Second Official Report of Corruption in Pensacola filed with the U.S. Attorney General filed on October 17, 2017

Official report of corruption sent to:  U.S. Department of Justice, Attn: The Honorable Jeff Sessions, U. S. Attorney General, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20530-0001 filed on October 17, 2017

Dear Mr. Attorney General

This letter is an addition to my previous letter reporting the extreme corruption, with sadistic elements, in Pensacola which have illegally harmed and eventually illegally closed my business, which is a woman veteran owned business.

My husband and I own an historic house which was built in 1883 but I have always been the one who has charge of the house and I am the majority owner of the business. My husband, also a veteran, ran our accounting business, he was the accountant.

In the process of defending our beautiful historic property from the illegal demands of City Officials, I had to turn to the Florida Building Commission for help because the City Officials refused to obey the law and constantly harassed me with their illegal demands. On September 16, 1998, I sent a petition to the Florida Building Commission requesting a Declarative Statement on the requirement for a Certificate of Occupancy on change of ownership or change of tenant within the same occupancy type (commercial/business in this case).

On November 23, 1998, in answer to my request, I received a Declarative Statement from the Florida State Building Commission stating that our use of the house does not constitute a change of occupancy and that a Certificate of Occupancy is not required. They ruled in my favor.

The comments made by the Florida Building Commission echoed the exact statements I had made to Pensacola City Officials regarding what the construction regulations required and did not require. According to the Florida Building Commission’s official decision, a new Certificate of Occupancy was not required for our property.

It should have been that when we bought the house, according to the SBC and the Florida Building Commission, we were allowed to continue the operation of the business, an art gallery/antique shop holding functions. Instead, City Officials had stalled us for almost 5 months and harassed us by making illegal demands and denying us the legal use of our historic building.

I sent copies of the Florida Building Commission’s Declarative Statement to City Manager Bonfield, City Attorney Caton, the Pensacola Building Inspection Department, Mr. Wilkinson, and all City Council Members and suggested that the Pensacola Building Inspection Department’s office policies be carefully reviewed for compliance with existing laws. 

In addition to sending the Declarative Statement, I called City Manager Bonfield, and related the inappropriate actions on the part of the Pensacola Building Inspection Department, the findings of the Florida Building Commission which support my standing and requested that he undertake the task of getting the Pensacola Building Inspection Department in line with the Florida State Statutes and the Standard Building Code.

This should have been the end of the illegal demands and harassment but Mr. Bonfield refused to obey the SBC and the decision by the Florida Building Commission. The City Staff appears to perceive Pensacola as a sanctuary city for crime. Mr. Bonfield continued the illegal policy of forcing Pensacola property owners, including me, to comply with his illegal requirements regarding the misuse of the CO by threats and illegal demands.

Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson kept forcing me to go through the Certificate of Occupancy renovation process which is inappropriate as I am not changing occupancy type and, in addition, historic properties were exempt. They were demanding extensive construction oops, demolition, in order to strip our property of valuable, precious, historic artifacts which were built specifically for our house in 1883.

Many of the artifacts had the sign of the house, a quarter sun with three sun rays. Many historic houses had their own sign or logo and sometimes a special name. My house’s name is the Brian Dunwoody House, the first owner and builder in 1883. We wanted to retain these important parts of our property in keeping with its historical value and uniqueness.

Mr. Wilkinson wrote and stated I could not continue work on items not requiring a permit, such as painting and replacing interior doors which were too short, etc., until I hired a contractor. Mr. Wilkinson did not have the authority to do this since anyone can do work on their property which does not require a permit – his demand was another bullying tactic or extortion and was against construction law. I had to comply with his illegal demand or risk punishment in addition to the ongoing punishment of harassment, threats, etc. Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson had forced our business property to sit unused for 6 months at this point.

I filed an official complaint against Mr. Wilkinson, as the Pensacola Building Official, with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) and included extensive documentation of his actions which appeared to be in violation of the laws regarding construction in Pensacola.

Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson continued to refuse my repeated requests, supported by specific Florida and federal laws, that they operate in accordance with existing laws, instituted by our elected officials. They continued to write me repeatedly demanding that we undergo the illegal requirement for a new CO and that we hire a contractor.

I wrote the State Attorney, Mr. Golden, for our circuit and presented extensive documentation to prove that Pensacola City Officials repeatedly refused to obey the law and repeatedly committed apparent illegal/criminal actions against us. State Attorney Golden ignored all of the City Official's apparent illegal actions and refused to stop these illegal actions against us.

Escambia County Sheriff McNesby refused to even let me explain the illegal actions on the part of City Officials each time I tried.

I finally wrote Florida Governor Jeb Bush on January 8, 1999. I asked him to stop the apparent illegal/criminal demands against me and allow me to operate my woman veteran owned business so I could earn an income. The mortgage payments and expenses are due every month and City Officials won’t let us use our business property to earn an income.

Governor Jeb Bush answered my letter on February 23, 1999. His letter is printed at pensacolanewsletter.blogspot.com, chapter 6. All of his statements were wrong.

Governor Bush stated in paragraph 1, “You are to be commended for your interest in restoring and preserving one of the great historic structures of the area.” Governor Bush ignored the fact that City Officials were illegally requiring “renovations” even though they had no authority to demand these renovations which, in this case, consisted of stripping our historic structure of almost all of the historic artifacts built for the house when it was constructed in 1883. I defended our property against renovation (make new) since we considered it extremely important to preserve the original artifacts. Even though they were forcing us to renovate, City Officials did not have the authority to compel us to renovate or make new our historic property.

I had reported to Governor Bush that City Officials were forcing us, under false requirements, constant harassment, and false charges and false statements, to undergo an illegal Certificate of Occupancy process. I was desperately defending our historic property since we wanted to keep the 115+ year old artifacts in place where they belonged.

I pointed out that the unnecessary, expensive construction they were requiring was in violation of the Standard Building Code, United States Secretary of the Interior’s rules on restoring historic properties, was against our wishes, was causing great harm to our historic building and was causing unneeded financial loss to us.

Governor Bush stated in paragraph 2, “After reviewing your letter and back up documentation you provided, it appears you are asking if the City of Pensacola has acted within its authority in requiring that a certificate of occupancy be issued for you property. The opinion of the Florida Building Commission, which you received as a declaratory statement, resolves the issue of whether the Standard Building Code requires a Certificate of occupancy in this case. However an interpretation of the Standard Building Code does not entirely answer the question of whether a certificate of occupancy is required in your case.”

Contrary to Governor Bush’s letter, the Florida Building Commission’s interpretation of the Standard Building Code did entirely answer the question of whether a certificate of occupancy was required in my case. Their decision was made in November, 1998, and the phony City Ordinance was not requested by City Officials until December, 1998, after City Officials received the decision ruling against them. The only valid building code in Pensacola at that time was the SBC (the phony ordinance did not amend the SBC) and the SBC remained the only legal construction regulation until the Florida Statutes incorporated the building codes. All City Official demands, requirements, and accusations have been based on false statements of authority and false requirements on the part of City Officials and appear to be criminal and/or illegal.

Governor Jeb Bush stated in paragraph 3, “Florida law requires all local governments to choose from among the state minimum building codes established in the state statutes the code which will serve as the building code within their jurisdictions. The Standard Building Code is one of the 4 minimum codes from which a jurisdiction may choose. However, state law does allow local jurisdictions to require more stringent standards than those in the selected minimum codes. See s 553.73(4), F. S. 1998 (supp), enclosed. From the information you provided, it appears that the City of Pensacola has adopted a local ordinance requiring a certificate of occupancy be issued under the facts of your case. This is a more stringent requirement than those in the Standard Building Code.”

The Pensacola Planning Board, the Pensacola City Council, and Pensacola City Officials illegally used the Land Development Code (LDC) instead of the authorized regulation, the SBC, to force illegal building construction demands. The illegal Board Members and City Officials apparently conspired to commit illegal/criminal acts by pretending it was the construction law. I repeatedly stated that this was illegal but City Officials used extortion by illegally refusing us an occupational license until we submitted to getting an unneeded new CO.

To prevail in the illegal CO on change of tenant scam, City Officials and the Pensacola Planning Board framed me by using the false LDC “regulation” (pretending it was the legal construction rule) to violate my constitutional rights by illegally coming on my property, without a warrant and without my permission, to further their grand-theft scheme criminal actions (mostly felonies).

City Officials illegally used the LDC to steal our life savings, building materials and historic artifacts. The Pensacola Police Department refused to stop this scam against me and the people of Pensacola. The Pensacola Police Department refused to arrest the contractor who confessed to stealing our property and they allowed him to keep everything he had stolen. This is documented in the official Pensacola Police Department investigation which is located in Council Files, cityofpensacola.com, Memo dated 08/14/2000, Subj: 520 North Spring Street – Responses to Ms. Mary Mead’s Complaints. The official police report is printed on pages 24 to 32. Investigator Stone stated on page 25, “Miller states in the record he has some materials of Meads he is holding because Mead owes him money.”

The fake ordinance was not one of the 4 minimum codes allowed. Governor Jeb Bush tried to pass the fake Ordinance off as a more stringent requirement of the SBC. This was an absurd and blatantly false statement. The fake Ordinance did not affect the construction regulation and the City Officials illegally forcing this "more stringent standard" on us was illegal and in violation of our Constitutional rights as it was ex post facto – written after we had a change of tenancy.

The Standard Building Code, Section 103 Powers and Duties of the Building Official, stated:
“103.1 General. The building official is hereby authorized and directed to enforce the provisions of this code. The building official is further authorized to render interpretations of this code, which are consistent with its spirit and purpose.” Mr. Wilkinson is the Pensacola Building Official. The original passage in the SBC indicated that the Certificate of Occupancy is not appropriate on change of ownership if the classification of the occupancy type stays the same. The City policy of requiring a new CO on change of tenancy in the same classification is not consistent with the spirit and purpose of the SBC and is in direct violation of the SBC not a more stringent requirement. (another absurd example of more stringent: Original – be careful where you spray the weed killer – don't kill the plants. More stringent – kill the plants.)

Governor Jeb Bush stated in paragraph 4, “The Florida Building Commission was required to deny your request for declaratory statement for interpretation of the applicable sections of the Pensacola Code of Ordinances.” Governor Jeb Bush’s statement is false since the Florida Building Commission did issue a Declaratory Statement and the legal conclusion was that I was right and a new CO was not required. The Florida Building Commission concluded that City Officials had no authority to keep demanding a new CO.

The correct response would have been for Governor Jeb Bush to stop the illegal demands against us and, since the occupational license has no real requirement except a fee, he should direct City Officials to issue one to us immediately so we could open our business and earn an income. He should also initiate an investigation by FDLE and the Attorney General's office based on the evidence I sent to the Governor to charge City Officials with breaking the law. This is the only correct action for him to take since I have been right since the beginning. Instead, he appeared to support Mr. Bonfield, Mr. Caton and Mr. Wilkinson’s practice of corruption in Pensacola and allowed the apparent illegal/criminal actions against me and other Pensacolians to continue unabated.

I immediately wrote Governor Jeb Bush and explained where he was mistaken.

The result of Governor Jeb Bush falsely stating that the Florida Building Commission had not made a ruling (which they had – in my favor) was that Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson continued to demand compliance with an illegal requirement even though it was City Manager Bonfield’s job is to see “that the ordinances of the city and laws of the state are enforced.”

