a Conditional Use, we are grandfathered.
According to the Standard Building Code, we are allowed assemblies of less than 100 as long as that assembly is allowed in our zoning, according to City Ordinances. We can have the same assemblies as churches, as they are freely permitted in our zoning, but not the same assemblies as restaurants, as they are not permitted in our zoning.
According to City Ordinances, the purpose of the North Hill preservation zoning districts were established to “preserve the unique architecture and landscape character of the North Hill area, and to promote orderly redevelopment which complements and enhances the architecture of this area of the city.” Many members of the North Hill Preservation Association, of which we are members, expressed delight and approval that we were holding functions in this beautiful building and said that its use that way complemented and enhanced the spirit and atmosphere of the historic area.
My husband and I agonized over what to do. Opening and closing a business are very expensive endeavors. Our building was filled with the large inventory of pictures, antiques and supplies for functions which we had collected over the years.
We didn’t want to have a going-out-of business sale and sell our property.
We wanted to continue our business as we had a right to do but City Officials placed illegal restrictions on us which would cause us to lose a lot of money and probably cause us to lose our property anyway if we tried to run it the way they demanded.
Some friends suggested that, since we are in the right, that we have functions in spite of what City Officials said but City Officials had threatened to charge us with a crime if we do. We don’t break the law, we are too old to go to jail and we have a good reputation to protect for us, for our children and for our grandchildren who live with us.
We decided to stay, but declined to reopen under the illegal restrictions, and fight against being forced off of our property and work, as we did with the illegal Certificate of Occupancy requirement, to get City Officials to obey the law so we could open using our building, as previously authorized, with a chance of succeeding.
Mr. Cohen indicated that City Officials had the right to determine what functions, or in this case, no functions we can hold on our property in spite of what the City Ordinances allow. This is and has always been false. Under the City Ordinance, weddings are permitted in PR-2 under assembly classifications. We are permitted assemblies of up to 100 people. We held weddings consisting of fewer than 100 people (usually much fewer). We were obeying the law. The City is not obeying the law by illegally shutting us down and illegally keeping us shut down due to the restriction on holding functions which is an integral part of our business.
Mr. Cowper, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Bonfield, Mr. Coby and Ms. Morris cite lack of parking as the reason for closing us down.
----- Original Message -----
From: Thaddeus Cohen
To: gmmead
Cc: Sherry Morris ; Patricia Slider
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 2:49 PM
Subject: RE: Legal use of our property downtown
Dear Ms. Mead
I am sorry for the delay in my response to you.
This memo, however, is to reaffirm the City’s position that the use of the property as an antique store and / or art gallery is a grandfathered use that is allowed to continue.
The property being utilized for weddings and other similar functions, however, remains an issue. There are accessory / incidental uses that would normally be associated with and antique shop or art gallery, such as featured art showings. That same connection is not apparent for weddings and other similar social functions which tend to have a large attendance and a greater requirement for the availability of off-street parking; and therefore is not permitted. The PR-2 zoning district allows limited commercial uses with conditional use approval, and the continued use of your property as an antique shop or art gallery (with no outside displays) is certainly permitted.
Thaddeus L. Cohen AIA, Director
Department of Community Development
City of Pensacola
I pointed out in my email of April 28, 2008, to Mr. Cohen, “The number of off-street parking spaces provided for buildings constructed prior to October 13, 1994, shall be deemed in compliance with the requirements of this code, for as long as the same land use is maintained within the same building footprint.” (quoted from City Ordinance).
Sec. 12-3-1. Off-street parking spaces requirements.
Off-street parking is required in all zoning districts, except as provided below. The following off-street parking is required by this chapter.
(A) General provisions.
…….
(7) The number of off-street parking spaces provided for buildings constructed prior to October 13, 1994, shall be deemed in compliance with the requirements of this code, for as long as the same land use is maintained within the same building footprint.
…..
Our building was constructed in 1883 and was used from @1980 on as an art gallery/antique shop (documented in City records) where the previous owner had many social functions there, as part of her business, as I have previously indicated. There are no changes in the building footprint (since initial construction in 1883) and the same land use has been maintained at least since 1980. We fall under this exclusion.
No neighbor has ever complained about the parking and the City has never issued a citation or notified us of a legitimate parking problem. For over a year, I emailed Mr. Cohen monthly reminding him that we were in compliance with all parking requirements and that we wished to operate as authorized. He has never acknowledged or answered these emails. City Officials are in violation of the parking ordinance as they refuse to let us operate as authorized.
I was in constant communication with the City Manager, Mr. Bonfield, and then Mr. Coby and City Council Members about parking laws being misused to close us down and keep us closed down. Mr. Bonfield supported the wrongdoing on the part of City Staff and Mr. Coby ignored us and never answered any of our communications.
Mr. Cohen stated above, “There are accessory / incidental uses that would normally be associated with and antique shop or art gallery, such as featured art showings.”
