Another problem is that the electrical junction equipment that service the South Piers was installed 2 feet below the approved specifications, and that no one from the city has yet discovered this problem.

The significance of these uncorrected problems is that, if true, they represent a continuing pattern of behavior by the Flagstone Group that supports the contention that they're willing to play fast and loose in complying with the requirements of the various lease agreements and city permitting process because they have willing co-conspirators in the city's Real Estate Asset Management, Code Compliance and Building Department.

OUTSIDE COUNSEL

Because their exists an obvious conflict of interest posed by the city's Department of Real Estate Asset Management's support of Flagstone Group's contention that they were never in default - which I raised in my June 3rd story - the City Attorney's office is asking the City Commission on Thursday to approve the hiring of an outside counsel to represent both the city and the city's administration against this lawsuit filed by Flagstone.

In response to my question of who the outside law firm would be, Victoria Mendez emailed me on Friday evening:

"Still trying to figure that out."

On Thursday, we'll see who the city chooses, but no matter who gets chosen the question that remains is how does the city defend the decision of default made by the City Commission when key members of the city's administration don't believe a default occurred?

Here is a copy of Flagstone's lawsuit.

The folks at Causeway Chaos, whose fight against the Flagstone Group was validated when the Commission voted to find them in default, also  want the Commission to hire independent counsel capable of "challenging the City's own behavior as well as defend against the Flagstone suit, "but they want the city to hire law firms not connected to the city, because the track record of outside law firms has been less than stellar.

The SEC and the FOP Financial Urgency cases are recent examples of the city having to pay millions of dollars to outside law firms, who then turned around and had their hats handed to them.

Missing from all these hirings of lawyers is the hiring of lawyers to protect the citizens against the the behavior of the Regalado administration for all the scheming and scamming that has allowed this situation to reach the sorry state that it has.

It's the citizens who really need outside lawyers

Last week the Flagstone Group went to court to challenge the default decision that the City Commission voted on last month at the Special Commission meeting.  A copy of the lawsuit can be found at the bottom of this story.

In addition to the lawsuit, leaks continue to come from inside City Hall about the going on behind the scenes, including additional examples of the failure of the city to oversee Flagstone Group failure to comply with the agreements .

CONTINUING PROBLEMS WITH THE MARINA

The mega yacht marina portion of the project has been operating on a Temporary Certificate of Use issued on January 8, 2016.

Last week I received information that on top of all the other problems that have been revealed about the mismanagement of the marina by the Flagstone Group, most especially the operation of an illegal restaurant and bar on the property for over a year,  the mega yacht Fountainhead supposedly crashed into one of the docks in May of 2016, causing over $100,000 in damages, and that Flagstone has been dragging their feet in completing the repairs - another in the list of examples of problems that the city somehow has failed to be on top of - and that there are hairline cracks in the aluminum structure that pose problems for the structural integrity of the dock.

HERE IS A PHOTO OF THE DAMAGED DOCK PROVIDED TO US ON MONDAY MORNING