 I just want to give an update on, and I may need help from the committee, on our stripes appeal. We were appealing to the city to, because of the way planning had interpreted our NCD. I don't know if you all understand what an NCD is, an NCD is a community plan. So this is a plan Jerry Locky was the, because he complained the most about it, we put him in charge. And we had meetings all over the neighborhood. We were concerned because houses were being torn down and suburban type houses were being built, the time with the garages in the front and the recess doors and the backyards. So we decided the city asked what we wanted to do in NCD, we weren't, nobody wanted to go to the store at that time. And so we had meetings in churches, in schools, we took it further than that, as we usually do. So even with the city not around, we held it in people's living rooms. So that people had input about, and people we've never seen before, seen since, wanted to have input about what was important in our, in our neighborhood. And it wasn't just based on looks. So porches for example, like people wanted houses to have porches because it creates a safer neighborhood for kids, right? It promotes people talking to each other. So we went through this year process and then it was, we had some guidelines that now are the official guidelines. There's standards. Standards, I'm sorry. And the city then said, you know, yes, these are your new standards. That's the reason we fight so hard for NCD standards. Some people say, well, what do you care about the wind or what do you care? It's because the process comes from community. This is the only thing that we have that just was bottom up. And so that's why we fight to protect the NCD. And that doesn't mean there aren't always exceptions there are. But, but that, but that issue, and it's, and there's a lot of things coming up in the future that we can talk about later that are starting to challenge that neighbors should have, should have a say in what their neighborhoods look like or what are the design standards. So we were, we appealed a decision handed down from the city on strikes. And we got threatened with a lawsuit. And the lawsuit said you should drop the appeal or you will be sued. We were totally unprepared. We're not prepared as a neighborhood or as individuals on the board to do that. I'm hoping that we use that, that anger, you know, and being upset that we were kept from a democratic process. We were buoyed out of it to, to try to get the city and the new comp plans to, to provide legal representation for cities who are doing nothing more than defending the very standards the city passed. Yes, ma'am. On what grounds would they sue? It wasn't so much the grounds. It was that you can keep people tied up in litigation for years. And I don't, you know, I mean, we don't as a neighborhood have that kind of money that we can hire an attorney and fight that kind of battle. It's not even so much about what, what, what they would be citing. It's just a harassment suit. And, and part of me is like, you know, a very angry, very upset. When the board met, that was probably the hardest decision we ever made to walk away from something we felt we had a right as American citizens to do. But I think we can turn that into something more positive for the future with the help of our elected officials and the help of all of you to help pressure them to maybe do some things that protect neighborhoods in the future. Yeah, I'm sorry. Now, who threatened the neighborhood? I don't really want to say. It was, it was the Stripes developer. I don't, because I, what if you say her the development is. It was on the corner of Woodlawn and Blanco Road. Fred Ricksburg. Fred Ricksburg and I feel like a hobbit and I'm going to get you. The Woodlawn and Fred Road. That was it. Yes ma'am. So I guess I don't understand how many communities are so long. The association did, did not want it there? No, no, it wasn't about the, the strikes as a right to be there. They're a business and even if some of us felt like, oh, there could be something different there and more imaginative, they have the zoning to be there. The canopy in the front, the city had determined that the canopy is used as a thing that hangs over a building and creates a setback. We want buildings that come up to the sidewalk because it creates a more walkable neighborhood, creates a more walkable corridor. And, and we wanted, you know, maybe they could put the gas station pumps in fact, which they have done before. And the developer, the city then said, no, that canopy that goes over the gas pumps, that is going to count as the front of the building. And, and the language is a little ambiguous, but the intent is written down that, that what they, what they meant. And so that's why we were appealing it because we felt like, you know, maybe the Board of Adjustments might see it a different way. So Cynthia, I just want to add a little bit of clarity. So our appeal was on a decision that city staff made and, and interpretation, all right, all right, all right. An interpretation that city planners made as far as what constituted a building for the setback. But because that appeal then resulted in the developer being notified, I assume, that this appeal had been filed and