Mr. Bonfield continued to refuse to do his job of stopping illegal harmful demands against me and repeatedly told me that I had to appear before the Pensacola Construction Board of Appeals to get the

City to obey the law regarding CO’s. The sole intent appeared to be to strip us, older law-abiding people, both veterans, of as many of our assets, earned by decades of hard work, as they could get away with. Even though I had repeatedly requested that Governor Jeb Bush and Mr. Bonfield send me a copy of correspondence between them, both refused. Governor Jeb Bush ignored my request and City Officials said there was no correspondence with Governor Jeb Bush.

Governor Jeb Bush wrote me, on June 17, 1999. His letter is at pensacolanewsletter.blogspot.com, chapter 7. He stated that I should appear before the Pensacola Construction Board of Appeals even though the regulations, the Florida Building Commission, and my State Representative, DeeDee Ritchie, all stated that I was right and that a new CO was not required. Governor Jeb Bush stated that he could do nothing even though he consistently referred to himself as Florida’s chief law enforcement official. I was born in the US of third generation citizens, obeyed the law, am a veteran as I served my country (my husband is also a veteran), and am a citizen of Florida and no one in Florida, even Governor Jeb Bush, can stop the crimes against us?

Governor Jeb Bush stated in paragraph 1, “I sympathize with your difficulty in obtaining the required approvals for a Certificate of Occupancy from the Pensacola Building Inspection Office, but would encourage you to follow the established procedures in your jurisdiction for appealing decisions by the building official. Persons serving on the Construction Board of Appeals are independent of the local government and practice building construction or design, so they should be familiar with the city’s rules and regulations. As they are independent of the city, they are not obligated to follow the decision of your building official. If you are not satisfied with the result at that level, it is my understanding you can appeal to the full city council.”

I continued to be amazed and astonished at Governor Jeb Bush's apparent tolerance for corruption and crime against law-abiding citizens. Again, the City Officials' illegal/criminal demands were just an illegal smoke screen in order to steal from us and steal from hundreds of others each year. I was forced to go before the Pensacola Construction Board of Appeals because every Official I contacted in Florida refused to let us operate our authorized business. I paid the fee to appear before the Board, made the 11 copies of all pertinent official materials, as required, and was ready to appear before the Board.

The minutes of the Construction Board meeting are in pensacolanewsletter.blogspot.com, Chapter 10. The Director of Building Inspections, Mr. Delmus Wilkinson – Building Official, and the Assistant Director of Building Inspections, Ms. Tam Landis, two of the ones who were forcing us to follow non-existent regulations, were in attendance (she was the secretary to the Board). They made many false statements regarding the regulations and me. Most of the time they nudged each other and giggled, like high-school sweethearts, and made fun of me as I presented official material.

Most of the Board Members were licensed contractors, bonded and insured, who were required to obey Construction Law which in Pensacola was the Standard Building Code. Some of the Board Members were owners of multi-million dollar enterprises. Yet, the Board Members admitted to consistently breaking the construction law themselves which resulted in additional income from unnecessary construction required by City Officials and the opportunity to steal building materials and artifacts from property owners – such as happened to us. Not one of them had brought the SBC with them for reference and were agitated when I had copies of the pertinent parts for each of them. They quoted gossip and rumors instead of rules and laws. I was surprised that they didn’t even pretend to obey the only construction law approved in Pensacola, the SBC.

When I was the Ada (the military computer coding language) Cordinator (GS-12) for the Pensacola Navy Base, I attended many professional meetings of other high level civilians and high level Navy Officers. All of us attending had copies of the coding rules and the Navy regulations at hand to check what the requirements were. I was also on the Aircraft Engine Management System Team where aircraft entering the Navy Aircraft Rework Facility (NARF) for overhaul were matched with components for their flight class and similar flight time. Again, when we had professional meetings we took all pertinent documentation to make sure we complied with the requirements. Otherwise, Navy planes would be falling out of the air.

Mr. Wilkinson used his usual excuse for refusing to recognize exceptions listed in all pertinent regulations when he said at the meeting, “So in order to use the building code you’ve got to use it as a whole and not just pick out just one sentence that might fit your particular need.” He meant that he ignored all official, defined exceptions to the applicability of these rules; such as a CO is not appropriate on change of tenant if the classification remained the same. Mr. Wilkinson also ignored the exclusion for properly documented historic houses, which ours was. These interpretations on the part of Mr. Wilkinson (and Mr. Bonfield) were in violation of the Standard Building Code.

Breaking the only authorized construction law in Pensacola (the SBC) apparently provided the Board Members with a windfall income based on illegal demands. The Board Members fiercely defended these illegal requirements. This fact was evidenced when Board Member James C. Moulton stated, “I’m not talking about the Standard Building Code. I’m talking about a local ordinance.”

Board Member Boyd stated, “I find nothing legally binding that would change my mind as to the importance of a Certificate of Occupancy for the protection of the public, their safety, and their welfare.” That’s because Mr. Boyd and all other Board Members studiously ignored the Standard Building Code which is the required construction authority for Pensacola.

The Pensacola Construction Board of Appeals voted to continue to allow City Officials (Mr. Bonfield, Mr. Caton, and Mr. Wilkinson) to continue to break the Standard Building Code regulations.

Since everyone had voted “Aye,” I was dismissed from the meeting.

The Pensacola Construction Board:

     refused to obey the authorized construction regulation for Pensacola, the SBC

     had not referenced the Standard Building Code, the construction regulation, but had referenced an ordinance which had as much authority on a construction regulation as a Bugs Bunny comic book, to illegally require a new Certificate of Occupancy on change of tenant.

     the effective date of the illegal ordinance was February 11, 1999, and there had been no change of tenant on our property since June, 1998, so this was another reason we did not fall under this illegal ordinance.

Since the Board’s decision was illegal, I researched the composition of the Board. I found that there appeared to be a major conflict of interest since:

1) all of the Board Members were in construction and appeared to benefit by the illegal requirement to force the CO procedure on property owners.

2) almost all of the Board Members had contracts and were doing business with the City, or, in other words, were de facto employees of the City and not independent or impartial at all.

Florida Statutes prohibit a member of an advisory board to “corruptly use or attempt to use his or her official position or any property or resource which may be within his or her trust, or perform his or her official duties, to secure a special privilege, benefit, or exemption for himself, herself, or others.” as discussed in Chapter (6) of Florida Statutes. It appeared that the Board members support and enforce illegal requirements which provide a benefit to themselves since they are members of the construction community.

Florida Statutes prohibit a member of an advisory board, or his employer, from having a contract with the City as discussed in Chapter (7) of Florida Statutes. Almost all of the Board Members had lucrative contracts with the City in violation of Florida Statutes.

Even though the legal reference for construction in Pensacola, the Standard Building Code, has remained the same (no CO required on change of tenant if the classification stayed the same) City Officials continued to victimize the people in Pensacola with the same scam and swindle they had used for years.

It appeared that the City Officials and the contractors on the Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals partnered together to establish their own policies which are forbidden by the Standard Building Code, the construction law, to further their own interests and, in the process, have caused great harm to property owners in Pensacola.

I was constantly threatened that I could be arrested if I did not follow the demands of the inspectors in the Building Inspection Department even if their demands were against the law. Mr. Wilkinson or one of his employees constantly patrolled our house and frequently barged in and made illegal demands.

It appeared that City Officials refused to allow the people of Pensacola to live under the rule of law and under the U.S. Constitution but instead, subjected them to illegal demands which violated the law despite the fact that a many of us, including my husband and myself, served our country in the military to protect and defend the constitution of the United States. Even though the Constitution guaranteed equal treatment under the law, City Officials denied me the use of law enforcement, denied me the protection of the law, my assets were being stolen and the confessed thief was allowed to keep my property. The other thieves (Mr. McFatter was one) had not confessed but missing assets and ludicrous excuses indicated they had stolen my property. City Officials appeared to regularly break the law and their actions were condoned by the Pensacola Police Department, the Escambia County Sheriff, the Florida State Attorney, DBPR and Governor Jeb Bush.

In addition, since City Officials still demanded that an occupational license required a “new” Certificate of Occupancy; City Officials could still decide who could operate a business in Pensacola and who could not by denying them a new CO, as they were doing to me even though I had reluctantly complied with all of their apparent illegal/criminal demands.

I wrote a letter to each of the City Council members, dated July 27, 1999, relating the apparent illegal/criminal actions of City Officials against me and my husband and the people of the City of Pensacola since this secret illegal ordinance changing the LDC (not the SBC) illegally affected every building in Pensacola. Not one answered.

While no Pensacola City Council member answered my letter of July 27, 1999, I later found out that Councilwoman Rita Jones had made an inquiry to the Pensacola City Attorney, Mr. Caton, regarding this matter. Through the Public Records Law, I was eventually able to obtain a copy of his answer to her, dated August 2, 1999, but I did not get a copy until much later.

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Pensacola City Attorney Caton’s letter to Councilwoman Rita Jones stated:

“This is in response to your inquiry about the controversy between Mary Mead and the Inspections Department. Ms. Mead objects to the Inspections Department’s interpretation and administration of a portion of the City Code. We have been informed that Ms. Mead argues that she should not be required to have a new certificate of occupancy before she can obtain an occupational license for her intended office use at her property because a certificate of occupancy was previously issued several years ago for an office use at the same location. (Ms. Mead may have other related arguments, but it has been reported to this office that this is the heart of the issue between her and the Inspections Department.)”
….
(Mr. Caton discusses Sec. 7-2-4 and Sec. 12-12-6(A))
….
“It should be noted that Sec. 12-12-6(A) quoted above was amended by the City Council as one of several amendments to the LDC by adoption of Ordinance No. 8-99 on February 11, 1999. The only significant change to this section was to add the word “tenancy” for clarification purposes. A public hearing on this amendment as well as the other amendments was held on January 20, 1999, at which time the proposed ordinance was passed on first reading. The ordinance was then adopted by the City Council on second and final reading on February 11, 1999. This was the proper procedure for adoption of amendments to the LDC.

{Unfortunately for them, the LDC is not the construction regulation, it is the zoning regulation for Pensacola. In addition, the term “Certificate of Occupancy” was not mentioned once at the hearing so those of us opposed to this illegal demand did not even know this LDC ordinance illegally affected requiring a new CO since the LDC was not even the Construction regulation, the SBC was and it was not amended.}

Based upon the foregoing provisions of the City Code, it is the opinion of this office that the City staff is correct in not issuing a business or occupational license until a certificate of occupancy is issued for the business and that the Inspections Department is reasonable in requiring an inspection prior to issuance of a certificate of occupancy.

According to the Director of Inspections, there were 205 such certificate of occupancy inspections for existing buildings in the fiscal year which ended September 30, 1998; and there are projected to be over 280 such certificate of occupancy inspections for existing buildings in the present fiscal year. In other words, the Inspections Department routinely makes inspections and issues certificates of occupancy whenever there is a change in the occupancy, tenancy, or nature of the use of an existing non-residential building. This has been the City’s practice for over twenty years and is the same procedure being followed in Ms. Mead’s case.

…..

To summarize, this office agrees that the past and current interpretation of the City Code by the Inspections Department to require a new certificate of occupancy for a previously inspected facility when there is a change in the occupancy, tenancy, or nature of the use of the existing non-residential building is a proper one. However, it should be noted that the City Code provides for appeals of the decision of the Director of Inspections to the Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals, a body

that is authorized to overrule such decision. It is my understanding that Ms. Mead has filed such an appeal with a hearing currently scheduled for Wednesday, August 4, at 2:00 p.m.

Please let me know if you need any clarification of this opinion.

