When Beverly moved toward adjournment and tried to close out new business, Warren Taft raised his hand. "I'd like to recognize Mr. Dillard to address the assembly under new business."
Beverly opened her mouth, closed it. The Ohio statute I'd given Warren was sitting in his jacket pocket; she knew it was there. "Fine," she said. "Four minutes."
I wheeled to the front of the room. I had one folder, no notes in my hand. I spoke for nine minutes—Beverly's four-minute limit was not enforceable once I invoked my statutory right. And I spoke the way you speak when you've prepared every sentence and don't need paper to hold your place.
I laid it out from the beginning: the accommodation approval, the towing three times with receipts, the fraudulent review notice I'd never been sent, Beverly's retaliatory emails, the intimidation calls to Opal and other neighbors, the procedurally void recertification amendment, the HUD grant compliance agreement, the $180,000 in federal money, the four additional ADA deficiencies documented in Darcy Stanton's audit, the three residents, including Cornelius Brandt, who had been towed under Beverly's regime.
I held up every document as I referenced it: physical paper. People could see it existed.
The room was silent except for the scratch of a journalist's pen and the soft click of a camera shutter.
I looked at Beverly when I finished. "I'd like the board to formally acknowledge the ADA designation of space 7, commit to full HUD compliance, and address the four accessibility deficiencies in the independent audit. That's all I'm asking for from the board tonight."
Beverly's mouth opened. Patricia Weld had told her not to speak; Patricia Weld was not in this room. In forty years of managing people and situations, Beverly had never encountered something she couldn't talk her way out of, and her instincts took over.
"Mr. Dillard, this is a deliberate campaign to undermine this board, and I think anyone paying attention can see exactly—"