Jacksonville: Today, Helen Albee received the below e-mail from Councilman John Crescimbeni which confirmed that proposed Ordinance 2010-00703 which would have retroactively approved of the Property Appraiser’s illegal actions will be withdrawn. This ordinance was drafted in direct response to the lawsuit filed on behalf of the class by Ms. Albee and her co-counsel, Chris Parrish. While the tags still need to be removed, this is a great result as far as the ordinance is concerned.
From: Crescimbeni, John [mailto:JRC@coj.net] Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2010 3:17 PM To: Helen Albee Subject: RE: Proposed Ordinance 2010-00703
Ms. Albee:
Thank you for your email. If you received my auto-reply, you know that I was out of the office from August 27th until yesterday. I was taking full advantage of a fifth week here at City Hall (when no City Council meetings or committee meetings are scheduled) to travel to Alaska with my wife for our belated honeymoon, so I apologize for my delay in responding. In addition, I have chosen to not employ an Executive Council Assistant, and as a result, respond to all constituent inquiries personally.
As you probably know, in 2007 the City Council approved a settlement agreement (consent decree) with the Environmental Protection Agency relating to the past disposal of ash from two former incinerator sites. The settlement agreement included a requirement of the City to implement a number of corrective remedies, one of which was noting property record cards for those parcels possibly contaminated with said ash.
Unfortunately, proposed ordinance 2010-703 took a broad approach to validate the Property Appraiser’s notations. By broad, I mean it proposed to note all property record cards within the entire site boundaries, despite the fact that some parcels were far removed from the point source of the ash and were unlikely to have any ash thereon. Because the proposed ordinance dealt with the issue in such a broad manner (I have received several emails similar to yours), I am happy to report that 2010-703 will be withdrawn – perhaps as early as Tuesday night’s City Council meeting.
In closing, I hope this information helps to address your concerns and I invite you to contact me further if you should have any additional questions.
On August 24, 2010, at the request of the Office of the General Counsel, City Council President Richard Clark introduced proposed Ordinance 2010-00703. This proposed ordinance was created in direct response to the lawsuit filed on behalf of homeowners whose properties were wrongly tagged with the “hazardous substances” language. Helen Albee sent the below letter and its accompanying exhibits to all the City Council members to provide the background on why this Ordinance should not be passed and how the Property Appraiser’s actions has already damaged property owners and the City’s revenues. Below are links to these documents.
Helen Albee discusses the class action complaint filed against Jim Overton as Property Appraiser of Duval County Florida in the Florida Times-Union. Follow the link below for the full story.
On July 9, 2010, the Firm filed a class action complaint against Jim Overton in his official capacity as Property Appraiser for Duval County, Florida.The Complaint in Blanchard, et al. v. Overton, in the Circuit Court of the Fourth Judicial Circuit in and for Duval County, Florida, seeks declaratory and injunctive relief against the Property Appraiser for the illegal actions taken by his office when it placed following language on the data collection card obtainable from the Property Appraiser’s website regarding the Plaintiffs and the proposed class members’ real property:“THERE ARE OR MAY BE HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES ON THE PROPERTY FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CALL 904-630-CITY” (the “Unlawful Notation”).Because there was no ordinance directing Mr. Overton to place this information on the Property Appraiser’s website, he was acting outside his authority granted by the Charter of the City of Jacksonville.Mr. Overton will likely rely upon a consent decree entered into by the City and U.S. Government through the EPA as mandating the unlawful action.The Consent Decree addresses the City’s remediation of the hazardous waste it created when operating incinerators of municipal waste and a dump site for the disposal of the ash from the 1910s through approximately 1960. However, as shown by the Complaint, the Consent Decree required the City to enact an ordinance directing the Property Appraiser’s actions and only required the Unlawful Notation to be placed on properties within a defined area.The proposed class encompasses all owners of real property outside the defined Site boundaries whose data collection card has been tagged with the Unlawful Notation because the number of properties tagged by the Property Appraiser is well beyond the requirements of the consent decree itself.The lawsuit seeks to have the actions of Mr. Overton declared illegal and in violation of the Charter of the City of Jacksonville and to have the information removed.Additional damages may also be sought against the Property Appraiser as a result of the stigma which was improperly placed on the affected properties.There are certain persons and entities excluded from the proposed class as a result of a prior lawsuit against the City and others related to the incinerator sites.The Complaint was recently served on the Property Appraiser and no response has been filed to date.
Lawyers for Edna Johnson, who was fired June 24 as Brunswick police chief, say her termination was unlawful and City Manager Roosevelt Harris should reinstate her immediately.
Harris fired Johnson after he said she lied to him and Mayor Bryan Thompson about an internal investigation into an officer soliciting a prostitute. Johnson will go before the Brunswick City Commission at 11 a.m. Monday to appeal Harris’ decision.
In a letter to Harris, the city commission and the city attorney, Johnson’s lawyers, Neil Henrichsen and Helen Albec of the Jacksonville law firm of HenrichsenSiegel, said Harris’ decision to fire Johnson was political and, therefore, violated the city charter.
The letter alleges that Harris originally intended that Johnson be suspended and placed on probation, but after a meeting June 23 of the city commission, Harris changed his position and moved to terminate her.
Johnson’s lawyers wrote that the city manager is supposed to “carry out his duties in a non-political objective manner to facilitate the operation of the city’s government,” because the charter calls for the manager to be appointed for his qualifications only.
Other department heads are also supposed to be appointed solely on their qualifications, the lawyers wrote, so Johnson’s termination should not be a political decision.
The letter did not threaten legal action, but stated, “Should the termination not be rescinded, evidence will be put on that fully demonstrates the politicized and improper nature of Chief Johnson’s termination in violation of the city charter.”
Harris did not comment on the letter Thursday, nor did Mayor Bryan Thompson. Henrichsen did not return telephone calls.
The Brunswick News – Lawyers call firing wrong http://www.thebrunswicknews.com/story/printer/CHIEF-071610-KK