BY JENNIFER CABRERA
ALACHUA, Fla. – Attorney Jeff Childers, representing Tara Forest, LLC, has sent demand letters to the City of Alachua and Alachua County, requesting public records related to the City of Alachua’s consideration of several Tara Forest developments.
The letter to the City of Alachua questions several invoices, totaling about $90,000, in which the City passed on the cost of outside legal counsel and outside environmental and geotechnical consultants who worked on the Tara April Special Exception and the related Tara April Infrastructure Plan. In the letter, Childers states that the City is conditioning any further development approvals on payment of these invoices in full, but “a substantial portion” of the charges are related to litigation or described as “opposition research,” rather than impartial review of Tara Forest’s application. The geological consultant’s work was initially described as “Expert Consultation” but then became “Expert Witness” billing, at a higher rate, which Childers calls “a designation that is conclusive of litigation purpose.”…