How Florida loses lawsuits. A cautionary tale.

Anyone who has read my journal knows that I was living in a Central Florida city when a huge land scandal took place in the nineties. Because of what I learned from researching public records, I got a sneak preview of the future. I read how the elected officials gave special access to a local Rotary Club, and even required the City Manager to get a membership, so he could have weekly contact with the elevated, known locals in our community. I saw how this kind of access would affect the small private development I lived in, because our small community was suddenly populated by Rotary Club members from that particular franchise.

It was quite an education. What I learned was that Florida's way of networking between public agencies and select private individuals and organizations, has been eroding the rights of the many for quite a while. These backwater channels create a segregation of power that pushes the public out of decision-making; and it has taken us to where we are today, dealing with an autocratic governor. The steps that gave us De Santis has a history.

So, I'll try to get to the main points to make this short, or as short as possible. Back in the nineties there was a huge effort to dismantle land development regulations. It was mostly pushed by sovereigntists and/or libertarians. But where the talk from sovereigntist ends and ordinary crass Republicans begins is a blurry line. And that line disappeared when community leaders in my city began to look around for a way to stop a developer from building in the PUD they lived in. That's when they began to listen to a sovereigntist lawyer/ex-judge/ex-city attorney, who tried to convince the homeowners that the only way to get control of their PUD, was to walk away from it. Just like that. As if that's how easy it is to vacate a legal contract.

At the time, there was a move in this state to abolish the Dept. of Community Affairs. (DCA). It was a move supported by Republicans. That would mean, put an end to the State's oversight agency that ensured that cities followed good practices with growth management. That was a time where irony and hypocrisy became a daily staple around here. All those toxic leaders, many who were retired officers, talking tough about being anti-government regulation and in the next minute they were running to City Hall when their backyards flooded after heavy rains. It was like the dopes couldn't put two and two together.

Back to their fight with the developer. I'll cut to the chase. The deveoper sued the City and its attorneys, but his lawsuit was chockful of names to lay the groundwork to prove that a conspiracy stretched into the community. The City's first move was to hire an attorney from a law firm that was a political heavy-weight in the county and known to lean Republican. About four months later the lawyer would share the results of the legal research. She determined that the City's strongest position was that the developer had not yet filed the necessary paperwork. In other words, he could not proceed with his developments because of a process that was outlined in the PUD, as well as two other regulatory land laws. They all required special City and/or State applications and permits, as well as other time-consuming paperwork.

So, the much awaited legal opinion heard in this city, where talk of deregulation was king, was that their best bet to stop the developer from building his properties was outlined in regulatory documents.



I swear, I barely made it through the nineties with my sanity intact.

The developer was a lawyer himself. He deposed many people and could prove many things; like he claimed that he didn't find any local developer who was required to follow any of the procedures that the City now required him to do. But, that wasn't even his strongest card.

IMO, he could have leveled this city if he had followed through with a two-step legal lawsuit, that would have concluded with a jury trial. But he stopped after the first lawsuit when the judged ruled in his favor based on estoppel. Which meant that the City was stopped from preventing him from building his developments.

To explain that that judgement, one thing needs to be explained. Basically, the developer had sued the City two or three previous times before and from those early lawsuits, he had won a settlement or two and was allowed to build single family homes instead of the condominiums that were marked on the original PUD. Frankly, I believe it was more than a fair arrangement. But like I said earlier, I got a sneak preview of the future. I saw how easy it was to inflame all this toxic masculinity, along with their female counterparts, and when they're intoxicated with their own anger, there is no room for reason or logic.

But, why it all comes up now is because of what is happening between De Santis and Disney. You see, how estoppel was determined was based on one line from one of those earlier settlement agreements, which were, in fact, contracts. In one of those contracts it is clearly stated that if the developer had to file paperwork, the city would do it. Let that sink in. The City Attorney had to know that line was in that contract/settlement agreement, and yet allowed the emotional circus parade to proceed. They do this kind of nonsense all the time.

And I suspect that in the paperwork that hatched Reedy Creek, I bet there is something similar to give Disney some kind of assurance, that if they have full control of the district, sovereignty in fact, that it's some kind of vested right that the Republican State Congress can't touch and they know it.