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You can also comment on each new page, if you like. For example, here are a series of comments from 'City of Lake Worth Closed Door Attorney-Client Session December 3, 2008, Part IV'.

John Rinaldi said...
I am amazed that no one discusses the possibility of forcing GB to perform on the contract. Golden points out that it is clear to her that GB can't perform and is only doing this to get money out of the city. She says that maybe this is the way they operate. So why not go the next step and say to GB we will indemnify you should the zoning fail for any losses you sustain. Go out and get your financing within the next 60 days and prove to us you can get this done. ( This should have been done as soon as the law suits were filed. Come up with a solution that clears the title immediately so that GB can apply for financing.) The majority commission refused to take that route because they in reality did not want to change the zoning at the beach and were backing the parties who had started the law suits that held up the project. It was that action by our elected officials that amounted to a breach of contract. You can't be in an agreement with a partner and work behind the scenes to hurt that partner. This is why we ended up giving GB over a million dollars and it sucks.

Thu Aug 01, 09:28:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...
Although I haven't seen the words "slam dunk" yet, it seems pretty close. At this point, we look pretty good in terminating the contract.

But the Larry Lawsuit is not at issue yet as he is only contesting the length of the 20 year less one day lease, right?

Your contention is that the zoning would have to be changed to BAC in any case and was changed and is now BAC, is that right? If so, GB would have been allowed to build.

I'm waiting for the parts that show bad faith and probably turned this whole thing on its ear.

How'd Joslyn go from almost a slam dunk, to we better settle?

Thu Aug 01, 10:02:00 AM EDT
Wes Blackman said...
John - You are right and I have maintained all along that the Commission should have been proactive and firmly put the ball in Greater Bay's court by doing what you suggest - make the rezoning lawsuit a non-issue. But that would have been against the political rhetoric of the time that the land use and zoning change would "over-commercialize" the beach - something anti-Greater Bay thought was sure to happen if we "lost control" of the beach for 20 years. You can also see it in the disconnect between We Love Lake Worth PACs t-shirts which talk all about the lease and how bad it is and that we lose control and nothing about the zoning and land use change they sought to repeal.

To the next comment, I think Josyln overplayed how solid the city's case was and I will even give him the excuse that he wasn't aware of all the shenanigans that were going on here in the local political scene. It was only after the 8 tons of paper through discovery, and attendant legal fees, that that started to change. The depositions came in 2011 - while the building that was "being saved" was laying in a dust pile - which was one of the reasons the city wanted to strike out alone and get out of the deal.

Stanton was around for this period too and between her and the dais, you couldn't even suggest that Greater Bay had a case - the word was the the city had a slam dunk case and it would all be thrown out of court. What we didn't know was all that hubris was costing us an additional $500,000 over the $300,000 original estimate for legal fees. Add to that the fact that we had a total puppet for a City Attorney and you have what results in a perfect storm.

There was also no downside for GB to continue as time was on their side - their attorney was working on contingency.

The bottom line is that the city should have stepped up and found ways to put the responsibility for moving the project forward squarely in Greater Bay's lap, but doing so would have gored too many sacred cows.

Thu Aug 01, 10:19:00 AM EDT