Peter WillardGreater Bay Group LLC vs The City of Lake Worth
One morning Peter Willard was sitting at his kitchen table in Rochester reading The Wall Street Journal and saw an ad on our Lake Worth beach and our interest to develop. A light bulb went off and being a clever guy, he saw another opportunity for himself and jumped on it. Why not him making bucko bucks off our beach? Why should some other bozo make the money when it could be he? That is how I imagine it all began. One thing led to another and he started hanging around Lake Worth once he got his fingers in the very rich pie.
A law suit was filed on November 16, 2009. Please refer to other past blogs on this subject for the history under Labels, Grater Bay. Briefly, this entire matter never would have happened if anyone on the dais had listened to the then city manager or even had taken the time to read the Contract. Mayor Mark Drautz tried but anarchy ensued when Retha Lowe grabbed the power and signed the contract with Greater Bay Group as Vice Mayor, thus handing over our beach for 20 years less one day and an eventual law suit. Our then city attorney, Larry Karns, sat there and watched this insurrection. Even the 20 years was disputed by one law suit, given merit by the Court, that was filed subsequent to this mess by private citizens who claimed it really was a 40 year power grab of our valuable beach property. Next, citizens formed a PAC and got signatures to fight it.
Essentially Willard and Greater Bay's complaint states that Lake Worth breached its contract and their claim is for specific performance regarding our Lake Worth beach.
The Court ordered mediation ended in an impasse. Subpoenas were issued late last year and depositions were taken. According to the City's information sheet, the case was taken off the Court's current trial docket and has not yet been rescheduled by the Court.
On February 2, 2012 there was a scheduled two hour meeting on this law suit. Those in attendance were the city attorney, acting city manager, the entire commission, a court reporter and our outside legal counsel, Brian Joslyn. The outcome of that meeting, as well as any discussion, is confidential but we know that there is a strong drive by some in this city who are urging their favorite commissioners to settle as many law suits as possible so as not drive up legal costs. Best business practice they say...right or wrong, let's not drag out untold legal costs that we can't afford...make it all go away. Deals are cut every day when it comes to law suits. This is exactly Greater Bay's strategy--wear them down and count on the politics that dictates.
To date, we have paid $384,105.65 in attorney fees because of bad politics at the time. Greater Bay? Who knows if he's paid one dime. The City failed in the simplest of things such as even doing a simple background check on Greater Bay to find that they had never built a building or had a project of this magnitude. They never even visited one project in which Greater Bay had been involved. They never inquired or contacted any owner of any building that involved Greater Bay for a reference. They never checked out Willard's credit history which consisted of pages of personal judgments for unpaid or failed deals.
Blame this on lousy politics, a total lack of due diligence and just plain bad advice. That's what's going on with Greater Bay, and Peter Willard just keeps hanging in there to get a piece of that cherry pie, minus the pits, that he still wants.
A law suit was filed on November 16, 2009. Please refer to other past blogs on this subject for the history under Labels, Grater Bay. Briefly, this entire matter never would have happened if anyone on the dais had listened to the then city manager or even had taken the time to read the Contract. Mayor Mark Drautz tried but anarchy ensued when Retha Lowe grabbed the power and signed the contract with Greater Bay Group as Vice Mayor, thus handing over our beach for 20 years less one day and an eventual law suit. Our then city attorney, Larry Karns, sat there and watched this insurrection. Even the 20 years was disputed by one law suit, given merit by the Court, that was filed subsequent to this mess by private citizens who claimed it really was a 40 year power grab of our valuable beach property. Next, citizens formed a PAC and got signatures to fight it.
Essentially Willard and Greater Bay's complaint states that Lake Worth breached its contract and their claim is for specific performance regarding our Lake Worth beach.
The Court ordered mediation ended in an impasse. Subpoenas were issued late last year and depositions were taken. According to the City's information sheet, the case was taken off the Court's current trial docket and has not yet been rescheduled by the Court.
On February 2, 2012 there was a scheduled two hour meeting on this law suit. Those in attendance were the city attorney, acting city manager, the entire commission, a court reporter and our outside legal counsel, Brian Joslyn. The outcome of that meeting, as well as any discussion, is confidential but we know that there is a strong drive by some in this city who are urging their favorite commissioners to settle as many law suits as possible so as not drive up legal costs. Best business practice they say...right or wrong, let's not drag out untold legal costs that we can't afford...make it all go away. Deals are cut every day when it comes to law suits. This is exactly Greater Bay's strategy--wear them down and count on the politics that dictates.