(signed) Don J. Caton

City Attorney

DJC:je
Cc: Thomas J. Bonfield

Delmus Wilkinson, Director of Inspections

Jennifer Fleming, CRA Executive Director”

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City Attorney Caton gave false information to Councilwoman Jones. Mr. Caton appeared to protect the law breakers who appear to have commited grand theft, extortion, falsely stating the law, refusing to let me open my completely authorized business and earn an income from our investment property, etc. Mr. Caton’s job was not to give false information to City Council Members.

December, 1998, through September 30, 1999, City Officials were still illegally requiring a new Certificate of occupancy on change of tenant even if the classification stayed the same, when it was not legally allowed, was considered inappropriate according to official construction regulations, and was against the official Declarative Statement issued by the Florida Building Commission.

Documentation from the City Attorney, Mr. Caton showed that Mr. Wilkinson had required 205 new CO’s for Oct 1997-Sep 1998 and 280 new CO’s from Oct 1998-Sep 1999, or approximately 331 new CO’s after they knew this policy to be illegal. It appeared that City Officials were defrauding the 50,000 citizens of Pensacola with illegal demands under the guise that their demands were covered in the construction regulations.

Mr. Caton stated that the Building Inspections Department will inspect properties and issue Certificates of Occupancy. This letter was issued on August 2, 1999, over a year after we purchased our business property. During this time the Building Inspection Department refused me the use of my property as they proceeded, step by step, to make illegal demands apparently designed to strip my property of all items of value. The Building Inspection Department “inspected” our property at least 50 times and no technical violations or structural problems were ever found.

Property owners in Pensacola have been forced to submit for two decades to rampant corruption through illegal procedures, since City Officials have been illegally requiring a new Certificate of Occupancy on change of tenant for over twenty years.

All buildings are subject to the Standard Building Code but City Officials exempted properties owned by “slum lords” who appeared to be in violation of construction codes but were not inspected and were not forced to make their properties safe even though I have seen small children playing on balconies with missing railings, unkempt yards, abandoned vehicles, and other dangerous violations on rental properties. It appeared that these properties had nothing worth stealing.

I wrote Mr. Bonfield, Pensacola City Manager, on August 5, 1999, again pinpointing the illegal actions on the part of City Officials, and informed him that the Board he had insisted I appear before voted to continue illegal practices in Pensacola. I also sent a copy of the verbatim transcript of the meeting. “Yesterday I appeared before the Construction Board of Appeals, as you have frequently suggested, for relief as you have refused to do anything to correct the Pensacola Building Inspection Department’s misinterpretation and misapplication of the Standard Building Code in regard to Certificate of Occupancy (CO).”

It appeared that the City Officials were very cooperative with this special interest group – developers in Pensacola which included builders, architects and real estate professionals.

At the same time, Pensacola City Officials were hostile to regular folks. City Officials refused to enforce any Florida Statutes which legally limited the power of this special interest group which included Florida State Statutes regarding conflict of interest for members of advisory boards, Florida State Statutes regarding discipline by the City Building Official (Mr. Wilkinson) regarding contractor misconduct and the Standard Building Code which forbade requiring a Certificate of Occupancy on change of tenant in the same classification, etc. I, again, asked Mr. Bonfield, as the Pensacola City Manager, to have the Building Inspection Department do their job by obeying the law in regard to CO’s and proper inspections of contractor’s work before accepting it as complete.

I received a letter, dated August 3, 1999, Subject: Delmus Nathan Wilkinson, from Ms. Kathy McNeill, Senior Consumer Complaint Analysis at the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, regarding my complaint against Mr. Wilkinson, Director of the Building Inspections Department. Ms. McNeill stated, “this matter does not show possible violation of the statutes or rules which govern the professional involved in your complaint.”

What is wrong with her? I had sent Ms. McNeill the pertinent part of the Standard Building Code, the construction rule in effect here, where it states that a Certificate of Occupancy is not appropriate on change of tenant when the classification stays the same, and also sent her numerous letters and emails from Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson where they demanded a new Certificate of Occupancy and claimed that it was required on every change of tenant – which was false. They misrepresented this construction rule to my husband, me and at least 333 others and forced all of us to comply with this illegal requirement by threats and extortion (refusing to allow the legal use of property until compliance with the illegal requirement).

I had also sent documentation to Ms. McNeill which showed that I had supplied a copy of the Declarative Statement from the Florida Building Commission (I sent her one, too) which stated that I was right, that a new Certificate of Occupancy was not appropriate in our circumstance, but Mr. Wilkinson refused to stop his illegal actions and forced us to comply with his illegal requirement in spite of the Florida Building Commission’s decision.

I had reported to her that it appeared that Mr. Bonfield, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Caton used this illegal requirement to swindle the people of Pensacola out of their money, building materials, and, if available, irreplaceable, valuable historic artifacts.

It appeared that Ms. Kathy McNeill refused to acknowledge the facts I presented to her but, instead, made false statements in her letter and, representing the Florida Department of Business and

Professional Regulation (DBPR), refused to stop these illegal activities on the part of Mr. Bonfield, Mr. Caton, and Mr. Wilkinson which were harming many citizens in Pensacola, including us.

When I called DBPR to find out why she had made this decision, I was told that everything about it was confidential. I stated that I was the person who made the complaint and, as such, was entitled to know what facts were presented and who, if anyone, appeared as a witness. I was not notified to attend so that I could testify and present evidence. All individuals I spoke with at DBPR refused to answer any of my questions as they stated that it was a secret and that the decision was final. They refused to divulge what logic or reasons they used to make their decision even though there appeared to be overwhelming evidence of wrong doing. These actions appeared to be out of the sunshine which Florida public officials were supposed to obey.

My husband and I were desperate at this point as we wanted to use our property especially since we were paying the mortgage every month and City Officials, illegally, would not let us use our business property for income. I finally agreed to submit. Mr. Wilkinson refused to issue a permit to me and to two contractors I submitted. I finally agreed to hire Mr. Wilkinson’s contractor, a Mr. Miller, so we could finish our house if, when I called the Escambia County Contractor Competency Board he was a licensed contractor and that he had no complaints against him.

Mr. Wilkinson introduced us to Mr. Miller at our house. After Mr. Wilkinson left, Mr. Miller brought Mr. McFatter, the painter, over and said that he would like Mr. McFatter to be my agent between us for the project to handle the invoices and checks and relay any money and messages. Although Mr. Miller’s request seemed strange to me, I reluctantly accepted as this appeared to be the only way to save our beautiful vulnerable historic building, finish the maintenance updating and allow us to open

our business and go to work. Unknown to me until later, Mr. Miller had many construction judgments against him and asked that Mr. McFatter receive his money so the claimants could not get Mr. Miller’s money. This should have precluded him getting his contractor’s license which was issued by the Escambia County Contractor Competency Board.

I called the Escambia County Contractor Competency Board and they said that Mr. Miller was a licensed contractor, bonded and insured, and that he had no complaints against him. At this point, I agreed.

Mr. Miller had no problem getting a building permit from Mr. Wilkinson. Mr. Wilkinson stated, again and again, that we had to do what he said, regarding construction, if we ever wanted to use our house. Even though only an upgrade in maintenance was required, Mr. Bonfield, Mr. Miller and Mr. Wilkinson developed three major, unwanted and unneeded, construction projects for our house. Even though these projects were labeled construction and Mr. Wilkinson demanded that we hire a contractor, these projects did not require a permit or a contractor. The only purpose of these projects appeared to be to remove historic artifacts from our building – which we did not want to do and which federal regulations regarding historic buildings forbade.

Instead of just caulking where necessary and painting the spindles in place, which is required by the Secretary of the Interior’s Guidelines, Mr. Wilkinson insisted that the spindles be removed from the building and caulked and painted and then returned to the house. These actions are not permitted under the historic guidelines but Mr. Wilkinson insisted or our house would sit until it rotted so we had to agree. At the Architectural Review Board, the board approved that only damaged or missing spindles be replaced and that at least 85% be left in place. Mr. Miller and Mr. Wilkinson ignored this conditional approval by the ARB and refused to update his permit to relect these limitations. His permit stayed at the interior work only level but Mr. Miller removed all of the spindles and railings which Mr. Miller promptly stole. He admitted to taking and having our property at a later date.

Mr. Miller demanded payment up front, removed the historic artifacts, stole them, and abandoned all three projects. He never returned the railings and spindles (over 500 carved spindles of heart pine– enough for 6 porches/verandas and the stairs). Heart pine has now been extinct for many decades.

Mr. Miller also stole 3 overmantels made of mahagony with beveled mirrors. He also stole brass

window pulls, 4 plaster sconces, an interior door painted with English fairies, building materials, and various pieces of vintage archeticture. Mr. Miller later confessed, in a meeting with Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. McFatter, and the Escambia County Contractor Competency Board Investigator that he had stolen the railings and spindles, plus building materials, the decorative sconces, overmantels and many other items. The Escambia County Contractor Competency Board Investigator put this confession in his official report which he submitted to Mr. Don Mayo, the Escambia County Building Official, and to Ms. Hardy, his assistant for the Escambia County Contractor Competency Board. It appears that Mr. Mayo and Ms. Hardy did not report the contractor’s apparent criminal actions to law enforcement Officials or to the members of the Contractor Competency Board. Florida Statutes require these actions. On separate occasions, Mr. Miller also bragged about this to his co-workers and others that he had stolen our property. We never saw any of these items again.

It appeared that City Officials, with Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson as the driving forces, were defrauding the 50,000 citizens of Pensacola with illegal demands which violated the construction regulations. Against my requests, Mr. Miller, McFatter and his crew spent a lot of time digging in my yard, tearing out walls, and pulling up slate fireplace hearths looking for treasure on my property in the North Hill Historic Preservation District.

On September 6, 1999, I sent a certified letter, required by Florida Statute 489.126 Moneys received by contractors, to Mr. Miller regarding the abandoned projects. I sent a copy of this letter to Mr. Wilkinson to let him know the situation. Mr. Miller did not write a response but came by once and said he would finish the stairs if I would pay him the remaining amount immediately. I said he could finish the project and I would pay him the final amount then. I never saw Mr. Miller again. 

Although not required by County Ordinance, I sent Mr. Miller another certified letter on September 25, 1999, firing Mr. Miller for abandoning projects and not returning our property which he did not have permisssion to remove from the house, under the ARB ruling, much less remove from the site altogether. I had been forced to sign the paper describing the three projects but the Archetrical Review Board (ARB) had modified the projects when I told them I was against removing any of the historic artifacts from the building.

Mr. Miller did not reply to either letter. I also, again, sent a copy of this letter to Mr. Wilkinson to let him know the situation – that I had fired Mr. Miller for abandoning three projects paid far in advance – one paid in full. These were the projects Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson had insisted on in order to receive a Certificate of Occupancy so we could get an Occupational License to open our business according to their illegal demands. Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson had kept us illegally closed for 16 months at that time.

I was finally given access to the City’s file of Certificate of Occupancy records. I reviewed the records on line in the Building Inspections Department and had them print the list for me. Many required fields were left blank especially Occupancy Type, Construction Type and Proposed Use. These fields were vital as a new Certificate of Occupancy inspection was only required on a new building or when the Occupancy Type changed. It was impossible to tell, based on their official records, when the Occupancy Type changed as this field was left blank. There were no fields to record code violations or life safety violations contrary to what Mr. Wilkinson stated. In fact, these inspection items were covered by other Departments (Fire Department, etc.) and were not part of the Certificate of Occupancy Inspection.

I wrote Florida Governor Jeb Bush, again, about the apparent illegal/criminal actions, against us and against our historic building. I pointed out to Governor Jeb Bush that he had stated in his letter of June 17, 1999, that “Persons serving on the Construction Board of Appeals are independent of the local government and practice building construction or design, so they should be familiar with the city’s rules and regulations. They are independent of the city, they are not obligated to follow the decision of your building official.” 