Mr. Cohen is wrong.
City Ordinance ARTICLE IV. NEIGHBORHOOD PRESERVATION STANDARDS
Sec. 12-2-31. Accessory uses and structure standards. addresses accessory use as use by another building on the same lot to support the use of the main building. From the beginning, our detached garage was recognized as an accessory use as the previous owner and we, also, use it as a repair shop for antiques that need gluing, painting or restaining and storage for surplus inventory.
In addition to the City Ordinance shown above, Attachment 2 of Mr. Wells’ letter, a portion of the City’s Land Development Code, Number 6. Accessory buildings shows that “uses customarily incidental” refers to outbuildings from the main house, as I have maintained all along, and not to other uses of the main building such as functions as Mr. Cohen, Mr. Wells and others maintain.
An Assembly Certificate of Occupancy (functions) is not an accessory use but is a dual Certificate of Occupancy with Group B, Business – which we are.
“Number (b)5. Conditional uses permitted” in the right column does not apply to us as we have never had nor do we now have a Conditional Use, we are grandfathered.
Mr. Cohen, Mr. Wells and others pretend that these two conditions are the same, they are not. Conditional Uses does not apply to us.
We are and have been in compliance with every ordinance they complain about and they have refused to state any ordinance that we have violated.
Mr. Cohen, his Department and City Boards routinely violate City Ordinances.
One example: Mr. Cohen, his Department and the Planning Board requested approval and argued for a property, owned by the Bank of Pensacola, to receive a conditional use on DeSoto Street as a commercial property. This property is in a residential area, does not have adequate parking (at least one vehicle was to be parked on the lawn in the front yard of the North Hill Historic District), and since it is on a narrow road clients will park in the road blocking traffic – very dangerous for children in the residential area. The setback is only 5 feet when 10 feet is required. Council Member Nobles is affiliated with the Bank of Pensacola. The North Hill Preservation Association, where the property is located, presented a citizen’s petition against the City breaking the City Ordinances. Thankfully for the children there, the City Council voted against this but it should never have gotten to the City Council as it was against the law.
Also, at the same City Council Meeting of May 8, 2008, Ms. Wilhelm, President of the North Hill Preservation Association, of which we are members, stated that there was no problem in the North Hill Preservation District with businesses which had been grandfathered and especially those on major arteries in North Hill. That described us.
Over the years, I have contacted newly elected Pensacola City Council Members, have explained the situation, with plenty of evidence, quotes from City Ordinances, and have received no help. Two examples follow:
Example 1: Councilwoman Diane Mack
----- Original Message -----
From: Diane Mack
To: gmmead
Cc: Thaddeus Cohen
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 1:04 PM
Subject: Your building use issue
Dear Mrs. Mead,
I have reviewed your materials and spoken with the City Planning staff about your issue. You have received an official determination that the special use you wish to make of your building on North Spring is not permissible within the present city codes. That determination still stands. My advice would be to work with the staff and find out what is the best use you could make of the building that is permissible and see if that might work for you. I would strongly recommend, too, that you leave old baggage behind. When you genuinely want help from people, it does not help your case if you begin by reciting a litany of complaints from the past.
Kind regards,
Diane Mack
Example 1: Councilwoman Megan Pratt
Original Message -----
From: Megan Pratt
To: gmmead
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 6:46 AM
Subject: RE: Legal use of our Property Downtown
Thank you for contacting us again about this issue. As I mentioned before, I am disappointed that the dispute over zoning has caused you to lose potential business. In my time on the council I have begun to better understand our zoning and regulation processes. I now understand that very regularly a citizen disagrees with the planning board or the staff on the legal use of property. The Zoning Board of Adjustments is set up to handle these regular disagreements, disagreements similar to yours. ZBA is not a court proceeding, though it functions like a court. The planning department and all other city officials are bound to honor ZBA rulings. As I have seen, you have a great knowledge of our zoning regulations, so I believe that you could present a compelling case to the ZBA.
Please let me know if I can help facilitate getting your disagreement on the ZBA agenda.
Thanks.
Megan
As you can see from the above examples, Mr. Wells’ statement that “Ms. Mead is free to utilize her commercial building for any of those authorized uses,” is a false statement.
We declined to appear before the ZBA as we have previously (2000) been officially approved and, in addition, its board members are comprised of people who have conflict of interest issues.
On June 2, 2009, we sent an email to Police Chief Mathis spelling out the apparent criminal actions against us and asked that the Police Department conduct a serious investigation and that criminal charges be pressed against those violating the law as we deserve to be treated fairly and to be allowed to follow the law regarding our business.
That same day, Chief Mathis responded below that he saw no criminal wrong doing and would not investigate.
