It’s likened to a game of baseball.
The attorney for Bazzy Marine filed Aug. 17 for an injunction to nullify the city leases for the Historic Bridge Street Pier and the city called for a shade meeting to strategize the case.
Meanwhile, the city put into play a redo on the ordinance that adopted the lease for the pier restaurant and two accessory buildings — the crux of the court case.
Bazzy’s emergency motion seeks to “null and void” the lease to Anna Maria Oyster Bar’s corporate entity, as well as its subleases for two upland buildings, by invalidating the Sept. 3, 2015, commission vote that adopted the lease.
The city’s attorney admitted the notice — published Aug. 25, 2015 — was a day short of the required 10-day notice.
“Fred Moore conceded to my attorney on that point —and that point alone — just a couple days ago,” Mike Bazzy told The Islander Aug. 18.
Moore stepped in to represent the city at an Aug. 11 court hearing on Bazzy v. Bradenton Beach.
Nelon Kirkland of Harrison & Kirkland in Bradenton, attorney for Bazzy Marine Corp., filed the motion as part of the 10-month-old fight against the city, including alleged Sunshine Law violations during the 2015 pier lease negotiations.
In an apparent attempt to rectify the notice issue, the city commission Aug. 18 unanimously approved a first reading on a substitute pier lease ordinance.
Neither the city nor its attorney of record, Ricinda Perry, who participated in the lease negotiations with then-Mayor Jack Clarke, disclosed the negotiations with AMOB principal owner John Horne for his restaurant’s lease or the upland buildings.
A second reading and ordinance adoption is expected when the commission next meets at 5:15 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 8, at Bradenton Beach City Hall.
But before that happens, Moore called a shade meeting Aug. 19 on the Bazzy case, for 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28, at city hall, 107 Gulf Drive N.
The meeting will be gaveled open, but the public will be asked to leave the chambers while officials and attorneys take a time out to strategize.
The injunction does not request monetary damages.
“As in baseball, if one hits a home run, knocks the ball out of the park, but then fails to touch any base, even the last one, home plate, the hit is disqualified and null and void,” Kirkland wrote in the emergency motion.
As of Aug. 22, a hearing had not been set for the emergency motion.
The next court date for the case is set at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday, Sept. 7, at the Manatee County Judicial Center, 1051 Manatee Ave. W., Bradenton.