If you have checked in to read my interview with Welly Mayor Bob Margolis, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a day or two longer. I have a few factual claims that I need to chase down before I feel confident that I have done my research thoroughly. Don’t worry – it will be worth waiting for.
If you want something else to ponder, how about taking a look at this story from the Town Crier regarding a completely different legal wrangle that has less than a degree of separation from Wellington Village Council (I am beginning to seriously doubt that the absence of conflict of interest is simply an impossibility for Welly World). You see, the home owners’ association in the law suit is represented by lawyer Howard Coates, the one and same Howard Coates who is one of the five council members in the Village Council. Pay attention. This gets slippery: the law suit that the residents have won, and that Glenn Straub is appealing, makes retroactive to 2005 their right to control of the entire Palm Beach Polo development. It was after 2005 that Glenn sold to WEP the piece of land that is home to the Global Dressage Festival. I have no idea if the homeowners have the means to annul the purchase of that land, but at the very least they must have the right to demand some compensation. If any of this becomes the concern of the Village Council (and I find it hard to imagine it won’t) I sure hope Mr. Coates recuses himself from any voting or even discussion of the matter. He has tended to vote with the side that favors the Equestrian Village development, which technically could put him in a position of pure conflict with his clients. Or have I lost the plot? I wouldn’t be that surprised if I had, given that it’s got as many twists in it as one of the Burmese pythons that lurks in Florida’s inland waterways.
