Remember Michael Gordon, who attacked Fox41 reporter Dick Irby and photographer Dave White when they were getting some tape at his car dealership?

The incident occurred because Gordon violated historic preservation rules after converting the old Dillon’s Steakhouse at Hurstbourne and Taylorsville roads into a car dealership. As Irby reported, the city’s planning department finally issued a citation on Gordon last April, after he’d already made substantial changes to the property.  But the amount of fines Gordon has racked up was apparently in the $780,000 range.

Gordon has apparently worked out a deal with the city’s IPL department to pay $25,000 that will be used for “its ongoing identification of historic sites and is promising to preserve the stone springhouse on the property.”

That’s according to preservationist Stephen Porter, who is circulating an e-mail urging concerned citizens to attend a March 5 hearing at the Old Jail Building. Porter believes the $25,000 is a pittance and that stiffer fines should be in order for Gordon. In Porter’s view, this amounts to getting away with breaking the rules. From the e-mail:

There are two huge issues here. The first is the promised preservation of an historic site and buildings. The second is the ability of a landowner to make promises to do something good in order to get a zoning change or amendment, violate those promises, and be virtually allowed to get away with those violations. The precedents for future cases here are huge. For IPL to recommend this settlement, or for the Planning Commission to accept it, is and would be a travesty both for historic preservation as well as for the entire planning and zoning process.

Take a look at the whole thing here.