therefore they would need to stop their construction until the issue were resolved, that that prompted him to want to take action. We had a co-owner that had signed on the appeal with us, as someone who lives close to the project and felt passionately about the design, about having the building at the front. He actually received a phone call directly from the developer, letting him know that he would sue him for interference with this project. And we later, within an hour or so, the board received an email from the council office that they had received a phone call from the developer, letting them know that he would sue the city, that he was an association board member, and so forth. And so we talked to a number of attorneys, everybody was, everybody was calling their, you know, their mother-in-law's brother who's an attorney, and Brock was able to get in front of a city attorney. And they all said the suit would not have merit, but that doesn't mean he can't sue you. Now it may get thrown out. At some point, you may have counteraction. But, you know, there's no fund for that. We have to fundraise the $600 for the fee for the appeal. And persons who volunteer, Cassie and Sophia and Matt Curdie and Madeleine, they're not looking to get sued personally. That's, you know, that's an unrealistic expectation, I think. And they're very cluttered. They put a time frame on it, and then, you know, the homeowner, he, you know, he said, I can't, I can't do this. So, we, the board voted that, you know, we would withdraw the appeal. So, I hope that added some clarity. So, so, we asked for two things. We asked for our $600 return, so we could give the money back to people who had donated, and we asked for assurances that the developer wouldn't sue us anyway. We never got the second. In fact, what we've gotten is through a third party that if we don't sign a paper saying we will not cause any more trouble or, you know, we will not do any more, because there's some things coming up that are not NCD, like the signage, that we will, that will be sued anyway. We're, we're- This is written in, I'm sorry to jump in. No, no. This is written not only by us, but by the city, as an NCD. We have five public meetings, and it was run by the city for these things. The city should be standing up for us, not the developers. When it comes to the city, the city has decided that they agree with the Citizens United Supreme Court's decision, it seems like that these developers are a person. And, and you know, there is always a chance we would have lost it more to the justice, but that loss is like, okay, you go through the process. But to not be, to be tormented from going through the process is really, that's scary. I mean, when you think about it, it's like, you know, you're not even allowed to follow the process because someone's harassing you. So, so, you know, to go forward, you know, with the new comp plans, we need to have, we need to pressure our legislators and, and you know, our councilman, quite frankly, Trevino to help us get language in there that protects neighborhoods, I mean, if we're harassing somebody, that's different. But when you're just going through what the city process is, and you're prevented from doing that, we should be protected. These are the city plans. The city should be taking a lead in helping us protect them. Yes. So, is this the right time to discuss the possibility of becoming a historic again? Because I know the city has limited funds. I really feel a fashion in this neighborhood. I'm on Facebook. I see the zoning discussions, the NCE discussions. I see the struggles we have. The only real, the real nail in the coffin, I see the city backing are the historic guidance. And I know we've tried so hard and put so much effort into these NCD guidelines. Is it time to discuss the next step and really ensuring that all of these guidelines are going to be, you know, enforced? Because the NCDs probably will continue to be enforced very laxly. The city just doesn't have a funding in the development office or anywhere else to code enforcement to, unfortunately, to back it up. I've been told several times by, by the neighborhoods and by different city departments that if we want to be protected, we have to go historic. 2005, there was no appetite for that at all. I don't know, I don't know if that's changed. That's a discussion we may have to have as a community. You may need to have with your neighbors. And what does that mean? And are we willing to do that? I mean, that's something we all have to answer together. But that is, that would protect us. That's for sure. