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meet the standards put forth by some citizens, concerned citizens, I don’t know how that you can base
<br />it knowing what they’re going to think in advance of making an application. You do the math, you do
<br />the work, you do the research, you put forth an application.
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<br />I want to give a little background to you guys about how this happened since you were concerned. The
<br />Galans have owned this property for quite some time; and as she mentioned they put a lot of work and
<br />money into getting it cleaned up. I guess it was a mess. There was rubbish in the yard and it was, had
<br />to be just basically hand cleared before they could get in there and really clear it out, which they did,
<br />and they took care of some businesses there. When they purchased the property it was expressed to
<br />them that there was a potential there for them to develop it in a commercial basis because of its
<br />location. And they thought, well, that’s why they’ll purchase it, they thought that would be a good
<br />thing to do, knowing that in the future that they would do that. Then, you know, economy does what it
<br />does, up and down, it has fluctuated quite a bit. And they’ve had many, many people come to them
<br />saying we’d like to buy your place, is it zoned commercial? No. Well, then we don’t want to buy it.
<br />Okay. So they kept on holding and they rented. They had several different tenants. There had been
<br />problems with tenants, just general residential tenants. But, you know, as a landowner you do what
<br />you to do keep the place up. They pay for maintenance on it on a monthly basis still. They wanted to
<br />go ahead and rezone it. When a person approached them the last time and said, you know, we want to
<br />do this and we’ll give you a deposit, we just really want to do this. And they talked between
<br />themselves and said maybe what’s what we should do. Not knowing how it all works really, it seemed
<br />like the practical thing to do. There was somebody who wanted to open up a business in that place.
<br />And as I mentioned earlier, to bring this house up to standard where you could run a business out of
<br />there to Code it’d be very difficult, but that was their intention. In the process, they moved in there
<br />with a lease agreement that was a residence and they fully understood they were not to operate their
<br />business, and they started operating their business right away. So then the County came in, and they
<br />were given a violation. And they were notified by the owner, Mrs. Galan, you may not operate your
<br />business in there. We get this thing rezoned, you buy it, then you operate it, not till. So they backed
<br />off. Eventually they did move out, leaving the place empty, and relocated to another place where it
<br />had the right zoning.
<br />
<br />In another application, we came before your board, the Commission, and we heard your concerns.
<br />And afterwards I did speak to Mr. and Mrs. Galan regarding their application, which had not yet been
<br />before the Commission. And I said, you know, you guys, I don’t think this is going to work for you,
<br />and we’ve got to talk about this. So tell me how you feel, tell me what you thought when you first
<br />thought, started to build this. And she said, well, when we first bought it we thought we’d do, like
<br />some little retail shops and maybe have some overnight accommodations upstairs. And I said, well,
<br />why don’t you do that? She said do you think it would work? And I said, well, let’s try it. So I, I
<br />draft. So I drafted a quick design and a quick site plan for them to see. And they said that’s just what
<br />we wanted, and we want to landscape it, and we want it to be beautiful, and we want to have security
<br />lighting, and we want to do all this stuff. So that’s how it came to be, that it really is what they wanted
<br />to do to begin with. Years go by, things happen, people change their minds. But basically that is what
<br />they started with when they started the whole thing. They’re sincere about this. They’ve been
<br />collecting funding. They have properties that they have on the market for sale so that they can use
<br />that, the money from their investments to this investment. And they really do want to use this for a
<br />retirement. That’s the answer.
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<br /> EXHIBIT B
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