Yesterday July 18th a hearing was held in federal court in Monroe. It went as well as we expected and we are optimistic as to the outcome. The whole thing is now in the court's hands and we hope the judge will issue a ruling soon perhaps by the end of the month but likely later toward the end of August. The following a lengthy summation on where we are with the monument suit now that all documents from both sides are with the court. The media may be posting an update today. First here is a recap from the past seven weeks... The parish attorneys filed a request for summary judgment to the federal court on May 31st. Their request for judgement is only based on their claim for Liberative or Prescriptive Aquisition for ownership of the property our monument rests. Our attorney says that these claims are not supported by the evidence since no deed exists for any property also commonly referred to as public square currently occupied by the parish courthouse and our monument as required by Liberative Aquisition and no one person authorized by the parish can be proven to have accepted ownership of this property through Prescriptive Aquisition from the original owner Larkin Edwards. In mid-June we filed our memorandum responding to the parish's judgement request and included exhibits of all of our expert witness reports. We emphasized that the parish claims should not be accepted because the parish has no deed nor record of ownership or transfer of ownership to the courthouse square property from the original owner, Larkin Edwards. We recently learned that the court accepted all of our exhibits in our filing. This is good news. We also advised the court of the Quit Claim filed in district court in April by the heirs of Larkin Edwards claiming ownership of the land commonly referred to as public square. This additional exhibit gives the court another option to satisfy the ownership issue of the land under our monument. On Friday July 6th, the parish responded to our memorandum. Their response has some major holes in it. Their attorneys do not know the significance of the illegal currency remark made by the Louisiana Supreme Court. Also where Shreveport gained land from dedications happened because there was no original landowners to those plots. Furthermore the nullification of the sale signed by Larkin Edwards says nothing about that nullification correcting the Shreveport Town Company Deed (the parish cites an 1825 statute that does not pertain to the nullification document). Our attorney filed a short rebuttal to this affect last week. Our attorney asked the judge for oral arguments on the Motion for Summary Judgement when he filed his last motion early last week, and it was granted late last week. Our attorney felt that this was a win for us that should really be a difficulty for the parish. These arguments were heard yesterday, Wednesday, July 18th in Monroe at the same Federal Courthouse used in the first December 2017 hearing. No witnesses were called by either side, only the lawyers discussed all of the proofs submitted to the court over the past few weeks that include all of our expert witness reports. Our attorney was prepared as plantiff and the defendants were not as prepared. After Wednesday's hearing the whole thing is now in the court's hands and we hope the judge will issue a ruling soon perhaps by the end of the month but likely later toward the end of August. Then we will know if the summary judgement goes our way and we get the jury trial we requested or if we lose this battle. If we win outright or if we lose the judgement and do not get a trial, the next step is the Appeal process with the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans presided by either a three or five judge panel. This will happen regardless who wins this phase of the process. The parish being a government body may by law have to take it to the next level if we win, and we will certainly appeal the judge's ruling if we don't win. Our attorney has begun preparing for an appeal having gathered a number of points of contention on errors that he feels the court has already made. These will be used in case the current judge rules against us. I do not know what the wait time is to appear before the 5th Circuit, but it is likely a long and expensive one because the fees at this level are high and added to that are the travel costs. Your continued support will enable us to continue our fight