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Thank you. I know there's a community. So obviously, I think we're forcing the NCDs. But there is a lot. There are a lot of people in this neighborhood who think the NCD is too invasive on their privacy and their property and that they should not have to deal with something like an NCD because it's their property. And why should the city tell them what to do with their property now? There's a lot, and obviously, that's not what I believe. But there are a lot of people in this community who really feel like that and think that they are being, that we are stampeding them with these desires to become NCD or historic. And they feel that they are not the part of them. And they're the ones who don't come to these meetings. Yeah, but I mean, they don't have to for us to have to take our neighbors' feelings. And that's exactly right. I mean, there are a lot of people who would not or at least wouldn't before go through with this, Jeff. Also, and on the zoning and urban design committee, in the very fact that the companies representatives told you that the insistent on the neighborhood association promising that we, the neighborhood association, would never cause any more problems for them. So, you know, somehow, why does this not sound like blackmail to me, there you go. And I want to know, now it's my understanding that there are state laws that protect, that protect a non-profit organization like neighborhood associations. They're board members from being sued for just any frivolous excuse. Do we have any attorney friends who can give us some answers on recourse for this very crazy situation? Well, we have not been contacted about that second part. The citizen who had his name on, he's been the one that's contacted for some reason. They think he's president of the Begin Hill Neighborhood Association, which I'm okay with. So, they have not actually contacted us. I think our feelings for right now is we just leave you alone. I mean, it's, I'm not gonna go look for trouble, but I'm also not gonna sign off on our rights. I mean, I think I'd probably be willing to sign before I do that, I'm really scared. But I'm also not a rich person, so we'll see what happens. Madeline, did you have a question? I'm on the board of the Begin Hill Neighborhood Association and just one thing about the historical districts is they're just as upset as we are about our neighborhood, it's almost not an issue of what our guidelines are. It's hardly any neighborhoods in, especially in the inner city of San Antonio, are getting any support from their elected officials, their councilmen, any of the city departments. They're Montevista, Denali Hill, all the historic King William. They are just as frustrated as we are because they are not getting any support from the city. So it's not our guidelines that are the problem. It's we, as citizens, aren't getting the support that we need. It is a hard time to be in a neighborhood in a downtown neighborhood. The tension is really strong right now because people are moving downtown and it's like we don't exist somehow and it's important for us to have a voice in our neighborhood. John Merson, did you have a question? Hi, my name's John Merson. I'm one of the authors of the Neighborhood Plan. And that was a plan that predated the NCD. Let me talk about the Midtown. Yes, Midtown plan. We were playing with standards there. We had a meeting after meeting. We had participation with about this group of this number of people and went on for a year or more, monthly, weekly. Every meeting was attended also by a member from the city planning department to guide us. These standards were written essentially by the city planning department. They knew it. Nextly, as far as historical visitation, I think that would help us. It takes, I think, 50% plus more. Yeah, I think we might want to table the discussion about whether we want to become historic because that's a whole meeting all by itself. It's a whole lot of meetings all by themselves. Yes, Anne. Just out of curiosity, does Beepin Hill have a historic survey on our neighborhood by SACs or the Office of Historic Preservation? We're in the process of creating one, but we don't have a complete one. And if the neighborhood would like to participate in that, I'd be happy to share it with you. Claudia, would you mind standing up and introducing yourself? I'm Claudia Aguera. I'm a Midtown resident. I'm living out of these status here as a show of support for the NCD standards. But since you're asking questions about historic preservation, I am the cultural historian in the Office of Historic Preservation. I do not oversee designations, but I do oversee the department that does that. I do work on cultural initiatives. So if you are interested in working, doing a survey of your neighborhood, I would be, I would encourage that you take on that role because this is your neighborhood. We're happy to work with the Conservation Society to come in and do that. Jenny Hay is the colleague in my office who oversees that and our deputy director, Kathy Rodriguez is also a contact for that. And I would be happy to have him come and present to you. Our deputy, I shouldn't say have them. I report to the deputy director. But we could all train you. And we have a mobile app that does all of this. So it's easy for you to do. And sometimes it's not even becoming a historic district. It's not even getting landmarks. It's just identifying what's important to you in the neighborhood. So that when something comes to our office, our office does oversee all demolitions. We can find out what's important to you because it's already been surveyed. So one of the things that's good that's happened, I mean, someone was mentioning how the neighborhoods are all under the same kind of pressures is we had to form what we're calling tier one, tier one neighborhood coalition. So it's all of the downtown, the most of the downtown neighborhoods are coming