----- Original Message -----
From: John Mathis
To: gmmead
Cc: Al Coby ; Thaddeus Cohen ; Chip Simmons ; Rusty Wells
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 4:32 PM
Subject: RE: Official Complaint
Ms Mead,
I am in receipt of your email. The actions you want investigated were administrative actions taken by city officials in the performance of their duties. If you do not agree with those decisions it is certainly within your rights to pursue other options if you so desire, however it is my opinion that these actions do not involve any criminal wrong doing and therefore no investigation will be initiated by the Pensacola Police Department.
Respectfully,
John W. Mathis
Chief of Police
Pensacola Police Department
Notice: Florida has a very broad public records law. Most written communications to or from state and local officials regarding government business are public records available to the public and media upon request. Your email communications may be subject to public disclosure.
We immediately sent another email to Chief Mathis but he ignored it and has never responded in any way since then. The City Manager is his boss.
We filed a complaint with the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, which we pay taxes to, but they refused to investigate saying it was not in their jurisdiction, but apparently we are in their jurisdiction enough to pay taxes.
The City Officials’ actions of apparently driving our business from the City seems to be in opposition to the City’s often stated goal of inviting businesses into the City. At one meeting, City Council Members discussed incentives to bring in women owned businesses. I, a woman and a veteran, am the majority owner and president of our business. I run the business on a daily basis and my husband, a partner who is an accountant, does the books and taxes yet they have illegally closed us down. Pensacola will never flourish as long as law-abiding, responsible, hard-working people, such as we are, are prevented from operating in the City.
All of the above named City Officials appear to be abusing their office and authority to break laws instituted by our elected officials and appear to be content to just ignore us until we die and the problem will go away. It appears to have a good chance of working as my husband of 39 years, Gene, passed away in May of this year.
Mr. Wells, as an attorney in the City Attorney’s Office and, later, as City Attorney, has participated in what appears to be a conspiracy designed and developed to keep us from the legal use of our property in order to deny us the legal income from this income property in order to force us to sell. I have already reported our phone conversation to you. He also appears to be covering up for officials apparently committing theft from persons 65 years of age or older (Florida State Statute 812.0145) and extortion (Florida State Statute 836.05).
This situation only arose when City Officials decided, in 2005, to build a 40 million dollar maritime park at the end of our Street, Spring Street. Our historic building has been used, and is listed in City records, as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions from 1980 to 2005, over 25 years, with no complaints and no illegal closings. It should still be listed on City Records as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions, as that is our official designation. We meet all ordinance requirements for holding functions, in addition to being grandfathered, and cannot operate an art gallery, profitably, without gallery nights, art classes, open houses, social gatherings, etc.
Mr. Wells has responded to inquiries by public officials of agencies that we have written, requesting help in getting City Officials to obey the law, with false statements, which appear to be a cover-up for apparent illegal/criminal actions on the part of City Officials as well as Mr. Wells, himself. Unfortunately, Officials at the other agencies are eager to believe Mr. Wells’ false statements instead of our documentation, i.e. Mr. Ramage of the F.D.L.E. Even though I wrote Mr. Ramage and told him Mr. Wells statements were false along with documentation to prove it, and again asked for his assistance, Mr. Ramage appears to be ignoring our request for help.
As City Attorney, Mr. Wells has refused to stop the illegal actions against us and protects those who are also apparently committing illegal/criminal actions against us. As a result, individuals, such as ourselves, have lost and are losing valuable possessions, historic artifacts, income from legal investment property, and years of our lives being denied what we have been legally authorized to do.
I have requested all communication, except that generated by me, between Mr. Wells and anyone else, especially other agencies. The only communication with another agency Mr. Wells supplied was a communication, that I already had a copy of from Mr. Ramage, F.D.L.E. I am aware of other correspondence, especially to the State Attorney’s Office, but Mr. Wells refused to furnish that in violation of the Florida Sunshine Law.
There appears to be a curtain over the City where underneath the curtain, City Officials are breaking the law and harming citizens, and outside the curtain, the City Attorney is giving a false picture of what is happening underneath, that City Officials are obeying the law when they are not. In addition, the County Attorney and attorneys at the State Attorney’s Office, appear to be accomplices in covering up illegal actions on the part of City Officials. The County Attorney will not let the Escambia County Sheriff investigate and the State Attorney’s Office sees nothing wrong. I have previously filed against both for these actions.
My late husband said that it feels like a pit bull (City Officials) has us by the throat and is pulling us down to our death while the attorneys who are in a position to stop this appear to condone the illegal action.
The Pensacola website, ci.pensacola.fl.us, has Pensacola City Council Meeting videos, Pensacola City Council Meeting minutes and Pensacola City Ordinances.
I have repeatedly asked for a legal reason for our closing and Mr. Wells has furnished only false statements.
I am, again, requesting that Mr. Wells be thoroughly investigated and proper charges be pressed and prosecuted to the fullest extent possible as his apparent illegal actions have harmed innocent people, many of whom are elderly, such as ourselves. I will be happy to send additional appropriate documentation as I have kept extensive records of the ongoing illegal actions.
Sincerely,
Mary Mead