I informed Governor Jeb Bush that the Pensacola Construction Board of Appeals and Adjustments Meeting was held on August 4, 1999, and the Board members had unanimously voted to allow City Officials to continue breaking the law. It appeared that City Officials and the special-interest group routinely broke laws in order to scam and subject the people of Pensacola to illegal requirements in order to take their assets, including money, building materials and artifacts which the people of Pensacola had worked hard to accumulate in order to support themselves and their families.

I reported to Governor Jeb Bush that all of the Board Members were licensed contractors who were required to obey Construction Laws which in Pensacola are covered in the Standard Building Code, yet they admitted to breaking the construction law regarding COs themselves which resulted in additional income from unnecessary construction, illegally required by City Officials, and the opportunity to steal building materials and artifacts from property owners – as happened to us. I told him that I had researched the composition of the Board and discovered that almost all members, in addition to their regular businesses, had lucrative contracts with the City or, in other words, were de facto employees of the City and not independent or impartial at all, in violation of Florida Statutes.

I again asked Governor Jeb Bush to stop the apparent criminal/illegal activity taking place in Pensacola.

Around this time, there were news stories about the need for Governor Jeb Bush to address the rampant corruption problem in Florida. One of the best articles was written by Carl Hiassen, Miami Herald, “Corruption fight depends on Bush Input.” Unfortunately, it appears that Governor Jeb Bush did not crack down on the rampant corruption taking place in Florida. Florida was number 10 at this time on the list of the most corrupt states in America. Keep in mind this did not include any of the crimes committed against me since no one in Florida accepted the fact that these were crimes. Florida still appears to always be in the dirty dozen of crooked states. Governor Jeb Bush did not answer and one of his aids indicated that the Governor had decided that I was a crack pot.

The Pensacola Police Department refused to address City Officials using extortion to force us to perform illegal demands. The Pensacola Police Department consistently refused to seriously address

theft of our property even though it states in Pensacola City Ordinances that it is their job to protect citizens and their property in Pensacola. It appeared that the Pensacola Police Department officers accepted theft on the part of City Officials as not breaking the law.

I frequently informed State Attorney Golden of the apparent illegal/criminal actions of City Officials which I have described above. This is just one of the letters I received from State Attorney Golden refusing to address and stop the apparent illegal/criminal actions against us:

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“I am sorry to again advise you that the State Attorney’s Office has no jurisdiction over the matters contained in your letter of August 27, 1999.”

(signed)CURTIS A. GOLDEN

STATE ATTORNEY

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I appeared on TV at City Council Meetings and revealed the illegal scams. This was difficult because many council members and Mayor Fogg tried to shut me up. After I spoke, City Manager Bonfield denied any illegal activity and stated that my statements were false. Mayor Fogg refused to let me respond to Mr. Bonfield's false statements by making up a parliamentary rule – he said that Robert's Rules of Order stated that a speaker could not respond to false statements made against them unless a Council Member asked them a question. I knew his policy was false since I was a past President of a local Toastmistress Club that used Robert's Rules of Order as our parliamentary procedure. This was another example of City Officials making up rules to get their way.

Councilman Nobles gaveled me down when he was acting for Mayor Fogg and threatened me with being charged with libel. Councilman Wiggins stated again and again that City Officials were not breaking the law and he was upset and angry with me for saying they were.

Even with their misbehavior, I was able to get the message out. There was a public outcry which induced City Officials to stop their illegal demands. Thankfully, three members of the City Council, City Council Member Rita Jones, City Council Member Debra Thompson and City Council Member Reverend Hugh King revolted against this illegal policy and brought it to a halt. On page 59 of the Pensacola City Council Minutes dated January 27, 2000: “COUNCIL MEMBER KING:... I just want to say this is another one of those good situations where, you know, the citizens speak up. This has been – well, I guess I do need to compliment Ms. Mead for being very vigilant in kind of directing us to a point where we can all agree – and even she can even agree that the situation is much better.”

With this announcement, City Officials finally appeared to agree to obey the official construction rule in Pensacola, the SBC, and to discontinue their illegal grand theft actions out of City Hall. City Officials instead decided to illegally demand I submit to the Florida Accessibility requirements. At the end of 1999, Ms. Ustick, the Assistant City Manager sent me a brochure about required ADA requirements with my name on it. Mr. Wilkinson contacted me about the ADA Accessibility requirements which were the same that he had insisted on in the illegal/criminal requirements for a new CO that he had previously demanded and that I had proven were illegal. I wrote Ms. Ustick on November 4, 1999, stating that the ADA Accessibilithy requrements did not apply to me since only buildings built after October 1, 1977, were required to obey the ADA Accessibilty requirements.

I received no answer. I again wrote Ms. Ustick on January 21, 2000. I stated, “In my letter to you dated November 4, 1999, I pointed out that the Building Inspection Department was trying to make us follow Section 4.1. of the Florida Accessibility Code for Building Construction when it does not apply to us.”

I also stated, “I pointed out that as my house was built in 1883, it is clear that this section does not apply to my house.” and “I brought this to your attention almost three months ago and the Building Inspection Department is still insisting, illegally, that we conform to this erronously designated code or they won’t let us build the stairs.”

The City Officials continued to illegally demand requirements on pain of not using our property. We built the stairs and Mr. Weeks rejected them repeatedly. Eventually, to prevent us again recutting and reinstalling the stairs (I followed the Standard Building Code and then the ADA Accessibility Code and he rejected both), I asked Mr. Weeks to instruct the cutting and installing. It turned out to be a mess, as I described in my previous letter, but Mr. Weeks accepted the stairs he had designed.

I reported the contractor, Mr. Miller, to City Officials, the Building Official (Mr. Wilkinson) and the Police Department, for stealing historic artifacts from our building, stealing building materials, doing substandard work which we are still correcting, overcharging, abandoning projects, etc. City Officials did nothing and seemed to protect this contractor even when he confessed to stealing our property.

When I reported this to other agencies, City Officials stated that we were troublemakers and they made up false statements about us. They said that we had hired an unlicensed contractor when records will show that we had a licensed contractor from 1/1999 (when construction began) to May, 2000 when we were finally allowed to open. I believe they were referring to Mr. McFatter whom Mr. Miller insisted I have as an agent since Mr. Miller had many unpaid judgments against him, of which I had no knowledge, and he wanted to hide the money he was receiving so it would not go to creditors. Even if I had hired an unlicensed contractor, it is not against the law to hire an unlicensed contractor. The only punishment is that building inspectors and the Contractor Competency Board will not protect the hirer from any difficulties. Even though we always had a licensed contractor, the Pensacola Building Inspection Department and the Escambia County Contractor Competency Board did not protect us from the contractor-licensed Mr. Miller’s illegal/criminal actions. It would have been safer for us if we had hired an unlicensed contractor. The historic property owners around us who hired unlicensed contractors still had their historic artifacts because the City had no knowledge of work being done.

A short time later, it was brought to light that the licensed contractor forced on us by City Officials should not have been licensed in the first place as he had unpaid judgments against him relating to contracting, soon after, his license was revoked in Santa Rosa County for defrauding another elderly couple on house repairs and was arrested, again, shortly after that for falsely representing himself as a licensed contractor. His record indicated that he was a career criminal.

He also accumulated more unpaid judgments. I found out that he had not successfully completed a single construction project in Pensacola or Escambia County while my husband and I had (our house for one) but City Officials would not give us a permit to be our own contractor, as allowed under the law, but forced us to hire him. These illegal fees and Certificate of Occupancy requirements appear to be designed by city officials to strip historic homes of their treasured antique artifacts and strip the owners of their life savings. A contract/invoice with Mr. Miller, under Mr. Wilkinson’s direction was drawn up and I initially refused to sign. Eventually I was forced and extorted to sign if I ever wanted to open my business and use our property for income.

Even though Mr. Miller confessed to stealing our property, the Pensacola Police Department refused to obtain our stolen property from Mr. Miller and refused to arrest him for this criminal act or even seriously question him. We never got any of our historic artifacts back. We had to buy lumber and pay to have 500 spindles and the railings lathed and installed. This was a very expensive, unnecessary undertaking and the house does not have the same historic value that it had with the original spindles. Some of the overmantels stolen by Mr. Miller had the distinctive and unique “sign of the house.” Many historic houses had their own “sign of the house” in the 1880’s and also sometimes had a special name (ours was the Brian Dunwoody House). We left the spaces over the fireplace mantels empty where the stolen overmantels should have been. There was nothing that could take their place.

We did not file insurance claims on the historic artifacts stolen from our property. The stolen property still belongs to us, not the insurance company. Stolen property is always stolen property. Even if it is not found for 10 or 15 years, it belongs to us and can be returned to its proper place in our historic building and the possessors of stolen property can be held accountable – that is if anyone will obey the law.

Even though the Constitution guarantees equal treatment under the law, City and State Officials denied us and our business our rights under the law, our assets were stolen and the City and State Officials appear to protect the law breakers, bullies, extortionists, and condone their regularly breaking the law.

During one of the Pensacola City Council Committee meetings, usually held on a Monday before the regular Pensacola City Council Meeting itself, usually held on a Thursday, I brought it to the attention of the Pensacola City Council Members and the audience that the Pensacola City Police Department had refused my reports of grand theft three times.

After this meeting, Pensacola Police Chief Potts came over to me, took out his pocket notepad and began asking me questions. He asked whom I had spoken with at the Police Department. I told him the first two were men, described them and said that the third was a young woman with a K-9 emblem on her shirt sleeve. He said he knew who they were. He wrote all of this down and said that he would handle it. The on-lookers appeared pleased at his interest in resolving the repeated grand thefts committed against us as we owned a beautiful historic property. I wrote a letter to Police Chief Potts, dtd March 4, 2000, describing, in detail, the incidents of grand theft committed against us.

It appears that Police Chief Potts was just putting on an act since he wrote me a letter, dtd March 9, 2000, refusing to investigate. The letter follows on the next page. This was the fourth time that the Pensacola Police Department classified grand theft and fraud on the part of Mr. Miller and City Officials amounting to over $300,000.00 as a civil matter and not a criminal matter. They refused to enforce the Florida Statutes which cover grand theft, fraud, money collected by contractors, etc. They considered these criminal acts, mostly felonies, as civil matters to be handled by the victim. According to the law, it should be handled by law enforcement officials.

Shortly after Police Chief Potts’ letter of March 9, 2000, where he refused to investigate the apparent criminal actions described in my letter to him of March 4, 2000, he had Investigator Stone contact me. Investigator Stone said that he had been authorized to investigate the matters laid out in my letter of March 4, 2000. I received a letter from Pensacola Police Chief Potts, dtd March 21, 2000, asking that I submit a new complaint listing all problems with the City Officials and not just those contained in my letter of March 4, 2000, which he had previously refused to investigate as stated in his letter, dtd March 9, 2000, but had since that time authorized Investigator Stone to investigate.

I prepared a package containing all areas of apparent illegal/criminal actions matched with the ordinance/statute/federal law they violated and included the Florida Building Commission decision in my favor that, according to the law, a new CO was not required for us to use our business. I also included all invoices from Mr. Miller, all marked paid in full by Mr. Miller, all permits, relevant Standard Building Code documents, letters from City Officials demanding actions which violated the Standard Building Code, and violated Florida State Statutes regarding Monies paid to contractors (defining the instances where this constituted grand theft – Mr. Miller’s did). I included documentation on the fake Land Development Code Ordinance modification misrepresenting Certificate of Occupancy requirements, the in-house emails (Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson) naming me specifically as the target of the Ordinance modification, and many other documents, and personally delivered these to Investigator Stone.