together and we're working, we're gonna start working on issues that we have in common. So, you know, Monivista has certain things in common with us, even though they may be a very different kind of neighborhood. The same with King William, definitely all the Vista Monticello Park, Woodlawn, all of those groups are people who are talking and we are coming together. And I think if nothing else, that will also give us some power. So I'm very, I'm very happy to report that. Is there any other questions about this subject before we move on? Yes, yes, Mr. Chairman. Are we going to take any very proposed actions on this or are they just letting it happen? You know, believe me. There's a lot of action I'd like to take. But no, I think what, and I may be wrong about this and this is not a satisfying answer, but the way I see it, what we really want to happen now is how do we take this and make changes for the future so it doesn't happen to us again? I don't see anything that we're prepared to follow through on that we could do. Oh, close enough to get it in there. He said that you're not willing to sign that document stating that we wouldn't not pursue our rights in the future to question a design standard. So in that regard, we are, you are taking that action. There is no, nothing on the table, action we're going to take, but I'm not willing to sign the way of basic right that we have. And as far as the appeal, that's done and there's no, there's nothing. We've already, we've already dropped the appeal. This is our councilman, council Roberto Trevino. He'd like to say a few words. Thank you, Cynthia. So obviously we have a very contentious issue here and I'm here tonight because I want to show you number one, you have my support. There's a couple of things we want to talk about. Number one, the process that you just heard about, the appeals process. Absolutely 100% you have the right to file an appeal. As far as whether you choose to drop the appeal or not, that's something that we as an office can't advise you on, unfortunately. That this is not something that we do. We can't provide legal services in that regard. And if there's any questions regarding that, I brought Jetmabias to help answer some of that specifically, any specific legal questions you have. This is really important. We really are trying to figure out ways to support you, to work through this issue. We had filed a CCR that allows the NCD to override a UDC amendment. Now, again, the issue is this threat of lawsuits over the appeal. The only thing I can say is my hope is that you would seek the legal advice necessary to make that proper decision for you. But we can't do that. I wish we could, but we can't. Yes, sir? No, why is that? This is a city law that is inside the city department. So where is the legal study? I hear you. And again, as I said, I wish we could do that, but I have Jetmabias here can maybe help to explain some of that, the reasoning behind why we cannot step into that situation. And if you allow me, please, here's Jetmabias. Thank you, Councilman. And I'd like to say that I retired from practicing law in 2000. I became a volunteer for state representative, Mike Villarreal, with our office right across the street when he was elected to his first term. I spent many hours in this cafeteria. I then retired, and again, and Mayor Hartberger, when he was elected, he asked me to come and work in his office as his liaison to the city council. I had done a lot of mediation work in my law practice. So I worked for four years with Mayor Hartberger and the council members on issues. Mayor Castro asked me to stay on, and I did for five years, and then I retired again. And my wife says I'm a real failure at retirement. But Councilman Trevino is an old friend, and he asked me to help him, and I was glad to be able to do that, and I've been working with him since December of 2014. To understand this, and it's got to be really frustrating to you, and I certainly do appreciate that. But a councilman is one person of an 11-member legislature, if you will. A city council is like a small legislature. A councilman on his own has no authority to do anything. He can't make decisions on behalf of the city. He's also, he has no authority like a judge. He can't resolve conflict. What he can do is to encourage talk between parties when there are disagreements. But just like Beacon Hill Neighborhood Association is an entity of its own, a non-profit entity, the developer is also an entity. And as a council member, he has no authority over these entities. He can't resolve a dispute between them. He can encourage them to talk, and if both parties want to talk, he can help facilitate that. And I'd like to give you an example of where that worked well. When I was working with Mike, we had a very contentious issue that came up regarding the new HEB on Woodlawn, or I mean on Hildebrand and Fredericksburg, the DecoBee, an HEB presented the design and it was not at all what the neighborhood wanted. And the fuel station was backed by Rosewood, where the neighborhood houses were. They kept the large, giant billboard, which they had a right to. So three neighborhood associations got together and asked if they would meet and talk, and HEB agreed to do that. And I agreed to be the mediator. And we had quite a few meetings and worked for quite a while. And HEB was a willing partner and they agreed to move the fuel station from the back to the front, so it's now on Hildebrand. They agreed to change the entire design of the store so that it has the Deco design. They agreed to pull down the large billboard and just put a berm sign. They donated $50,000 to the Deco organization. So that's the kind of thing that a council member can encourage for a state representative and when there's agreement to proceed. And does that help in explaining the role? The councilman is very lucky to have a friend like you to stand up for him. