[pclmulqdq]

Honestly, it looks like he isn't going about trying to work with the city very well. He also has videos on there of him lecturing public officials about how slow they are.

At the same time, he is trying to build a fusion generator, a science museum, an industrial space, and a few internet businesses that seem to need a secure facility. The planning commission probably has no idea what to do with him, and it doesn't sound like he is employing very many people from the local community. If I were on that city council, I would also be skeptical of the rich guy who bought a warehouse to play around but not actually run any serious business.

[KennyBlanken]

The "benforbars" site has all the hallmarks of a free-energy nutjob complete with comic sans font and MSpaint images.

Between that and the tweet whining about how hard email is to set up (!) this dude isn't qualified to run a Subway franchise, certainly not multiple internet companies.

[ryanmercer]

I went through 6 months of his tweets and, yeah, he either doesn't have a grip on reality, has some sort of mental health issue, or is just constantly trying to run some angle.

- Yup, the free energy fonts and conspiratorial claims about video of his fusion reactor being suppressed

- It looks like he bought a bunch of people's property for pennies on the dollar, then raised funds from those same people to return their goods to them, then had them trucked across the country in shipping containers to be dropped at this derelict 'warehouse'.

- He claims to be solo creating a viable fusion reactor, which appears to be one of the umpteen intended uses of this warehouse

- Wonders why the town council isn't trying to help him, when in one of his own tweets admits that he didn't even bother to attend the meeting that was going to hear his issue.

- Thinks snipers are stealing from him.

- Apparently held a man at gunpoint

- Alleges, openly on the internet, that he's storing all sorts of valuable equipment and music media at this warehouse while admitting he isn't even in the state a good chunk of the time

- Tried to run for mayor of Provo, UT (population 117k) so he could "disincorporate the city"

- the whole benforbars thing

- Complaining about the inability to install minecraft on anything other than a linux machine (?)

- Various email/server complaints

Yeahhhh

[pontifier]

It's very interesting to see how the things I've put out there are interpreted.

It feels like looking at myself in a fun-house mirror. There are probably huge pieces of these events that I'm not communicating well, or at all.

Thank you for your comment. I'll try to be better at communicating the meanings I intend.

[matt-attack]

FWIW you don't seem that unhinged to me. Best of luck in that town.

[myhumbleopinion]

You still don’t see it?! Stop with the defensive attitude and just listen. There is value in listening to what is going on around you. Put your ego aside and realize that at least some of what is occurring is not just someone else’s fault.

[phpnode]

I don't think you're being particularly charitable in this thread - at the very least you're misrepresenting what he's said publicly.

[pontifier]

How can I run a serious business if I can't use the warehouse I bought?

Why can't I use it? Because the city won't let me.

I'm not the only one. This guy, Garland Trice, had his building demolished by the city because he failed to repair it. Why did he fail to repair it? Because the city would not give him permits.

It's SO RIDICULOUS here!

They've closed down the movie theater because they wanted to bring in their own theater. They drove a crypto mining facility away. They ran a tire recycler out of town...

If I hired 50 people, what would they do with no place to work?

[pclmulqdq]

I don't know much about this town, but I will say that your approach of yelling at people won't work. It rarely does. My suggestion is that you at least act like you care about their concerns. Go to their meetings. Even a few that are unrelated to your building permits. When their offices are open, go to ask them what they need to hear from you. Be nice. Ask people what they want. Make them feel comfortable. Be prepared to say "sorry" a lot.

Politics in small towns is about relationships. You need to build them if you want to build anything else. There's a reason you got this building for a deep discount: it's going to cost you a lot of time to get anything done. You didn't pay a lot of money for this building, and that was for a reason: you're going to have to pay in other resources.

Alternatively, if you're going to yell, you need to back it up with some persuasion. In this case, legal threats from actual lawyers (no pulling a C&D letter off the internet and changing a few things - you need your threats to be legit). That is going to get expensive very quickly, but it may work - small towns don't have a lot of legal resources and neither do their residents. The guy whose building got demolished for not doing disallowed repairs probably has a big payout waiting if he sues.

[jason-phillips]

This is the best advice and perspective I've seen in this thread.

[interdrift]

Yeah seems like it's all over the place, but certainly doesn't seem like the city is doing its job when there are multiple break-ins in short period of time of 1 property.