1. Proposal and
Acceptance Form dated 2/12/99 “Removing all handrails on exterior of house
completely except for support columns, build & install all new handrails
with new custom spindles to match original & top & bottom rails. This includes building curved laminated
handrails on (2) two separate round porches.”
Cost: $7,347.72
Instead of caulking and painting the spindles in place,
which is required by the Secretary of the Interior’s Guidelines and the course
we wanted to take, Mr. Wilkinson demanded that the spindles be removed from the
building, caulked and painted and then returned to the house. This amounted to over 500 spindles and the
rails above and beneath them. There were
spindles and railings on each of the six porches/verandas and on the outside
stairs. These actions were not permitted under the restoration guidelines but
Mr. Wilkinson demanded (he called it refurbishment) so we had to agree in order
to use our business property.
At the board meeting, I explained that we only wanted to update the maintenance of the property to its original, beautiful Victorian state and no major construction was really needed or wanted, only improving the maintenance.
The Board Members approved items 2 and 3 (see below) and
modified Item 1 by stating that at least 85% of the spindles and all rails were
to remain in place, as demanded by relevant regulations. I was relieved as I had not wanted them
removed as Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Miller demanded. I really didn’t want to do any of the items
as they were unnecessary, exposed our beautiful building to damage and were
very expensive.
Mr. Miller and Mr. Wilkinson ignored this conditional
approval by the ARB and did what they wanted.
While I was instructed to go to City Hall, to the Building Inspection
Department, they removed all of the spindles and railings and carried them off.
Mr. Miller abandoned this project and, as I indicated, never returned the railings and spindles (over
500 carved spindles – enough for 6 porches/verandas and the stairs). 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.
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.
2. Proposal and
Acceptance Form dated 2/12/99 “Removing porch roof on second floor northeast
corner of house. Removing stairs on east
side of house and building new stairs as per drawings & specs. Cost: $3,763.06
The “porch roof on second floor northeast corner” was a very
small area (just a few feet) of roof which had been added – not original to the
house - over the second floor outside stair landing for shelter against rain. It had deteriorated a little and did not
match the original design of the house.
It was a simple matter to remove the porch roof without altering the
main roof. No permit or contractor was
required for this small project.
The outside stairs had been approved, with board by board replacement
of the few damaged boards, by the Professional Property Inspector but the City
Building Inspections Department ignored this report, again, and demanded that
the stairs be removed and replaced with the replacement conforming to current
codes, again in violation of the rules governing restoration of an historic
property. Mr. Miller removed the stairs,
took the materials and abandoned this project.
3. Proposal and
Acceptance Form dated 4/02/99 “Totally strip & save all decking material on
(2) two second floor decks (exterior).
Rework structural framing & then redeck with ¾” pressure treated
exterior plywood for sublayer & 5/4” pressure treated decking on top with a
membrane between layers for water leak prevention.
All materials to
be provided by owner and any unseen repairs will be extra labor charge over 56
working hours on this project.”
Cost: 2,800.00
While #3 stated, “Rework structural framing,” no structural
rework was needed or done. There was no
rework or any “structural framing” since they were to only take up the old (read
vintage) deck boards and then redeck. Instead of using “¾” pressure treated exterior
plywood” and “5/4” pressure treated decking, Mr. Miller purchased “untreated
lumber” even though I had paid for “treated lumber.” It started to rain soon after they had started
to install the decking. Since the lumber
was not treated, which was specified in the contract, the boards warped. Mr. Miller left the warped boards in place,
causing a definite trip hazard and abandoned this project.
As I had repeatedly informed Mr. Bonfield and Mr. Wilkinson,
all of these projects were unneeded, unwanted by me, and violated the
regulations enacted by the Secretary of the Interior’s Office to restore or
repair Historic Buildings. We were
forced to accept these projects if we wanted to use our building - ever - this appeared
to extortion on the part of the City Officials, especially Mr. Bonfield and Mr.
Wilkinson.
An article was published in the Pensacola News Journal
announcing a hearing to be held during the Pensacola City Council Meeting of
January 28, 1999, to change the Land Development Code to consider “proposed
amendments to the Land Development Code including the provision to allow
portable signs to be placed on downtown sidewalks, allowing the required
visibility triangle requirement to be reduced, the deletion of the required
four-foot distance between residential air condition equipment and property
lines and other minor changes.”
