Second in a series
(See pdf here.)
Re “‘Someone Has to Go Back to Drawing Board’ –Greenberg”
As promised, the Farragut Drive attorney activist Les Greenberg swung back hard at City Atty. Carol Schwab after she last week rejected his claims that certain City Council members failed to disclose relationships with petitioning parties in a neighborhood parking dispute.
Based on Mr. Greenberg’s reply, Ms. Schwab’s letter of last Friday was, at most, a speed bump for him.
He dispatched a 12-page email attacking and seeking to blow holes through arguments Ms. Schwab made for rejecting his assertions three members failed to disclose relationships with persons involved in the Grace Lutheran Church’s bid to loosen parking restrictions in one block of Farragut.
Speaking attorney to attorney, sometimes Mr. Greenberg’s response took on an esoteric tone. In his conclusion, he said, in part:
“The City is caught in a Catch-22. Staff has publicly informed the City Council that it needs to ‘start from scratch’ to develop proper evidence to determine whether the Farragut Parking Restrictions meet the current requirements. But the City Council would violate the law to revoke the Farragut Parking Restrictions without first developing substantial evidence justifying its ‘start from scratch’ approach.”
Mr. Greenberg told the newspaper that Ms. Schwab ignored one of his central contentions.
“In her opinion, she only considered whether (Messrs. Andy Weissman, Mehaul O’Leary and Jeff Cooper) had a financial interest under the financial reform act,” Mr. Greenberg said. “She never considered the common law. ‘Do you have an interest that might influence your opinion?’ It does not have to be financial. She never considered the relationship between (church member Kenneth) Smith’s business and Weissman. She just ignored it.”
In yesterday’s letter to Ms. Schwab, Mr. Greenberg revisited his account of the relationship in some detail.
Nearly a month after the Council-Farragut dispute first played out publicly, the fires are burning as brightly as ever.