To date, we have paid $384,105.65 in attorney fees because of bad politics at the time. Greater Bay? Who knows if he's paid one dime. The City failed in the simplest of things such as even doing a simple background check on Greater Bay to find that they had never built a building or had a project of this magnitude. They never even visited one project in which Greater Bay had been involved. They never inquired or contacted any owner of any building that involved Greater Bay for a reference. They never checked out Willard's credit history which consisted of pages of personal judgments for unpaid or failed deals.
Blame this on lousy politics, a total lack of due diligence and just plain bad advice. That's what's going on with Greater Bay, and Peter Willard just keeps hanging in there to get a piece of that cherry pie, minus the pits, that he still wants.
Joslyn is dragging this out for fees. He said in the very beginning there was no suit.
ReplyDeleteHow many other companies submitted a bid for the public/private casino project that your boy Drautz brought to the city?
ReplyDeleteWas the city really turning over the entire beach, sand and sea included to Greater Bay? Please explain what you mean by this. You often blogged that we didn't even need a building there, that people only really go to the beach for the ocean and sand, not shopping or dining. Who filed the lawsuit that claimed it was a 40 year lease? The city charter for leases is no more than 20 years. I remember McVoy coming to my door and telling me Greater Bay was going to "flip" the property or build a gambling casino. How do you know there was no due diligence done? Greater Bay has a long list of completed projects.
You are certainly right. All this can be blamed on lousy politics. The lousy politics of breaking contracts and filing frivolous lawsuits.
Please name the people who are asking for the lawsuit to be settled, just to stop running up legal fees.
ReplyDeleteMy "boy Drautz?" I believe he was running against Clemens when I voted for him. That was a good move on my part.
ReplyDeleteNext, I'm not going to spoon feed you all the details on the Greater Bay fiasco or on the lawsuit that proved in the minds of those who filed that it was for more than 20 years. The Judge said it had merit. Do your own research.
P.S. You misquote me. I have always said that we do not need more commercialization at our beach--that it is a beach, a park, not a shopping center and that the zoning should have stayed PROS. The casino has been there, in its present location, since 1922 and I support the casino in that location on almost the same footprint.
Thanks for your post but try and take a moment and do your own research on this. Perhaps then all your anger will dissipate.
Admit it Lynn! Your friends, Dorsey, Mcnamara & McCauley filed a lawsuit that put a cloud on title that stopped the clock on all GB milestones.
ReplyDeleteHeck, GB called for the City Attorney to give a deposition on their behalf.Just how strong a case do you represent the city has?
Hopefully, we go to court. The City has been defending this so they think they have a good case.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous--No personal friend of mine has been deposed. Why is that?
ReplyDeleteActually, I think the last commission majority was clueless as to what questions to ask, what the answers to questions meant and what follow up questions to ask.
ReplyDeleteThis Commission majority has alot more understanding of such things and will not let the "experts" (like lawyers) run the show without oversight and accountability.
Look at how this Commission majority did not give in to Staff's insistance that approval be given on the Casino and Site projects without review and oversight. The "experts" then revealed how they weren't wearing any clothes both with respect to county approval and to the significant cost over runs.
Yeah, right, every commission is "clueless" unless they are people you voted into office. Great going. You have had your bulldog up there for over 2 years. If everyone agreed with his tactics, then how come no one, including you, was hollering? You people do more bitching against staff now that you have your majority on the dais and I'm not impressed--yet. Soon, we won't have any of our top staff left.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it always them and us. Two sides that can't agree and always blame everything on the other side. The point we need to learn about GB is that the majority agreed to this deal and the minority did all it could to stop the deal from happening after the city was in a binding contract. When the commission acts and the minority is unhappy they need to accept the loss and support the will of the majority. Instead the minority lead by Jennings and Golden did all they could to block GB. They supported citizens law suits that clouded the title. They supported blocking the required zoning changes and they delayed this deal. McVoy's law suit was just what GB needed. The recession hit and they had no obligation to perform with a cloud on the title that was created by this case. All they had to do was sit back and wait for the commission majority to change. Mulvehill gets elected and the next thing we know GB is told you haven't performed so your out. Just what GB expected would happen. They were ready to sue and we were sitting ducks. You can thank McVoy, MacNamara, Golden and Jennings for clouding the title and exposing us to millions of dollars of liabilities. Without that cloud GB may have folded and left town. These are facts that you will never accept. Why you expect GB to go away with nothing or are surprised about this case continuing to go on is funny. We need to all pray real hard that GB does not win this case. Start lighting candles and do whatever you can because we could be in big trouble. You don't breach this type of contract if you have any smarts. If you want out of a deal you get a smart lawyer and you do it right. This is something we need to learn no matter who is in office.