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone to stand up for us. I know Councilman Trevino was made aware of this when you were running. We were brought into your attention. We reached out to this favelas several times and he never once wanted to meet with us. Long time ago. And as a matter of fact, I mean it isn't our first time that we've encountered his personality traits, personal. So I think that... This is our state representative, Gathel Bernon. And so I think that the Jett is right in explaining the power of lack of revenue, the council person, but I'm thinking about the microphone race. All right, so I've been thinking about what Jett has said. He's right that the powers of the council person are limited. There's not a magic hammer that they wield, but I've also been listening to you guys and thinking about it. Basima and I have talked about this for a few days now. I think that there might be something that we can try to do that is creative and I'll explain what it is. First of all, I think my fear and his fear and your fear is not just what happens in this neighborhood but in the future, if any neighborhood follows the preset process and a developer, whoever it is, is allowed to sue and that lawsuit or the threat of the lawsuit is allowed to stand, then that can have a chilling effect on neighborhoods' abilities to speak up for themselves. And not the typecast, but both of us represent areas that don't have the same sort of involvement here or even the capacity to withstand something like that. And so the threat of the lawsuit may cause them to retreat very quickly, which I think sort of opens the door. He's right, right? I'm one of 150, you're one of 11, but I do think that there might be something with the city attorney's office where we ask them to jump in or to ask for a city attorney's opinion. In other words, if you've got a process laid out and the city lays it out and the neighborhood's following it as it's written, then there's no reason why the city itself would not defend its own policies. Right? And so, okay, but how do you do that when there's not a lawsuit? How do you do that? That's the problem, right? How do you do it when there's not a lawsuit? Because you guys have to be sued first, accept service, follow a response and then leave the city attorney's office. And so what I'm suggesting might be a city attorney's opinion when the city attorney runs through the legal process and says, here's my official statement on this issue. That alone may have some effect on keeping other developers who are trying to do the same thing. I wish I could please. I'd like to go back to the question that I asked that hasn't been answered. I asked, so who has legal standing? And it sounds like you're telling me the city attorney hasn't even looked at this yet. So I understand that the city council is just one person out of 11. I understand how that works, but we still have talked about who has standing to enforce city plans and city standards. And if they haven't gone to the city attorney yet to find that out that we're, you know what I'm saying is that the city attorney need to help to respond once the lawsuit is filed asking for a city attorney. Right, it's a city process. Why would a city attorney have to wait until somebody gets sued before they're sued? So what I'm suggesting to exactly that point I'm suggesting is asking for a city attorney opinion on the legality of the process passes to lay down. Because once he gets there, or she gets there, then it may have a radiating effect on other developers because right now what happens is if you guys are treating them, if you guys are treating them, then it opens the door for this tactic to be used over and over again. And everybody will be treated. Who has standing to ask for a meeting? Let me just add to that. Number one, we did consult with the city attorney and everything we're telling you, myself and Jeff, is accurate. We were advised by the city attorney's office that we cannot be a part of this. We cannot give legal advice. And so we are looking for many ways we've been talking as much as we can about potential creative solutions. We have the NCO, CCR in place so that we can address this in the future and see what we can do to help eliminate some of these potential loopholes that you're seeing. So, yes, sir. So a developer is basically breaking the rules and regulations set by the city, but the city doesn't know how to do it. Well, he's not, it's in his right. You can sue anybody. Well, I understand. But what I understand is, I get the loss of you. This developer is breaking the law that the city has written a how that development