PNJ reporter T.S. Strickland wrote in his column today about attorney Erik Mead’s email to the Pensacola City Council regarding the controversy in North Hill over the city granting a permit to the Florida Department of Corrections to relocate its parole and probation offices to the old Coca-Cola plant on North Palafox.
Here is his email:
Dear Councilmembers:
I represent and write on behalf of the North Hill Preservation Association, and with the joint written support of the other neighborhood associations in the City, across the council districts.
The Mayor has made a public statement, which in effect says that the City is essentially powerless to do anything about thousands of felons that are to be regularly brought into vulnerable downtown neighborhoods, City parks and near our schools. I respectfully disagree, and this sense of despair is completely unwarranted. The City has many options and legal processes to address a number of violations of the law and City Code on this problem. A temporary hold on a certificate of occupancy is a commendable and appreciated response by the Mayor, but not nearly all that can be done, and certainly not enough. Clear violations of City Code and concurrent requirements of state law applicable to City regulation and enforcement have occurred. Others are occurring and threatened. The City has means to deal with this issue – and I suggest that it can find the will to do it, as well — if a little prompting is supplied.
To begin these processes — and to illustrate only a few of them — please find enclosed the attached complaint for investigation and enforcement, which has been hand-delivered today to the attention of Mr. Bill Weeks of Inspection Services, in accordance with the City Code, for appropriate investigation and enforcement — on an interim and ultimate basis for the violations noted therein. Further demands are also being made by separate cover and hand-delivery today on appropriate City officials for matters within their respective purview and authority to address. Please see, therefore, the likewise attached complaints and demands for enforcement – for related and distinct violations — submitted respectively by my client to the Chief of Police, and on their behalf by our firm to City Code Enforcement for their action.
These materials are provided for the discussion at Thursday’s meeting, and so that you all may be more fully informed of the state of events as they continue progress. We have not concluded our review of other processes that appear to be available — but several, as shown, are presented on the issues at hand. More are being actively considered by us in due course.
While a number of folks in North Hill may be relatively well-off, the fact is that the area of North Hill is — and always has been — a very diverse, mixed neighborhood of all races and incomes, and residents in neighborhoods nearby also affected by this issue are often poorer and predominantly minority. North Hill has led and supported the neighborhood associations movement across the City of Pensacola to good effect. As noted above, we are joined in our concern by the nine city neighborhood associations, in their attached letter, communicating their combined and strong support on this issue, and from council districts across the City. It just as easily could have been their neighborhood, when this use is not appropriate for any neighborhood.
Long ago, when Latin was in vogue, felons used to be called caput lupinum – “the wolf’s head.†When the wolf is at the door, neither race nor income nor social position nor geography divide a community of decent citizens from each other. All of our children are affected by a regular flow of convicted felons in their streets and City parks. The action now demanded on behalf of the North Hill Preservation Association, at least, has been taken to defend the interests of all our larger neighborhood and community – and their children. I disagree with, but understand, the City’s concern about legal risk in taking action. But when the alternative is bringing in felons to roam your neighborhoods, there are few safe options left to you — and even risky options, if lawful, must be pursued firmly to conclusion to preserve the peace of the community.
I therefore maintain hope that the City will undertake its legal and political duty to protect all of its citizens — and all your respective constituents – with the sound exercise of its appropriate police power. It is the reason we have a City, after all, and the reason we elect each of you.
Please do not let us down.
Sincerely,
George R. Mead, II
(Erick Mead)
Moore, Hill & Westmoreland
220 W. Garden St., 9th Floor
Pensacola, Florida 32501