Celebrate Watergate Anniversary Today

During the presidency of Ronald Wilson Reagan, during my clerkship for Chief Administrative Law Judge Nahum Litt, my mother visited me in Washington, D.C.  My mother and I took a Tourmobile around the city.
We passed Watergate and our guide mentioned only that it was a hotel and shopping center. Nothing about the burglary there that led to the resignation of Richard Milhous Nixon.
We asked the driver, and then the staff at the Tourmobile HQ at Arlington National Cemetery.
'We were told it was "too controversial."
The Department of the Interior and its contractor were guilty of censoring history. How "hopelessly provincial," as my mom would say -- we both laughed and laughed at the supercilious, supine government contractor employees for the Department of the Interior who emitted that falsehood.
Obviously, apparatchiks under Secretary James Watt censored the script.
Tourmobile guides were simply forbidden to say what happened at the Watergate building on June 17, 1972.
We survived Nixon and Reagan.  We survived two Bushes.
Our democracy is still under attack today, as in Watergate.
Our democracy is under attack by overbearing Big Money and Big Government.
Here in St. Johns County, our one-party Republican misrule has taken our rights away.
Ask Sheriff David B. Shoar -- but wait, he won't even answer questions from the St. Augustine Record Editor about the Tom Manuel case.
Ask the St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau -- but wait, the St. Augustine Record would not run a letter about its actions, saying it was too "adversarial," and the VCB itself refuses to provide any documents on antitrust and civil rights concerns, despite Florida's Sunshine and Open Records laws and the "Delegation Test" -- VCB is performing a traditional county government function, which has been delegated to VCB.
Ask St. Augustine Beach City Commissioners -- but wait, the SAB's charming Mayor, Sherman Gary Snodgrass, sometimes interrupts public comment speakers, saying people can't make "disparaging" remarks.
Oh, yes we can -- this is not Excelen or Commonwealth Edison.
This is America.
Our First Amendment guarantees our right to speak, ask questions and, if we want to be, to be "pests who never rest" when it comes to unaccountable institutions.
"Ye shall know the truth and it will set you free," scripture teaches us.
In the words of broacaster Barry Farber, "Keep asking questions."
That's how we should celebrate the 41st anniversary of the Watergate burglary today -- "Keep asking questions."

Peter Ellis' Questions for Sheriff David B. Shoar Still Require Answers

St, Augustine Record Editor Peter Ellis asked excellent questions of Sheriff David B. Shoar about the Tom Manuel case.  Sheriff Shoar never answered them.  Shoar has not been held accountable by the St. Augustine Record or the politicians in St. Johns County, alll of whom require spinal implants.  In the words of Barry Farber, "Keep asking questions."   Click here.

St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau, Inc. and St. Johns County Administrator Michael Wanchik Are Still "Stonewalling It" On Sunshine and Open Records

When will they ever learn?
Since May 20 -- that's 28 days tomorrow -- the St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau, Inc. has been "stonewalling it," never providing a copy of its Antitrust and Civil Rights Compliance Policies, or anything else.
Wonder why?
At a May 14, 2013 meeting, in the presence of 100 witnesses, in a county-owned Convention Center, St. Johns County tourism promotion contractor SJCVCB, Inc. and its consultant, Dr. Peter Yesawich of multinational consultant MMGY, disgraced themselves by:
A.  Pricing discussions in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act --Yesawich recommended price increases (see articles and letters, below); and
B.  Elitist racist, homophobic "Jim Crow: marketing that leaves out Miami, African-Americans, GLBT people, youth and eschews the lowest 50% of American income earners, violating the Fair Housing laws of the United States of America, the State of Florida, and the Cities of St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach.
We've got only 59% average motel occupancy here in St. Johns County, but VCB's effete corps of anti-intellectual snobs continue targetting rich white golfers, with offensive racially-targetted literature wiht 199 images of white people, zero Native Americans, four apparent Hispanics (including actor Chad Light playing Ponce de Leon), and eleven African-Americans (mostly happy slaves).
We're not playing to our strengths -- this is the first cultural melting pot in America -- the first Hispanics, first Catholics, first African-Americans (free and slave) and first Jews arrived here on September 8, 1565.  VCB does not advertise this history, or even understand it, it seems.
Welcome to 1953 St. Augustine, Florida -- it's like no one at VCB has heard that St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach have adopetd Fair Housing ordinances, unanimously, in 2012 and 2013..
June 17th marks the 41st annivesary of the Watergate burglary.  Richard Nixon and other dangerous Republicans subverted our democracy.
Our democracy here in St. Johns County is being subverted, in Nixonian fashion, by Republican appointees to the Visitor and Convention Bureau and their international advertising agencies -- they seemingly don't give a fig about our history, our rights and our culture, who take government funds for a government function and stiff the public when we ask for records pertinent to illegal price-fixing meetings and discrimination.
Our local officials serving on VCB are not even allowed to vote. Why?
It's our money. We want to see our documents. 
We want to hear the truth.
Is that too much to ask?
What are the Antitrust and Civil Rights Compliance policies of the VCB (if any):?
What is the history of discussions of Jim Crow marketing, which continues to leave off Miami, even as we celebrate the 500th anniversary of Spanish Florida, and 450th anniversary of St. Augustine?
Whar are the records of VCB meetings where competitors engage in anticompetitive practices?
Healing requires full compliance with Open Records and Sunshine laws.
Healing requires an end to price-fixing discussions at VCB meetings, or anywhere else.
Healing requires diversity marketing, and no more Fair Housing violations.
It's our money.  It's our time.  It's our town.
If VCB won't come clean, respond to Open Records and answer questions, then:
A.  St. Johns County must cancel its contract with VCB for material breach;
B.  St Johns County and local governments should spend the 4% bed tax money directly, instead of through hired hands who lack vision, experience and common sense (VCB's contract expires September 30, 2013 at 11:59 PM);
C.  Our State's Attorney, R.J. Larizza (see below) must exercise his prosecutorial discretion and consider prosecuting VCB Executive Director Richard Goldman for violating our Florida Open Records laws.
What do you reckon?

