The city speaks

Aren't the azaleas pretty this year?

Less lovely is the 10-page document that arrived from the Key West city attorney's office this afternoon: "Motion for Rehearing of Appellate Order and Motion to Strike Language of the Order."

Robert was insulted by some of its language -- but hey, they're lawyers, and painting our actions in the worst possible shades is their job. Our tax dollars at work.

What fascinates me is that it's not an appeal of the special magistrate's decision to Circuit Court (which I'd expected), but simply a request to the magistrate to reopen our case and reverse his ruling on the wind codes' precedence over Historic Commission guidelines.

Perhaps I am grasping an infinitesimal reed (if I were still South, it would be sawgrass), but the motion specifically requests that Judge Overby "strike that part of his Order" that deals with wind codes.

It does not ask that Overby rule against our windows on any other grounds we cited in our other arguments on appeal -- particularly, that HARC ruled precisely the opposite way in a similar case last December, and that a helping of equal justice would be nice.

I may be back on the island sooner than I'd expected.