Bullet Coversion Madness

okay, So i have a DB set up in MySQL. I upload to it using a CF form.  All works well.  Then I try using multiple paragraphs/formatting within the textarea and upload. The DB takes it as text and in the memo area when I look, it apears to take everything correctly. When I query the DB, however (and I format the results using: #ReplaceNoCase(Lamn.announcement_text_03,Chr(10),'<br />','ALL')#  ) so that I get paragraph formatting, all looks great except for the bullet (•).  When I view source, I get: "• Blah, blah..." instead of "&bull; Blah, Blah..." How can I convert the • symbol to the bullet symbol that html can read because the server is displying the page with "�" when not viewing the source code. I have tried using the Replace method and using "char(149)", "&bull;" but I have no luck.  I tried all 255 ASCII characters and nothing changed.

Thanks in advance!