The City of Pensacola has notified property owners around the Malcolm Yonge Gym that demolition of the facility will be on or after Monday, March 4.
Save Malcolm Yonge folks are pushing to get the necessary 4,138 signatures to force a referendum on the demolition.
Teresa Hill wrote, “We have potentially less than seven days to get the petitions in order to beat the clock the Mayor has set, unless Jonathon Green is successful with his injunction.”
She passed along this quote from Green: “I find this a direct and egregious act against the citizens of Pensacola by our city government. To afford the public 60 days to exercise their rights of redress of government was such a simple affordance and would not have harmed the city whatsoever considering this building has been standing for 60 years.”
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Here is the letter:
Absolutely spot on CJ! The timeline of when the petitioner’s committee formed, showing they have followed the charter, should absolutely suspend action of demolition until 60 days after formation of the Malcolm Yonge Ten committee. The fact the Mayor is ignoring the rights of charter powers is a denial of the first amendment. I hope Mr Green prevails with his obviously-necessary temporary restraining order in court.
Update: The demolition letter sent by the City of Pensacola is actually dated February 16th. The petition issued by the City Clerk was issued very late in the day on February 16th. However, using the USPS tracking system, the one letter in hand was mailed on February 21st so five days after issuance of the petition. The request for a restraining order seems like a pretty simple document case: 1) Charter approved by voters on November 24, 2009 with an effective date of January 1, 2010; 2) Council votes to demolish gym on February 8th starting 60-day timeline to challenge the action;
3) Affidavit of Petitioners’ Committee filed on February 16th; 4) City Clerk issues Petition; and 5) City of Pensacola mails notice of demolition on February 21st. Petitioners’ Committee needs to get itself to the Courthouse ASAP and ask for the restraining order. The Council’s action of February 8th is suspended until the petition process plays out. That means the demolition can’t be funded using the CRA’s $59,079. If Mayor Reeves orders the demolition in violation of law is the City of Pensacola on the hook to pay Jobe’s Dirt Works, LLC or does Mayor Reeves have to pay them out of his own money?
The immediate action is to seek a restraining order attaching a copy of the petition issued by City Clerk Burnett on February 16th and the letter that I am told is dated February 18th. If Mayor Reeves wants to claim that the petition was unlawfully issued by his own City Clerk then let’s hear from City Attorney Cobb who represents the City as a municipal corporation.
It is the public’s right under the charter to have a process for redressing their grievances to the government. D.C. Reeves is prepared to demonstrate that he doesn’t care about the City Charter or the First Amendment rights of citizens. Citizens should not have to go to court to protected their rights against the government, and especially when there is no urgent or emeragency reason for denying citizens their rights secured to them under the City Charter and First Amendment of the US Constitution.