The subsequent “investigation” was a blatant cover-up for illegal/criminal actions on the part of Mr. Miller and City Officials. Florida Statutes define certain contractor actions which fall under grand theft and felony grand theft statutes – the Pensacola Police Department refused to follow this Florida Statute.

As I stated, the Pensacola Police Department refused to arrest the contractor who confessed to stealing our property and they allowed him to keep everything he had stolen. This is documented in the official Pensacola Police Department investigation which is located in Council Files, cityofpensacola.com, Memo dated 08/14/2000, Subj: 520 North Spring Street – Responses to Ms. Mary Mead’s Complaints. The official police report is printed on pages 24 to 32. Investigator Stone stated on page 25, “Miller states in the record he has some materials of Meads he is holding because Mead owes him money.”

As I stated above, we had submitted a copy of all of Mr. Miller’s invoices, marked “paid in full” by Mr. Miller, to Investigator Stone which proved that we did not owe him any money. Committing grand theft is not allowed in Florida under any circumstance but the Pensacola Police Department investigator used this false, unfounded claim by Mr. Miller to allow him to keep tens of thousands of dollars of our historic property.

Even if we owed Mr. Miller money, which we did not, Florida Statutes require Mr. Miller to file a mechanic’s lien on our property to recoup any money he says he is owed instead of committing grand theft against us. No restitution to us was ever made.

At 4:00 P.M., on April 5, 2000, I received a letter from Assistant City Manager Ustick, dated March 29, 2000, notifying me of a meeting to review my complaint at the Escambia County Contractor Competency Board to be held on April 5, 2000, at 9:00 A.M. I received the notification too late to attend.

I immediately wrote her a letter, dated April 5, 2000:

“It is now 4:00 P.M. and I just received your letter dated last Wednesday, March 29, 2000, but postmarked yesterday, Tuesday, April 4, 2000 notifying me of a review of my complaint to be held by the County Competency Board at 0900 A.M. this morning. Enclosure (1).”

I asked her why I did not receive notification (by her letter) of the hearing on April 5, 2000, until after the hearing was over (the second time this happened). I repeated my request for her to find out why the Pensacola Police Department refused to return my stolen property and why Mr. Wilkinson would not give me an inventory of my stolen historic artifacts discussed between Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. DeStefano, Mr. Miller, and Mr. McFatter at their hearing that I was not notified of so I could attend.

I wrote a letter to the Assistant City Manager, Ms. Ustick, dtd May 11, 2000, where I told her I had received no answer to my letter to her of April 5, 2000, in which I asked her to:

Find out why I did not receive notification (by her letter) of the hearing on April 5, 2000, until after the hearing was over.

Find out what happened to my stolen historic artifacts discussed between Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. DeStefano, Mr. Miller, and Mr. McFatter at their hearing that I was not notified of so I could attend. Mr. DeStefano’s official report states that my property was being held by Mr. Miller as Mr. Miller stated that I owed him money. This is not true and I submitted all invoices, all paid in full, from Mr. Miller. Even if I owed him money, which I did not, grand theft if not authorized and is a felony. A mechanic’s lien is the proper action if a contractor believes he is owed money. All parties in this illegal hearing have refused to divulge what happened to my stolen property, most of it irreplaceable historic artifacts, most made of heart pine (which is now extinct) and/or mahogany.

And on and on covering the problems caused by City Officials that I had brought to the attention of the City Manager, Mr. Bonfield, and the Assistant City Manager, Ms. Ustick, many times and they refused to stop the problems they were causing and refused to make restitution for the past problems they had caused, based on apparent illegal/criminal actions against me which amounted to approximately $400,000.00, which this time included the City Officials illegally keeping our business closed down for two years.

In response, I received a letter from Ms. Ustick, dated May 23, 2000, where she stated, “I am in the process of looking into your allegations and will be providing a written report once my review of Inspections Department policies is complete.” She did not answer any of the questions I had twice asked her.

On July 9, 2000, I wrote a letter to the Pensacola City Council and City Staff bringing them up to date. As I stated above, my husband and I were vetted and authorized by Pensacola City Officials to open our small business in May 2000, but I pointed out to them that it had been over 6 months since the Pensacola City Ordinance was to have been officially amended but the fake Ordinance with the requirement for a Certificate of Occupancy on change of tenant was still the official one on file in Pensacola City Hall offices, and still the official one on line.

I stated that illegal members were still being appointed and reappointed to Pensacola Advisory Boards in violation of Florida Statutes. I stated that the Pensacola Chief of Police refused to correct the Police Investigation which contained false statements and false charges against me.

I asked for an appointment to meet with Chief Potts to go over the investigation. When I arrived at the Pensacola Police Station at the appointed time, a large group of uniformed policemen were hurrying down the hall, jostling each other and me, to Chief Pott’s office carrying chairs. When I was allowed into Chief Pott’s office, a chair for me was in front of his desk. Crowded around was the seated group of Pensacola Policemen still horsing around a little. Perhaps they thought this would distress me but they didn’t know I was in the Army during the Cold War (1962-1967). I served in Germany less than 20 years after World War II when the Russians were in East Berlin and the Berlin 

Wall frequently made the news. That was real danger not a bunch of noisy young men. My office was across the hall from where General Patton died at the end of the War, at the 130^th Station

Hospital in Heidelberg, Germany.

The Pensacola Chief of Police, Chief Potts, refused to go over the investigation and still refused to return my stolen property to my business, a woman veteran owned business. The Pensacola Chief of Police still refused to take any action against those who had illegally delayed me for over 2 years, and who had consistently stalked, harassed, and extorted me to force me to submit to their illegal CO demands. He sat there and repeated over and over that it was all done and the investigation was finished and he had submitted his findings. I had hoped that Chief Potts would obey the law but he again refused.

I attended the Pensacola City Council Meeting on July 13, 2000.

On page 44 of the minutes, I asked that the Pensacola City Council investigate actions on the part of City Staff which appear to be illegal.

Councilman Nobles cautioned me that my statements “are also libelous terms and I would caution you about using those statements unless you’ve got proof and you’re willing to stand up in front of a court of law and prove this.” I told him that I was. Councilman Nobles should know I have proof as I have repeatedly sent him and all Council Members documentation to support these statements. His attitude appeared to be mainly to try to publicly intimidate me to stop requesting that City Officials stop breaking the law, stop asking that they return my stolen property and stop asking that they charge those who are breaking the law as defined in Florida State Statutes, and also to serve as a lesson to others about what they face if they speak up.

Assistant City Attorney Fleming tried very hard on pages 45 and 46 to charge me with stating that the State Attorney’s Office had recommended that a grand jury be convened concerning my matter. I did not state this but I did state that an individual in the State Attorney’s Office did tell me that there were many options that the Pensacola City Council could use to investigate and correct what appear to be crimes (mostly felonies) being committed by City Staff and that convening a grand jury was just one of those he listed. I had sent a letter to City Staff and members of the Pensacola City Council, dated July 9, 2000, prior to this meeting spelling this out in detail so I don’t understand the supposed confusion. The Pensacola Police Chief was in attendance, apparently to swoop down and arrest me, on the spot, if I could be trapped into misquoting the State Attorney’s Office.

The State Attorney, Mr. Golden, had so far consistently refused to do anything to stop the apparent illegal/criminal actions against me and the people of Pensacola, so I was very careful not to misquote him as he appears to be hostile to me, when I ask him and his office to do the job they are assigned and paid to do, and friendly to City Officials who appear to be breaking the law.

I spoke at the City Council Meetings of 9/23/1999, 10/14/1999, 11/8/1999, 2/10/2000, 2/24/2000, and 3/9/2000 bringing this situation to the attention of the City Council and the public. I had previously, frequently, informed the City Council members, in writing, of the illegal activities perpetrated by the City staff.

I wrote a letter, dtd October 20, 2000, to Secretary Katherine Harris, Department of State for the State of Florida repeating the illegal actions on the part of City Officials that I had described in my letter to Governor Bush, dtd August 25, 2000.

From November 7, 2000, until mid-December, 2000, Florida was embroiled in the Presidential Election Controversy. By early evening on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2000, it was clear the election hinged on Florida. Vice President Gore requested a hand recount of the approximately 1.8 million ballots cast in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, Broward, and Volusia counties, on November 9, 2000. Florida's automatic recount was completed on November 10, 2000. The Associated Press reports that Bush has retained his lead but only by 327 votes. During this time, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and most of Tallahassee were embroiled in counting ballots, filing lawsuits and appeals to the Florida Supreme Court, etc.

Vice President Gore conceded, and Governor George W. Bush accepted the presidency and was sworn in as the 43^rd president of the United States of America on January 20, 2001. It appears that Governor Jeb Bush directed all of his attention in helping to get his brother elected President during this time. Before and after this period, Governor Jeb Bush refused to stop the corruption in Florida. I wrote again and again to Governor Jeb Bush but he refused to stop the illegal/criminal actions against me.

I checked the regulations and, since we qualified for the Historic Preservation Tax Exemption, I submitted application forms to the City Officials. Ms. Fleming, the CRA Executive Director, refused our application as she said it should have been filed before restoration was initiated. I, again, researched the rules and prepared documentation to prove that she was wrong. A Memorandum from the CRA Executive Director, Ms. Jennifer Fleming, dated January 8, 2001, page 1 states that “As a result of a recent rule change concerning this program, the City is in the process of amending its local ordinance to allow property owners to submit an application within a reasonable time period from the completion of construction.” She then accepted our application in accordance with the rules controlling this program.

In a memo, dated January 8, 2001, from Jennifer Fleming, CRA Executive Director to Thomas J. Bonfield, City Manager, Ms. Fleming reports on our property and, with the city staff, recommends approval. On page 2, paragraph 3 she states, “The Meads propose to use the structure for an art gallery, antiques, crafts and functions.” (This memo is located at ci.pensacola.fl.us – council file dated 1/11/2001, in the Pensacola City records section on line). A Pensacola City Ordinance was issued to memorialize this. City Official website (ci.pensacola.fl.us).

Thomas J. Bonfield, City Manager, recommended approval of awarding the Historic Preservation Tax Exemption as we were in compliance with all laws and regulations and again authorized our business “to use the structure for an art gallery, antiques, crafts and functions.” This request was presented at the Pensacola City Council Meeting on January 11, 2001, Agenda Item 9A-5, Proposed Ordinance P.O. #5-01, Historic Preservation Tax Exemption Request – 520 North Spring Street (our property). Pensacola City Ordinance P.O. #5-01 was approved by the Pensacola City Council, unanimously, and issued to memorialize this authorization.

We were authorized by City Officials and the City Council and later authorized by Officials of Escambia County and the State of Florida to receive the Historic Preservation Tax Exemption as we had met and exceeded all of the requirements of Historical restoration and were in compliance with all Pensacola City Ordinances to include zoning, parking, etc. and in compliance with all state statutes. We also won the award for best restored historic property for the year 2000. We were also selected to be on the Tour of Historic Houses for the year 2000.The Standard Building Code specified that the occupancy classification of commercial/business (which our business was) automatically allowed us to have functions of less than 100 and functions of over 100 had to have an occupancy classification of Assembly. There was no restriction on the number of functions. We never exceeded the amount of 100 attendees. Our contract with clients for functions specified less than 100 allowed, no alcohol allowed and all noise abated by the time specified by City Ordinances.