This referenced the change to the LDC requested on December
10, 1998, by City Manager Bonfield, City Attorney Caton and Building
Inspections Director Wilkinson.
I paid no attention to this since it was a change to the
Land Development Code, which had nothing to do with construction. I was watching for a change to the
construction regulation, the Standard Building Code.
..........
The Pensacola Land Development Code, defined in
Florida Statute 163.3213, was not one of the approved regulations for
construction. It fact, it had nothing to
do with construction. It regulated
zoning, subdivision construction, sign regulation, etc.
What I later discovered was that Mr. Bonfield, Mr. Caton,
and Mr. Wilkinson had carefully developed a plan that appeared to allow them to
secretly continue to scam and swindle the public.
Florida State Statutes required that an Ordinance must
contain the full description of the Ordinance in the title. City Officials broke this Florida State Law.
Mr. Bonfield, Mr. Caton, and Mr. Wilkinson hid the illegal requirement for a new Certificate of Occupancy under the
umbrella of “minor changes.” The
required announcement of the City Ordinance did not reveal that this was about putting
the City’s illegal policy regarding CO’s on change of tenant in writing, (it
had previously been enforced based on verbal demands and threats) but they put it in an
ordinance that had no authority over construction.
It appeared that City Officials were desperate to continue the
illegal policy, apparently based on greed and corruption, which had allowed
them to:
(1) illegally demand unnecessary construction, which gave
more work to their friends and the opportunity to overcharge, steal building
materials, etc.
(2) illegally demand removal of historic artifacts which
their friends then stole
City Officials had used their illegal policy for years to
bully, threaten, and force actions on people when they, in actuality, had no authority
or legal right to do so. Most of these
apparent illegal/criminal actions were frequently sadistic in nature. In our case, City Officials required us to
pay for having our irreplaceable artifacts, over 115 years old, removed which
their friends then stole. The illegal
requirement to remove our spindles and railings caused a serious situation as
the verandas were now without spindles and railings (Mr. Miller confessed
to stealing them) which left the porches and verandas dangerous. We had to pay to have the spindles and rails crafted
as they were necessary to operate our business.
These illegal requirements resulted in us paying for
unneeded and unwanted “construction” which left our beautiful historic property
in a poorer state than it was before City Officials made these illegal
demands. These illegal demands resulted
in the loss of valuable historic artifacts, resulted in the value of our historic
property illegally being reduced and resulted in lost income from our illegally
closed business.
The only way to officially and legally change the
construction requirement was to amend the SBC which required public notice,
hearings, and public input. City
Officials appeared to fear that at the first public notice, the people of
Pensacola would realize they had been victimized for years by the illegal
policy requiring new CO’s on change of tenant when no legal requirement had existed
and, in fact, the construction regulation strictly forbade this policy.
In the real world, this illegal LDC action did not legally
or officially require a new Certificate of Occupancy on change of tenant since
the official construction regulation for Pensacola was still the Standard
Building Code, which was still located in the Pensacola Building Inspection
Department, which was untouched by this change, and which still dictated that a
Certificate of Occupancy on change of tenant was not appropriate.
No ordinance outside of the SBC could change the
requirements for construction. The LDC
was not one of the documents specifically identified in Florida Statutes as one
of the accepted Florida Building Codes.
The public hearing was held on January 28, 1999, at the twice-monthly Pensacola City Council Meeting, to discuss these changes to the Land Development Code. There was no mention of changes to the Certificate of Occupancy during the hearing, no discussion of the changes to the Land Development Code and, on page 2 of the minutes, the acceptance of the changes to the Land Development Code was moved, seconded and unanimously approved during the voting with no public discussion of what the changes were.
Instead of putting the requirement for a new CO in the LDC
they may as well have put this change in a Bugs Bunny comic book and referred
to it as changing the SBC since the LDC and a Bugs Bunny comic book are alike
in that neither could officially change the SBC. Since many individuals were easily confused
about regulations and appeared to mistake the LDC changes for SBC changes, for
clarity, I will refer to the LDC as a Bugs Bunny comic book in discussing this
matter.
The Pensacola City Council Members who approved the Bugs Bunny comic book for construction purposes were: Mike DeSorbo, Owen Eubanks, Doug Halford, Rita Jones, Jack Nobles, John Panyko, J. D. Smith, Sharon Wakeman, Mike Wiggins and Marie Young.
© Copyright – All rights reserved – Pensacola Newsletter
