I acquired these emails from Save Our City & No Boss Mayor co-founder Charlie Fairchild to an out-of-town web designer. Looks like Charlie, Marty and Jack have been scheming hard while the rest of us have been fighting for this community. So sad—those guys can’t stand being out of the limelight. Isn’t it strange Fairchild didn’t list himself as part of the petition drive. Pretty spineless. The web designer whose name I deleted refused the work.
From: Farichild CPA [mailto:FairchildCPA@cox.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 3:30 PM
Subject: inquiry
Hello, we are involved with trying to recapture some park land that we believe has been misappropriated by our city leaders.
You are the owner of a websites âTakeBackOurPark.com and TakeBackOurPark.org. Would you be interested in renting one of the sites to us for a few months?
Thank you for your response.
Charles Fairchild
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To: Farichild CPA
Subject: RE: inquiry
Please email me who you are with your contact information, and the specifics of your cause. If I can help, I will.
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From: Farichild CPA [mailto:FairchildCPA@cox.net]
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 7:24 PM
Subject: RE: inquiry
I am Charles Fairchild; I am part of an organization started by Marty Donovan to challenge an action by the Pensacola, FL city council.
Four years ago, we had an organization âSave Our Cityâ that was involved in a contentious referendum concerning the development of a 30 acre parcel of land jutting into Escambia Bay. At that time, three influential members of the community banned together to have the public build a baseball stadium, and a conference center/classroom facility, a waterfront park and to provide the footprint for a maritime museum to build by the University of West Florida.
Quint Studer, the owner of a independent baseball team (Pensacola Pelicans) provided over 1.2 million dollars in an advertising campaign to convince the voters that they would get a âwaterfrontâ park, a maritime museum a multi-purpose stadium and a conference center. Admiral Jack Fetterman, the push behind a maritime museum who was not able to get the private funding and turned the project over to the University. John Cavanaugh, the President of the University of West Florida. The university was going to build the museum along with leasing the conference center/classrooms.
The public was going to have gazebos, a miniature lighthouse, public docks, a beach, gardens and other amenities along with a park on the southern boundary of the land (about 250 ft x 500ft â 3 acres or so)
After a contentious campaign and the expenditure of the 1.2 million, the voters approved the concept by a 56% vote.
Since that vote, the University no longer wants the conference center/classrooms which were to provide 2/3âs of the ammonal operating budget, the Maritime museum fund raising has capped out at about 3 million of the 9million needed to construct plus the University can not even come close to finding the 600 to 1 million needed to operate the museum. The only constant has been the public financed baseball field.
The City transferred responsibility for the project over to a separate organization that proceeded to hire a developer who politicked and made huge promises but who was not able to obtain the bonding necessary for the project. He since has turned over most of the construction activity to a national company. (Probably the only good thing to have happened)
This organisation seeks to have the public vote on the city councils approval of the construction contract and to eliminate the baseball field from the project and to build a large waterfront park with open spaces, bike and walking paths and to âtake back our parkâ
Some salient points:
The âpublicâ imput was directed and led by the firm hired by Quint Studer (one of the promoters) to develop the concept. ( a fact not widely circulated by the local media) The âcitizen imputâ was always about where to place the three âcriticalâ components (museum, baseball field and conference center) not about what the public wanted for the land.
The ânational RFPâ had a 30 day window
The city council was privately lobbied and convencied before the proposal came before the public
The plan was always about putting a baseball field on the waterfront.
Studer spend about 1.3 million (counting design assoicates fees along with promition along with money his firm paid his P.R pwrson) to promote the park, our group about 70,000.
The maritime museum takes the entire western edge of the property.
The park is shoe horned into the south east corner with no easy access as the only road into the interior of the lot is a handicap use only.
There is a somewhat accurate description of the history on Pensapedia.com under Community Maritime Park.
I hope this is of help. Please ask me anything and I will try to resond with my prosepctive.
Thank you for your time.
Charles Fairchild
Note: all the spelling errors are Charlie’s….just as the typos are mine in the other posts.