In addition to this automatic authorization in the Standard Building Code, we were specifically authorized by the Pensacola City Council to have functions on January 11, 2001 at the Pensacola City Council Meeting, referenced above. Again and again, we were authorized to operate an art gallery/antique shop and to have functions.

Page 1 of the Minutes of the Pensacola City Council Meeting of January 11, 2001, lists the Pensacola City Council Members present at that meeting. On page 10 of the Minutes of the Pensacola City Council Meeting of January 11, 2001, the proposed Pensacola City Ordinance is passed unanimously. All Pensacola public officials have authorized us to operate our business, including functions.

I wrote the State Attorney, Mr. Curtis Golden, on July 19, 2001: “I have written to you three times about the city breaking the law...” Each time, Mr. Golden stated that this is not within his jurisdiction and he has refused to take any steps to investigate. He agrees with Police Chief Potts and Escambia County Sheriff McNesby in witholding my stolen property from me. I printed the first page of my letter on the next page and, again, explained the situation.

The next page after that is a letter from the Grand Jury Foreman, Mr. Ronald Jackson, also dated July 19, 2001. State Attorney Golden received my letter (I faxed it) on July 19, 2001, and immediately called a Grand Jury, presented all of the evidence and they arrived at a conclusion, all on July 19, 2001. I was not given an opportunity to present documentation to show there was wide-spread illegal activity being committed by City Officials which was harming the citizens of Pensacola, i.e. over 300 people illegally forced to obtain Certificates of Occupancy after the City had been formally notified that the Florida Building Commission had determined this was not legal. This illegal requirement caused unnecessary and unwanted expense and allowed historic properties to be stolen. It appears that the State Attorney didn’t want to understand the gravity of the situation caused by City Officials refusing to obey Florida Statutes and the Standard Building Code, the construction regulation in most of Florida and specifically in Pensacola. The State Attorney did not inform me of what information was presented to the grand jury.

I googled Ronald Jackson, Pensacola, the Grand Jury Foreman, with the following results: The President, since 1991, of Saltmarsh, Cleaveland & Gund, a very large Pensacola accounting firm. I signed onto the Pensacola City website, ci.pensacola.fl.us, and searched the City contract files for Saltmarsh, Cleaveland and Gund. There were many lucrative contracts between Saltmarsh, Cleaveland and Gund and the City of Pensacola including a current contract signed on July 10, 2000, for 5 years, until FY 2003-2004 for Saltmarsh, Cleaveland and Gund to supply auditing services for the City.

The members of the Grand Jury, or any jury, should be independent and impartial. This apparent conflict of interest on the part of Mr. Ronald Jackson appeared to be a violation of Florida Statutes regarding conflict of interest as the firm of Saltmarsh, Cleaveland and Gund was doing business with the City, was dependent on the City of Pensacola for part of their income and appeared to be deFacto employees of the City. It appeared there was a bias in this case for the City. This raised concern in my mind about the credibility of any auditing services provided by Mr. Jackson’s company if Mr. Jackson can freely sign a statement refusing to address and stop widespread apparent criminal actions on the part of City Officials which was his duty as a grand jury foreman. I think that we in Pensacola deserve better than this from our State Attorney’s Office and from our grand juries.

At the Pensacola City Council Meeting of June 21, 2001, Mayor Fogg finally discussed the constant multiple complaints by the people of Pensacola against the Pensacola Building Inspections Department. There have been many, many complaints against the Pensacola Building Inspections Department raised at Pensacola City Council Meetings by City property owners. City Officials repeatedly stated in correspondence and reports to higher officials that I was the only one complaining about the Pensacola Building Inspection Department. That was not true.

Under New Business, page 35, Mayor Fogg stated:

“Is there any New Business? Council, I have one. If no one else has one right now, I do have one I’d like to get on the floor at least so we can start discussing it.

In the course of last campaign many, many people came to me again and highlighted some experiences they’ve had with our Inspections Services. There are problems that have been identified by many people where one inspector will come out and say something is okay to do, and then the person does it; and then another inspector comes out and says its not okay, and then they have to refit it and it costs people more money.

There’s a very strong sense of their role being that of enforcement as opposed to facilitation and I think it’s time to seriously take a look and ask the City Manager to seriously take a look at a review of that department and come forward to the appropriate committee with recommendations about how it can be improved and made more user friendly, and I think that’s in the best interest of business.”

This appears to be a delicate way of stating that the building inspectors intimidate and force compliance with the building inspector’s illegal policies instead of the rules laid down in the construction laws provided in Pensacola City Ordinances and Florida State Statutes. Apparently, user friendly means they should obey instead of violate construction law as so many of us have repeatedly pointed out.

Mayor Fogg continued, “I don’t – I don’t want this to come across real negatively, Mr. Manager, but I think there are some improvements that can be made there, and I think when you start exporing it and talk to people that work with them on a regular basis, you’ll find lots of opportunities to make some changes.

So, with that said, I’d like to make the following motion, that the City Manager perform a top-down review of the Inspection Services Department and bring forward recommended changes to make the organization more standardized and user friendly.”

As I indicated above, the Pensacola Building Inspections Department would be more standardized and user friendly if they would obey the Florida Statutes and Standard Buiding Code instead of making up their own rules based on greed.

Councilman Nobles, who had fiercely defended the illegal practices of the Inspections Department, admitted (on page 36), “I’ve heard some complaints, I know you’ve heard some, I think everybody on this council has heard the complaints that people have, and I don’t know whether we need to take it upon ourselves to report to a committee changes that should be made or whether we should report to the City Manager that we’re not happy with certain ways that –or certain particular actions.”

City Manager Bonfield assigned Assistant City Manager Ustick to do the review requested by the Pensacola City Council on June 21, 2001.

I had previously reported to Ms. Ustick that Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Weeks were demanding that I submit to the Florida Accessibility Laws which applied only to buildings built after 1977 and our house was built in 1883. Even though I repeatedly reported this illegal demand, no one made City Officials abide by the law and we had to rebuild our back stairs three times.

On August 13, 2001, I wrote Ms. Ustick that the Building Inspections Department was illegally demanding a ramp over 50 feet long to provide access to a small gazebo I wanted to build on top of a spring house in the side yard for which I had requested a permit. The spring house had been built in 1883, at the same time as the house and the steeply pointed roof had deteriorated leaving a level base. It was only about 8x12 feet since it was only used to store milk, and other items since there was no refrigeration in the 1800’s. There was no light, water or electricty to the room.

I spoke with the State Office regulating the Law and they reiterated that only occupable rooms were involved otherwise there would have to be accessibility to life guard stands, gazebos, and beach umbrellas which would be impractical since the Accessibility Law was to accommodate the disabled to work, etc.

Florida Accessibility Laws did not require access to unoccupiable spaces such as gazebos, carports, umbrellas on the beach, etc. Accessibility laws only applied to spaces which could be occupied and had walls, egress, light and ventalation. It appeared to be the usual unfounded demands, harassment, and abuse of authority on the part of City Officials. I requested that she address this latest illegal demand.

I drove around Pensacola and noted that there were no ramps or lifts for several City gazebos such as the one in Seville Square which is legal and mine would be legal also without a ramp. I also noted several new commercial buildings (offices and a warehouse) which required the Accessibility Law but did not have ADA requirements such as ramps or lifts – this is not legal. I relayed this to Ms. Ustick. City Officials continued to harass me and jerked me around for a few months then issued a permit for the gazebo without admitting they were wrong.

On November 13, 2001, Assistant City Manager Ustick issued a memoandum, subject: Review of Inspection Services Department. Unfortunately, this review produced little change except that the building inspectors no longer wore pseudo police uniforms but wore dress slacks and a polo shirt. This action lessened their intimidation value somewhat but little else changed. Ms. Ustick stated, “In addition, in July and September 2000, focus groups were conducted for customers of the Inspection Services Department to identify specific issues and suggestions for improving the department’s services.” I was not included in any of these focus groups.

I was so happy to finally be able to open my business. I had carefully planned to operate my business to supplement our retirement but City Officials had illegally delayed my opening by two years and had used illegal demands to harm our finances and our historic building. Their illegal demands had caused critical harm to our resources but I worked hard to recover and to eventually pay off the debt they had illegally caused us and which they refused to make restitution for.

Several artists signed with me and displayed their works in my art gallery. One was a children’s artist and I especially liked her pictures of children on a swing and playing in a garden. One artist was a military wife who was a potter. Her speciality was cookie jars shaped like animals. Her rhino and lion cookie jars were the best. The other artist painted general subjects. I restored and sold antiques. I was especially successful at buying ruined pictures in good frames or good pictures in ruined frames. I could purchase these inexpensively and use the best parts to create a nice picture. My husband worked part time in his old accounting department at the Navy base since we had been forced to use our life savings on the illegal requirements of City Officials to remove our historic artifacts from our historic house so they could be stolen and kept away from us.

We had many successful functions: family reunions, children's birthday parties, poetry meetings, weddings, etc. My daughter and I hosted the poetry readings since we both wrote poetry. My favorite functions were the weddings for military students at the school on base. Usually the young couple and a few friends came after sunset. I used flowers from my yard and the yard downtown plus candles to have a nice setting for a candlelight wedding. I performed the ceremony since I was a notary or “justice of the peace” and could legally perform the marriage ceremony and file the legal papers. Afterwards, the whole wedding party usually went out to eat together and celebrate. These were especially festive events and enjoyable to everyone at a very reasonable fee.

I repeatedly asked authorities, especially law enforcement, up and down the chain of command in Florida from City Officials to Governor Jeb Bush to return my stolen property, especially the stolen historic artifacts off of our historic building well over one hundred years old, to my woman veteran owned business. All of them refused even though the person who committed grand theft, Mr. Miller, had confessed so they officially knew the identity of the culprit.

I have printed two examples of the refusal of officials to properly handle the illigal/criminal actions against me to include the grand theft of irreplaceable historic artifacts over 115 years old when they knew the identity of the culprit because he had confessed. On the next page is a letter from the next Pensacola Chief of Police, Chief Mathis, dated December 10, 2002, who said that there was nothing he could do. Chief Mathis was the head of Investigations when the Official Report was made. Even though it was his job to enforce the law, Police Chief Mathis and his Department continued to protect City Officials who had repeatedly broken the law and their apparent accomplices in stealing our property.

The page after that is another reply from Chief Mathis, dated May 7, 2004, again refusing to do anything about our stolen property and the other crimes committed against us. Chief Mathis and State Attorney Golden again falsely identified grand theft, extortion, etc. as civil matters for us to handle on our own instead of a crime which law enforcement was being paid to handle. The actions of Chief Mathis and Florida State Attorney in ignoring criminal actions against me again violated Florida Statutes and the United States Constitution.

In spite of the harm done to us by illegal actions on the part of City Officials, the operation of my business was going well and we had made slow progress in reducing the debt caused by City Officials illegal demands when Hurricane Ivan struck in September, 2004. The major damage was that a pecan tree in our yard went through the back of the building and pierced the interior and all of the roof shingles were blown away. The tree took out a second floor window, some of the exterior clapboard and the downstairs parlor wall.

There was a long wait list for contractors so my husband and I rented scaffolding and repaired the exterior wall and the upstairs window. I am good at carpentery and was able to fix the upstairs window to match the original downstairs window. We used the broken long clapboards to replace the shorter clapboards and were able to save on replacement costs. I studied internet instructions and was able to install and finish the interior wall of the parlor, including the baseboard and crown mould. We had to wait on the new roof since the roofers did the schools first. There were many smaller repairs to make when a hurricane beats up your house and other smaller trees had hit the house and dug up the landscape. They had to be removed also.