ReplyDeleteJoe Kroll & Ed Fry left because of Stanton.
ReplyDeleteKathleen Margolis is in charge of the beach which is millions of dollars over budget.
Just who are we about to lose we shouldn't lose that is being chased out by the Commission?
Lake Worth's lease with Greater bay included 3 phases: a development period of unspecified length which Willard laughed up his sleeve at(they could have taken 5 years or 25), a lease of 20years minus a day, and a right to sublease of 20 years minus a day.
ReplyDeleteThis adds up to an undetermined number of years for development plus 40 years minus 2 days of control by an entity other than the citizens of Lake Worth, who had in a 2004 Charter amendment specified no leases of greater than 20 years were to be allowed at the beach.
This is why Judge Fine denied Mr. Joralemon's motion to dismiss the suit filed by concerned citizens on behalf of the public against this outrageous abrogation of power and violation of the Charter by Cmrs. Burns, Vespo, and Lowe.
We have an excellent lawyer!
ReplyDeleteI think our lawyer stinks and I wonder why he allowed our city to enter into this contract under the terms outlined. We are screwed thanks to our wonderful attorney's failures. That citizens law suit did us in.
ReplyDeleteThe citizens of Lake Worth control the beach? Really. If that was the case Lynn would have NYPD Pizza, John G's and whatever that t-shirt place was up there instead of the commercial over development at our beach park.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to know the great employees this commission is chasing out.
If only that good looking woman fired city manager Susan Stanton and the best commission ever were still in power.
Nadine Burns--she is to blame right along with Lowe and Vespo for usurping the mayor's authority.
ReplyDeleteIf Jennings, Golden and Mulvehill voted to cancel a legal binding contract, costing the tax payers millions how are you now trying to blame Burns, Lowe and Vespo?
ReplyDeleteThat makes no sense.
What makes no sense, is your comment.
ReplyDeleteIf we lose this case Jennings, Mulvehill, Golden and Jeff Clemmins will be to blame, along with out great attorney. Cara Jennings could care less what the outcome of the case is. She and her friends hope the city goes belly up so their friends can squat in all the empty houses.
ReplyDeleteIf we lose this case it will be because of Clemens, Vespo and Lowe.
ReplyDeleteVespo and Lowe were not even on the dias when the motion was made to end the deal with Greater Bay. Mulvehill, Golden, Jennings and Clemins refused to get a 2nd legal opinion relative to the best way to get out of this deal. Too bad for us.
ReplyDeleteThey WERE on the dais when they ripped the contract from the hands of the Mayor and had Lowe sign a bad contract that she had not read that resulted in lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteTOO BAD FOR US!
That's crap Lynn. Drautz was required to sign the contract that was approved by the commission. He is not a lawyer and it was not his duty as mayor to review contracts that have already been approved. Drautz was one of the players in the delay game that started the moment your group lost the vote on the beach. To say that we are in the mess because the contract was pulled from his hands is crap. We are in this mess because we potentially breached a legal contract. That is something that your gang of commissioners did on a regular basis and we have paid millions as a result and face millions more if this goes wrong.The citizens law suits and the zoning delays were also part of the plan to kill or delay this deal. Whether those suits gave GB the right to delay is what we will soon find out. Pulling the contract from Drautz was done because he violated his oath as mayor to honor the city charter. He was a joke.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it smart that anyone would sign a contract and not read it? Do you, really? Would you do that if you were selling your house?
ReplyDeleteThis IS a matter of what is smart and what is not. Whether it is your side, my side or somewhere in the middle, anyone signing a contact who did NOT READ THE DAMN THING is an imbecile and should be impeached as what they did on behalf of the city is CRIMINAL. Tell that to your friend, Retha.
P.S. Please don't ever consider running for office in this city.