Letter to the Editor: Hail Mary Plays

After this last fall watching the Packers win a game and tie another with a Hail Mary play, I thought there was enough excitement in the city until the NBDH [No Big Dumb Hotel] crowd aka Friends of Sturgeon Bay Public Waterfront threw their second Hail Mary. Their first Hail Mary occurred Sept. 17, when they filed a federal suit claiming among other things that their civil rights were violated during the Westside development decision-making process. They used the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (passed in 1868 to protect former slave’s rights as citizens). They lost this suit when a federal judge ruled against them, in part because our Wisconsin Constitution states public property belongs to the state as a whole and not to individuals such as the NBDH crowd.

While losing, which may have been predicted by their legal counsel prior to even filing, they did delay the project from moving forward these past four months, thus denying property taxpayers of Sturgeon Bay thousands of dollars in revenue. On Oct. 6, council members [Kelly] Catarozoli and [Will] Gregory attempted to delay proposals to move forward on the project.

Their second Hail Mary occurred shortly after when they filed a suit in state court dealing with so called high-water mark which the DNR has already ruled on in adjoining land parcels contained in the Westside Waterfront Development Plans. You can be sure that NBDH crowd will attempt to drag out this suit.

Lastly the NBDH crowd is asking that we citizens of Sturgeon Bay pay all their legal and attorney fees, as well as other relief. Their website [the Sturgeon Bay Legal Defense Fund page at gofundme.com] shows only $51,000 raised, of which $47,000 came from the Carri Catarozoli Andersson defense fund.

Robert Loss

Sturgeon Bay, Wis.