The total cost of Hurricane Ivan (around $100,000.00) was much less than the cost of the damage done by City Officials and their illegal demands ($300,000.00 + $100,000.00 for approximately 2 years of our illegally keeping our business closed which refused us income from our investment property).

March 19, 2005 (Saturday) – A young couple had scheduled our historic house for a wedding reception. Suddenly, at 7:00 PM, without notice and out of nowhere, a police cruiser showed up causing a disturbance with lights flashing and driving the wrong way on our one-way street. The police officer said loudly, in front of many witnesses, including the father of the bride and members of my family, that we were not authorized to have functions. He said that he was closing us down.

I told him that I was authorized to have assemblies (functions) of less than 100 people, (it was immediately evident that much less than 100 people were in attendance) and had been approved and sanctioned by City Officials. He said we had to close down anyway. I continued to explain all of this to him and stated he could easily verify this online at the City website or at City Hall.

He said our business was closed down and that was that. The illegal closing of my woman veteran owned business happened the evening before city officials announced in the Pensacola News Journal that they were going to build a forty million dollar Maritime Park at the end of our street, Spring Street.

March 20, 2005 (Sunday) - I called the Pensacola Police Station and stated that a Pensacola Police Officer had illegally closed my properly authorized business down. The Desk Sergeant stated that he was familiar with the charges and we were permanently closed down and that if we had a function, a Pensacola Police Officer would immediately be dispatched to our property and hung up.

March 20, 2005 (Sunday) - Front page news article titled “Public shapes park’s new look.” Ray Gindroz of Pittsburgh will return to Pensacola on April 7 to unveil a redesigned park plan. The article states that “The city has agreed to finance about $40 million in public money through the Community Redevelopment Agency.” Many of us are concerned as the total number of residents in the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) is 4,000 and they are mostly of the lower or no income bracket. Many of us question how 4,000 people (men, women and children) in one of the poorest areas in Escambia County can repay this loan. Escambia County is the poorest County in Florida and one of the poorest counties in the United States (I was told number 17).

According to the picture in the newspaper, the main entrance to the Maritime Park is from Spring Street. The section of Spring Street from Cervantes Street to the new park is referred to as the “Spring Street Corridor.” Our property is located on the “Spring Street Corridor.” As one looks down Spring Street from Cervantes to the new park, only one property is big enough and has enough off-street parking to be converted into use for the new park – our property.

After almost 5 years of peaceful, sanctioned operation, City Officials state we are suddenly operating “illegally” and they must close our business down and we must lose the income from our business. Since their actions are, again, illegal, it appears they want our historic property and seem to think the lack of income would force us to sell our historic property and would make the price lower.

Pensacola City Officials illegally ignored proper procedures required by the United States Constitution, Amentment 5, which requires due process before closing a business instead of an unannounced illegal ambush closing by a Pensacola Police Officer without any prior notice or an official hearing, which this was.

Pensacola City Officials also illegally ignored proper procedures, due process, required by Pensacola City Ordinances before closing a business instead of an illegal ambush closing by a Pensacola Police Officer which this was. The Pensacola Ordinance states,

“(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. …”

Pensacola City Officials illegally ignored proper procedures since it appears they are not interested in if a business obeys the law or if they are obeying the law, but are only interested in forcing me out of the City and illegally forcing me to sell our beloved beautiful historic house.

If, as they said, we had broken Pensacola City Ordinances, the procedures stated above, by Pensacola City Ordinance, must apply. Instead, a Pensacola Police Officer informed us, at 7:00 PM on a Saturday night, during the celebration of a wedding, that we were breaking the law as we were not authorized to have functions on our property and that we were closed down entirely – for every use. No prior notice was given. No citation was issued. No valid reason has ever been given for our closing since we were repeatedly properly authorized to have functions and this was heavily documented in City records and in our records.

March 21, 2005 – Monday morning I called Mr. Cowper, Director of the Community Development Department and told him that we had been properly vetted for functions in 1999-2000. We were approved for all uses, including functions, by all relevant City Departments in May, 2000, again approved by the Pensacola City Council on January 11, 2001, for all uses, including functions memorialized by a Pensacola City Ordinance, and had been approved by County and State Officials for all uses, including functions. These approvals were on file in several City Departments to include his Office (Mr. Cowper), the City Manager’s Office, the Building Inspections’ Office, located online in City Council Minutes of January 11, 2001, and located online in City Council Files, etc. I told him I had received no prior notice that we were in violation of anything before the illegal closing of our business and due process was not followed to show we were in violation of any ordinance, procedure or law. No valid reason was given for the illegal closing since we were officially authorized to have functions. Mr. Cowper falsely stated that we were not authorized to have functions and that our business (a woman veteran was the majority owner) was completely closed down.

March 21, 2005 (Monday) I called the Pensacola City Manager, Mr. Bonfield and immediately proved that we were authorized to have functions. Mr. Bonfield stated that we were closed down and refused to lift the illegal prohibition on us operating our business as legally authorized.

I told him, also, that, in violation of Pensacola Ordinances and in violation of the United States Constitution, we received no prior notice that we were in violation of anything before the illegal ambush closing of our business by a Pensacola Police Officer at a function and due process was not followed to show we were in violation of any ordinance, procedure or law. He, also, said that we were closed down for having unauthorized functions even though us having functions had been repeatedly approved and we had functions from May, 2000, until our illegal closing on March 19, 2005, with no complaints from City Officials, neighbors, or customers. Contrary to his current stand, in January, 2001, City Manager Bonfield had written a letter recommending approval of the use of our property to include functions. Again, no valid reason was given for the illegal closing exceept that 40 million dollars was now going to be spent at the end of our street.

As I stated above, since there was no basis in the law for closing us down, it seems that the main purpose of Pensacola City Officials was to illegally close us down, without due process, keep us closed down without income, and force us to sell. It appears that greed was the reason for cosing our business.

March 28, 2005 – Front page news article titled “Council passes park plan.” The article states that “The Pensacola City Council moved forward Monday with a bold vision for the downtown waterfront, voting 9-1 in favor of plans for the proposed $70 million Community Maritime Park.”

I wrote Mr. Bonfield and all members of the City Council that, based on the Standard Building Code of 1997, the authority at that time, commercial certificates of occupancy in PR2 were allowed to have functions and that assemblies of less than 100 were legally authorized by a commercial certificate of occupancy, which we were. I also pointed out that they, the Pensacola City Council, had authorized our business, including functions, on January 11, 2001. Even though half of the current City Council members had been on the City Council then and had approved the tax exemption and approved the use of the building, none of them stood against the illegal closing but refused us the protection of the law.

Mr. Bonfield still refused to lift the illegal prohibition on us using our business as we were legally authorized. I wrote again and again proved that we had been properly authorized to have functions and to operate our business. Again and again he refused to obey the law but illegally continued to force us to stay closed down.

When Mr. Bonfield continued to refuse to obey the law, I, again, repeatedly reported the City Officials' illegal actions all the way to Governor Jeb Bush who was still in office. He had one of his people stall me until he was out of office. Again, all officials refused to stop the apparent illegal/criminal actions against us.

I asked Melanie Nichols, the president of the North Hill Preservation Association, of which I am a member, to help. She wrote to Sherry Morris and Ms. Morris replied:

-----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":

5. Conditional uses permitted:

a. Private clubs and lodges except those operated primarily as commercial enterprises.

b. Office buildings (under five thousand (5,000) square feet).

c. Antique shops – No outside displays.

d. Art galleries – No outside displays.

e. Social services homes/centers.

f. Boarding and lodging houses.

g. Childcare facilities subject to regulations in section 12-2-58.

If you have additional questions I can try to answer them or get the answers from Inspections.

What is wrong with her??? All of Ms. Morris’ statements are false.

Our building was not and had never been an office building, we have had a license for a retail shop (art and antiques) since 1998, we classified for assemblies of less than 100 people, etc. If you remember, when we first bought the house, June, 1998, as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions, Mr. Wilkinson adamantly insisted that it was listed in his records as an office building and that we had to use it as such. Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Bonfield forced us to comply with this erroneous description and we spent almost two years developing the house as an office building.

When Mr. Bonfield finally agreed to obey the law and stopped demanding a new Certificate of Occupancy, the Director of the Pensacola Planning Department, Mr. Doidge, stated that Mr. Wilkinson was wrong and that the real official records showed what we had said all along, that the building was an art gallery/antique shop holding functions and we were authorized as such in May, 2000, and again in January, 2001.

Evidently Mr. Wilkinson, Inspections Services, and Ms. Morris did not change their office records to reflect the correct information or either deliberately supplied false information to Ms. Nichols to justify their wrong-doing. 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.

In addition to giving Mr. Bonfield’s office, Mr. Cowper’s office (including Sherry Morris) and Mr. Bailey’s office a copy of the regulations authorizing us to have functions based on assemblies of less than one hundred permitted under a commercial license, which I have, I had also submitted to all of them a copy of the official authorization from the Pensacola City Council, dated January 11, 2001, to operate an art gallery/antique shop holding functions, which had been approved and forwarded to the county and state and had also been approved by them. This information was also online at the official City of Pensacola website.

All City Officials and the Pensacola City Council refused to obey the law and continued to demand that we stay closed down.

----- Original Message -----

From: Kevin Cowper

To: mead_m

Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 5:24 PM

Subject: RE: Use of our property

Ms. Mead,

I apologize for not responding to you sooner. I have read your e-mails several times over and stand by the facts presented to you in my previous e-mail. The fact remains that an antique store or art gallery is permitted only as a conditional use in the PR-2 zone and no such conditional use has been approved for your property/business. As we discussed at length on the telephone you maintain that the antique store predates the zoning and is therefore grandfathered. You advised me that a former city employee Leo Doidge had previously verified this. While I have nothing in writing to this effect I have no reason to doubt that this is the case. Based upon information and evidence presented by you along with city records that I have reviewed I am convinced that the use of the property for an antique store / art gallery is indeed grandfathered. While I think it is important to verify the grandfather status, the use of the property as an antique store / art gallery is not the issue of concern. The issue remains the use of the property for weddings and similar gatherings/functions/social events. I was not aware that these functions were occurring on your property until recently when I received several inquiries from the public, staff and yourself. Again the issue and inquiries were not about the antique store / art gallery they were about the weddings. 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.

Mr. Cowper is not authorized to rewrite official regulations to illegally stop us from having functions. The Commercial Certificate of Occupancy and the repeated approval of the City Council and Pensacola City Departments includes functions in the use allowed for our business in our historic building in the North Hill Preservation District.

When I continued to prove that we were authorized, by the City Council, to hold functions, city officials didn't apologize and rescind their illegal actions, they changed the charges to other false charges. Mr. Cohan replaced Mr. Cowper and he charged us with operating without the required off street parking. This was another false charge since our off-street parking had previously been reviewed and approved as exceeding the requirements.

He ignored my documentation and refused to stop the illegal closing.

On April 3, 2008, I emailed Mr. Cohen again describing the illegal actions of City Officials and asking that he lift the illegal prohibition on us operating our business as legally authorized.

There was no answer from Mr. Cohen.

On April 18, 2008, I emailed Mr. Cohen:

“When we spoke by phone last week, you said that you would have an answer to me by Monday, April 14, 2008, regarding our continual request to pursue the legal use of our property which the City has denied us for the last three years. This is Friday, April 18, 2008, and I have received no letter, phone call, phone message, or email from you contrary to your assurance.”

