AGAINST DOW PUD: FACTS, LAW and some 64% of public hearing witnesses -- 34 OF 53 OF US

Go into any schoolroom, and there you will see children being taught the Declaration of Independence, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights -- among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- that no government can justly deny; the guarantees in their Constitution for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Go into any courtroom, and there will preside an independent judge, beholden to no government power.

-- President Ronald Reagan, address to students at Moscow State University,

On appeal from the 4-1 vote in favor of the DOW PUD, there's no page limit on petitions for certiorari and 30 days to file one with Circuit Court. Neighbors will appeal. There, they will find "an independent judge, beholden to no government power, deciding the case based on the facts and law of record. And what a record. There are dozens of reversible errors in the City Commission, Planning and Zoning Board and Historic Architectural Review Board consideration of the demand to turn the DOW MUSEUM OF HISTORIC HOMES into a $500/night hotel.

Thanks to Mayor Nancy Shaver for presiding like an independent judge -- it is a quasi-judicial hearing, after all. Thanks to the residents and counsel for putting the facts on record.

No thanks to the corrupt HARB Vice Chair, PAUL M. WEAVER, III and five (5) UF faculty members who signed a bogus report that contaminated the proceeding. Still no response to requests to the UF President to disavow the report. Still no response to document requests.

"It's crooked around here," Brian concluded, within a month of our moving here in 1999. It still is -- at least we now have a Mayor, Nancy Shaver, who weights evidence and does her job without fear or favor.

No thanks to four Commissioners -- ODD TODD NEVILLE, LEANNA FREEMAN, NANCY SIKES-KLINE and Vice Mayor ROXANNE HORVATH, who either prejudged the case (HORVATH read a statement that had a staple in it, leading of discussion, having prejudged the evidence). NEVILLE refused the residents' request to recuse himself. FREEMAN angrily said, "We don't vote on motions," a falsehood, angrily dismissing attorney Jane West's recusal and disqualification motion (which City Attorney Isabelle Lopez belatedly advised Ms. West could not be considered because it was e-mailed, leading in my introducing it in to the record as the penultimate speaker).