should be done in the area. Now, to be clear, go to be clear, I'll be clear. The city made a decision about the NCP standard. They felt that a canopy over a gas station is a sad one. So, he got, he got that approval, but they didn't, the city doesn't see the way we see it. This is kind of what I was saying about it. Well, to me, it's the way anybody's looking. Well, anybody see it. The community is not a good idea. But he was within his rights and within the law to continue. We were appealing. And it was gonna be then that the work would have to stop. That's what was the cabinets was. I'm not stopping. But I'm saying, if that regulation was written where a building had, that's how it should be done, can't, no matter who pulled the strings and said, man, it becomes a building, which we all know doesn't. But the city should have done it. And not to be fair, we did ask for that CCR with a year. What's a CCR? A CCR is a city council resolution to make, to look at that language in the NCD and make it consistent so that we wouldn't have these kinds of misunderstandings. And it just is gonna work out. And in the end, does it really matter how clear the language is if a developer can still with his money and his power intimidate somebody? I think that goes more to Diego's point is this just opens the door once this gets out. You don't have a chilling effect. Yeah, if anybody wants a zoning change and they're like, well, if you hold this, we're gonna see you. And we're under so much, there's so much going on in our neighborhood, which you'll hear from them in a few minutes. Like we have to have that freedom. We can't, we can't. Did the neighborhood association vote on dropping the appeal? No, but because we as individuals were, we had a deadline and there wasn't time to even meet at the neighborhood association. So because we were the ones who would be personally liable, we came together with Zud and the board and sat down and talked it through and we had gotten some attorney's opinions and we just were totally unprepared. The developer threatened to personally sue the board of Beacon Hill, not the Beacon Hill association, the board members. So we had to drop it. I know that you would, all right. Mom said it just caught us. I was just like shocked, like really somebody would sue us for going through a process but that's the way it is, yes sir. Council Member Neal, when this came to the city council, did you vote in favor of the developer? I'm sorry? That's the way it is. It didn't go with the city council. It didn't go with the city council. There is no action. Yeah, there was no action. They appealed in August of last year and that began their process. And if I could add, the councilman has consistently voted in favor of supporting neighborhoods when there have been votes. Do you, you may be aware of the beauty salon case in Mankey Park that came before the city a week or two ago? And Councilman Trevino, I think was the lone vote. Warwick and Trevino, right? Were the only two votes who supported the neighborhood. Several months before that, an attorney bought single family residents in Monavista and on Mistletoe Street and wanted to turn it into her law office. She didn't go about trying to get the zoning changed before she bought it. She just bought it and then tried. And Councilman Trevino supported the neighborhood in that situation. You know, the issue isn't about Councilman Trevino. Councilman Trevino's here today and he knew there would be difficult questions and some hostile reactions. And I applaud you being here. He's always been here when we've had meetings to answer questions. The question is not, you know, has he been supported? The question is, you know, where do we go from here and what we can do from here to make sure this doesn't happen again because we just can't afford it to happen again. Yes. Regardless of the lawsuit, can we still file a Board of Adjustment Appeal or is that? No, the time limit is over. Now, the fact that we won't sign off on not pursuing future appeals probably gives us a future opportunity. My sense of things is that wouldn't have been brought up without them knowing that that was gonna come in handy. And we, as of yet as far as I know, I've not seen a permit for signage. And our NCD signage designs that standards are fairly restrictive and it would be my guess that either they'll be a generous interpretation there as well or even a request for a variance. So we would have the opportunity then to go through this again. And I think the goal would be for us to be better prepared. And that's the whole point because we do think there will be a future opportunity. So what can we do now to get better prepared for when that comes up? I just wanna address one thing. The second part of what has happened, just know that when we were trying to get both parties together, we were asked to ask the developer to provide a letter saying that they would not pursue any further legal action. So we communicated that to the developer for the Neighborhood Association. And that's the response you got. Now again, we wanna look for ways to strengthen neighborhoods. We wanna look for ways to help improve the character, improve the ability for neighborhoods to determine exactly what they want in their neighborhoods. We're