----- 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

From: gmmead

To: Thaddeus Cohen

Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 7:40 AM

Subject: Re: Legal use of our property downtown

Dear Mr. Cohen,

You seem to be confused as we comply with the law regarding parking.

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 your 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 seem to fall under this exclusion – please don’t ignore this City Ordinance pronouncement.

If you choose to ignore this pronouncement in a City Ordinance, as the City usually does, then you must concede, based on the following, that we have off-street parking to provide more parking spaces than is required by law.”

In addition to being grandfathered, our parking lot (off-street parking) exceeds 20 spaces and we are required, by current ordinance, to have only 14 spaces so we are doubly covered for parking authorization. In addition, there is designated, demarked on-street parking on both sides of

Spring Street to accommodate over 100 parking spaces, within 500 feet of our building, of on-street parking.

-------------

I went on to explain in detail how we met all requirements and had previously been legally authorized to open by the Pensacola City Council and had operated peacefully for almost 5 years. Mr. Cohen’s reference to a large attendance is incorrect since we had put a limit of 100 in our contract for weddings since we didn’t want a large crowd or alcohol in our beautiful building.

Mr. Cohen did not answer.

I sent a monthly email to Mr. Cohen requesting that his Department follow the United States Constitution and Pensacola Ordinances and lift the illegal prohibition on us operating our business as we were legally authorized. I sent a copy to his supervisor, Mr. Coby, the Assistant City Manager. I received no answer to any of these. I also sent a monthly email directly to Mr. Coby requesting that he see that the law was obeyed. I have never received a response from Mr. Coby – only a response to my delivery notification request that the email was deleted without being read.

I frequently contacted the City Council detailing, as I have above, apparent illegal and apparent criminal acts on the part of City Officials regarding our illegal closing. All City Council members supported the refusal to me of my Constitutional rights to operate my legally authorized business.

City Officials acted as if they had the authority, on whatever whim they had at the moment, to open or close my officially authorized woman veteran owned business. I had a legal defined use of my commercial property: art gallery/antique shop with functions. That is what I wanted to do and that is what I was authorized to do. Year after year, I continued to request from Officials at City Hall, Escambia County Sheriff and the Governor of Florida (Mr. Crist and then Mr. Scott) that the illegal prohibition on me operating my legally authorized business be lifted so I could operate my business as legally authorized and earn an income from my investment property. All refused.

On Sep 9, 2010, it appears that the new Florida State Attorney, Mr. Bill Eddins, the Pensacola City Attorney, Mr. Wells, and Pensacola Community Development Department employee, Ms. Morris conferred and discussed the answer Mr. Wells was going to send to Mr. Ramage of the FDLE regarding my reporting to FDLE, again, the illegal closing of our small business, an art gallery/antique shop holding functions, on March 19, 2005. It appears that they decided to send false statements and false charges about us to FDLE instead of the real facts. It appears the above individuals deliberately conspired to and, in fact, did lie to FDLE about us to guarantee that we remained closed down.

Mr. Wells stated, “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.” That is not true. The facts are that the building was used as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions since 1980, before the current zoning and Conditional Uses came into effect and was grandfathered as such.

In 2000, City Officials officially vetted and recognized, based on City Ordinances, that we were grandfathered as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions, granted us an occupational license and authorized us to reopen. We have never had a Conditional Use.

As further proof, on Aug 15, 2005, Mr. Cowper sent an email where he stated: “we have no record that a conditional use permit was ever approved by the planning board and city council for an art gallery.”

As you can easily see, we have never had and do not presently have a Conditional Use permit to operate an art gallery/antique shop whether holding functions or not. We were closed down without the due process required by City Ordinances and the United States Constitution.

I don't know what Mr. Wells means by, "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."

This is a false statement. In spite of the fact that we were authorized to have up to 99 persons, according to our records, we never exceeded 85 persons, which is strictly legal. We don't want too many people in our beautiful historic house. I have requested a copy of the mysterious complaints against us from Mr. Wells, as I have no knowledge of any. Mr. Wells has failed to furnish these “numerous complaints.” I do have an email from Police Chief Simmons that states there were no complaints on file for our business.

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The following excerpts from the Pensacola City Attorney’s email and the FDLE General Counsel’s letter follow so anyone should be able to clearly see the level of lies told to and about us.

The Pensacola City Attorney stated to the FDLE General Counsel, “Numerous complaints were received from her neighbors and the city did direct her to cease holding outdoor events such as weddings.”

The FDLE General Counsel stated to me, “after neighbors’ complaints, the City notified you that your zoning did not allow such outside activities.”

Both the Pensacola City Attorney and the FDLE General Counsel made false statements. Through a Public Information request, I was able to obtain the following email from the Pensacola Chief of Police, Mr. Chip Simmons, to the Pensacola Mayor’s assistant, Mr. Al Coby. I have repeatedly stated that during the 25 years of operation of the business, from 1980 until 2005, in the same location, there were no complaints before our illegal closing on March 19, 2005.

From: Chip Simmons

Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 11:17 AM

To: Al Coby

Cc: Thaddeus Cohen; Rita R. Lee

Subject: RE:

Thanks Al. I checked and we have no paperwork on the location or information regarding the complaint. We do have a total of nine alarm responses dating back to 2004.

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Mr. Wells stated, “the city did direct her to cease holding outdoor events such as weddings." This is not true. The city did not follow due process laws. We were illegally closed down by a Pensacola Police Officer without prior notice and without a single piece of paper, supported by other Pensacola Departments after the fact, for all functions, not just outdoor functions.

Mr. Wells and Mr. Ramage dwelled on the prohibition of outside displays as a requirement of the Conditional Use which we don’t have. That deals with outside displays of antiques and art “for sale” not outside functions. Even though we do not have a Conditional Use, we do not display our products outside, as that would be tacky. We are in compliance with outside displays. Functions only became a problem when the Community Maritime Park was to be built at the end of our street. All of a sudden, our important property became a problem and it appears, had to be taken away from us.

Our business was good for the City. Our clients hired caterers, photographers, limo drivers, etc. and visitors stayed in the local motel. I supplied work for upholsterers, picture framers, etc. Local artists displayed and sold their work from our art gallery. No artist will sign with us if we can’t have gallery nights, etc. and small functions added significantly to our income. Many people wanted a place to have a small function in a beautiful setting where hard liquor was forbidden and noise was to be abated at 11:00 PM, all at a reasonable price.

I have repeatedly reported to Governor Scott that my authorized woman veteran owned business is currently illegally closed down, without due process, by the Pensacola City Officials, and has been illegally closed down for over 12 years denying us income from our legally authorized business. Both Governor Scott and Attorney General Bondi have consistently refused to stop the apparent illegal/criminal actions against my husband and me, two law-abiding veterans. These actions appear to be anti-American since they refuse to obey the American Constitution and refuse to stop corruption.

These constant violations of valid laws have degraded the quality of life for us. Our legally authorized income from our legally authorized business has been illegally stopped for over 12 years. Only stopping the corruption will solve this problem. We in Pensacola deserve the protection of the law – both state and federal – instead of continued persecution.

Sheriff Morgan and his officers won’t go into the City to respond to reports of crime, but Sheriff Morgan will go into the City to campaign for a third term. He has left us drowning in corruption and living in the murder capital of Florida. Their attitude appears to be "Shut up and leave me alone." We are then forced to try to handle the crime on our own, report it up the line of responsibility and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, all of these individuals appear to perceive Pensacola as a sanctuary city for crime.

I am innocent of any crime but have been punished for over 12 years which is more than many real criminals are punished.

City Council President Brian Spencer is the representative for my district. He falsely voices concern for the historic aspect of our district but the longer I am illegally closed down, the more my beautiful historic house, listed on the national register of historic places, deteriorates. He doesn’t appear to be concerned about my beautiful historic house. He refuses to lift the illegal closure of my business done without due process, prior notice, or any valid charge. He refuses to meet with me and refuses to answer my phone calls and emails. Councilman Spencer appeared to have a conflict of interest due to doing business with the City and was an illegal member of an Advisory Board. Many illegal members use the name recognition gained on an Advisory Board to run for City Council. It appears that Councilman Spencer was one. Earlier this year, he tried to use the Land Development Code (LDC) scam to establish illegal demolition regulations of historic buildings for his own agenda. Thankfully, this illegally proposed ordinance was withdrawn. His attitude also appears to be “Shut up and leave me alone” even though he is my representative and I am drowning in corruption through no fault of my own.

All of these actions appear to indicate wide-spread government corruption here in Pensacola. Please stop the corruption so we in Pensacola can realize our part of the American dream that we have worked so hard to obtain. We all have only one life to live and City Officials or anyone should not plot and scheme to execute criminal actions to obtain what they want at a very high price to the rest of us. Too many Officials in Florida refuse to respect the Constitution and Florida Laws to satisfy their own sadistic greed for money and power.

It appears they plan to keep me closed down until I die – I am 73.

Sincerely,

Mary Mead

FURTHER DOCUMENTATION

PAGES 43 AND 44: Pictures of the overmantels which Mr. Miller confessed to stealing from my property and which the Pensacola Police Department and the other City Officials allowed Mr. Miller to keep even though I repeatedly stated that the law demands that they be returned to me, the legal owner

PAGES 45 THRU 47: Florida Building Commission Decision which stated that a new Certificate of Occupancy was not required for a change of tenant where the classification stays the same – they ruled in my favor and against Pensacola City Officials

PAGES 48 THRU 51: Pictures of the available off-street parking at our business which exceeds the requirements but City Officials stated lack of enough off-street parking as the second reason for our illegal closing after I had repeatedly proven that the first reason for our illegal closing, not authorized to have functions, was false

PAGES 52 THRU 54: Deterioration of our property as a result of City Officials illegally closing our business without due process and without a valid reason in violation of our Constitutional rights

PICTURES OF THE OVERMANTELS WHICH MR. MILLER CONFESSED TO STEALING AND THE CITY OFFICIALS, INCLUDING THE POLICE DEPARTMENT, ALLOWED HIM TO KEEP

THE FLORIDA BUILDING COMMISSION RULING WHICH STATED THAT A NEW CERTIFICATE OF OCCUPANCY WAS NOT REQUIRED IN THIS SITUATION – THEY RULED IN MY FAVOR AND AGAINST PENSACOLA CITY OFFICIALS

OUR PROPERTY AT 520 NORTH SPRING STREET - BUILT IN 1883

TOP – PARKING LOT - ENTRANCE/EXIT (JACKSON STREET)

BOTTOM – OUR PARKING LOT FROM THE WEST END (SPRING STREET)BOTTOM – OUR PARKING LOT FROM THE WEST END (SPRING STREET)

TOP - ON-STREET PARKING ON SPRING STREET IN FACING SOUTH

BOTTOM – ON-STREET PARKING ON SPRING STREET FACING NORTH

A TYPICAL WEDDING IN THE GAZEBO/PATIO – THIS IS THE GAZEBO WHERE CITY OFFICIALS DEMANDED A 50 FOOT RAMP – THEY EVENTUALLY ISSUED A BUILDING PERMIT AS I HAD INITIALLY REQUESTED BUT NEVER ADMITTED THEY WERE WRONG

THE CITY OFFICIALS’ PERMANENT ILLEGAL CLOSING OF OUR AUTHORIZED BUSINESS WITHOUT DUE PROCESS BUT BY A PENSACOLA POLICE OFFICER WITHOUT A SINGLE PIECE OF PAPER AND WITHOUT A VALID REASON SINCE 2005, OVER 12 YEARS, HAS ALMOST IMPOVERISHED US AND OUR BEAUTIFUL HISTORIC PROPERTY IS DETERIORATING