looking at many things. One of the biggest ones we have is our bond. And so with the bond, we wanna look at how we improve the Fredericksburg Road corridor. And please know, I'm very, very supportive. It is on our list with TCI. We are pushing it. We're talking about the ability to make Fredericksburg Road a truly amazing corridor for the neighborhoods, but for the city as a whole. The different neighborhoods that are attached that align that street are really, really important to the character and the diversity of our city. Which is I think at the heart of why you're fighting this. And I understand and I understand the frustration. I wish I could do more. That's why I'm here tonight because I want you to know that I'm hearing you and I will continue to listen to you. We will look for ways to strengthen neighborhoods. We will look for ways to make our city better. Also in addition to the meeting that the consulate referred to with the city attorney's office, I met with the deputy city attorney again today and confirmed the fact that the city does not represent neighborhood associations. And this again may be frustrating, but you're a separate legal entity. The city attorney's office represents the mayor, the city council, the city manager and all the city departments. So it's very complicated. The other thing I did today was to go to the website to check on the Neighborhood Resource Center which used to be helpful in these decisions and they went out of existence last March. So I think it's a very good idea to look for creative solutions. And we will certainly work with representative Bernal, the city attorney's office and all the city departments to do what we can. Matt, you hit your hand. Did you want to make one last comment? I think the point that I made by others, but it's just that you say that you can't resolve, you can't help but resolve conflict, but you created conflict by not adhering to the standards, you know, the S&E standards that the city helped us to create. Well, I will say this and I am glad you're here, but we don't understand why you didn't file the CCR a year ago. If that had happened, we wouldn't even be having this issue. So I do want to answer that. Actually, that's not the case. The issue is once the ball got rolling, this case has left the train station. Now we agree the CCR, and we try to file it all along, but the CCR we file is only going to affect future projects. It will not affect this. We can't retroactively affect. The question was why wasn't that filed a year ago in which case this would be the future, and you know from now on it will be the future. So it was not a year ago, it was last fall, and we did file it this spring. And so again, only because what we're saying is we were looking for other avenues to make this work. The CCR would not have corrected this particular situation. It will look for ways to protect you on other situations or future situations. The question was we've been asking you to get communication going between us and the developer for months and months, and we never got any support, and then we get threatened with a lawsuit, and then you want to help us negotiate. Why did it take that long? Why did we have to be threatened before you were willing to do anything? Well, again, I think that, I'm sorry that that's the perception. That's not the case. The case is we've been talking to their representative for a long time. This is not something that just occurred. This is not something that we just stepped into. It's been an ongoing process. In fact, this whole case started in 2012. Quite frankly, we have Fred Chabba, who's been around for quite a while. This is something that has been around and been developing for quite a long time. We are trying our best to facilitate better communication. Certainly, we are dealing with folks that may or may not want to play nice. They don't want to negotiate. They don't want to talk. We can only try to encourage them to do so, and we're sorry that in this case that didn't happen. We will always try to push for that level of communication. We are sure not going to forget. So in the future, we'll be talking about ways to make that happen. So for even more fun this evening, let's talk about some zoning issues. Before, Mark Spillman is the chair of ZUD. Like our house now, we don't talk about anything but the neighborhood. I think we get divorced when we're not doing this anymore. But I want to make the case quickly before Mark, as Mark's making his way up here, this is a strategic time in our neighborhood. We need ZUD members. We need people to take on one or two cases, and you just follow up on it. Something you can do with a computer, a couple of phone calls, and that's it. We're desperate right now. This is a time when people, developers are moving in, people are flipping houses or they're building structures, and they're not NCD compliant, they're not co-compliant, they're not anything compliant. And it's really important that if you can volunteer, you show up for a meeting once a month, they have a co-compliance officer there, and sometimes the head of zoning comes to that meeting. But you would only take maybe two cases, and it's just a matter of following up on that case and believe me, everyone's very happy to work with you in the city.