VCB Executive Director Richard Goldman

  St. Johns County Attorney Patrick McCormack

(His new nickname should be "Delay")

                           St. Johns County Admnistrator Michael David Wanchik
   Oversees $500 million annual budget, allows VCB to violate Open Records law

$18 million St. Johns County Administration Palace (a/k/a Taj Mahal), location of June 17, 2013 meeting of the Tourist Development Council (1:30 PM)

$16.9 million St. Johns County Convention Center,

scene of possible May 14, 2013 antitrust crimes

involving recommendation to increase prices in possible violation of

Sherman Antitrust Act

(as well as prejudiced discussion of refusal to advertise to Miami, African-Americans, GLBT people, youth and the lower 50% of American income-earners -- possible violations of local and federal Fair Housing laws)

Antitrust crime scene?

Watergate crime scene

Watergate crime scene

In the immortal words of WOR radio interviewer and onetime Republican politician Barry Farber of Manhattan, a North Carolina native:
"Keep asking questions."

What do you reckon?

Imagine

Imagine if dodgy local public officials were afraid to peculate for fear of prosecution?
Imagine if crooked businessmen were prosecuted for consumer fraud?
Imagine if concerned citizens were always treated with dignity, respect and consideration when they contact prosecutors about government wrongdoing?
Imagine if polluters feared prosecution?
We could have a State's Attorney's office that fulfilled the functions Florida's Constitution had in mind.
I was privileged, during the 1980s, to cover as a young newspaper editor the office of James Nelson Ramsey, the District Attorney General for Anderson County, Tennessee (in Tennessee, since 1796, local DA's have generally been called "General").
General Ramsey refused to cower to power, earning dozens of disciplinary complaints -- my favorite complaint was from Sheriff Dennis O. Trotter,who complained that General Ramsey called him a "crooked SOB" to Johnny Ray Morgan, who was Sheriff Trotter's bagman, a pistol-packing ruffian with a fourth grade education who threatened my publisher and who would show up at our office after someone embellished and told him about one of my news stories.
Our Appalachian Observer newspaer receptionist, Vicki, who was formerly with FDLE, would calmly and sweetly say, "he's across the street, in the Courthouse, Mr. Morgan," knowing full well I was just up the hall, behind a hollow core door.
Sheriff Dennis O. Trotter and Bagman Johnny Ray Morgan both went to federal prison for their crimes.  Bagman Morgan was so violent that the federal judge kept him in prison until his guilty plea, based on surveillance tapes where he spoke of his threats and violent crimes.  Morgan was so bold that he was heard by one of our reporters entering the Sheriff's office proclaiming, "Bagman's here. Here come the bagman."
General Ramsey revealed horrific jail conditions, working to improve them.
General Ramsey questioned police corruption and brutality and routine beatings of suspects.
General Ramsey believed racism was an institutional force in Oak Ridge and Anderson County, and sought to undo it -- he had picketed the segregated Oak Ridge movie theatre as a boy, in the company of scientist Waldo Cohn.  As an adult, he made it his business to know which police officers were KKK members, and to be on guard for racist prosecutions and racist police techniques (e.g., Oak Ridge had only one surveillance camera, located in the African-American community).
General Ramsey ended law enforcement crookedness, flummery and dupery, such as the scheme by which bad check charges were never filed, with successive Anderson County Sheriffs and their henchmen pocketing the filing fees and court costs by the bad check writers.
Gerneral Ramsey prosecuted payroll-padding, embezzlement and no-show jobs.
General Ramsey prosecuted an Oak Ridge Police Captain and former UT All-American Basketball player for arson and insurance fraud involving Oak Ridge Motors.
A card-carrying ACLU member, a Democrat (and both a Unitarian and Church of Christ member), General Ramsey was an atypical DA.
He allowed defense attorneys to present exculpatory evidence to the Grand Jury.
He plea-bargained in my presence -- he had nothing to hide and the defense lawyers were okay with it.  How many reporters have ever been able to observe the secret process of plea-bargaining?   (A bemused and amusing General Ramsey did eventually have the Courthouse staff construct a half-door with Christmas bells, dubbing it "the Slavin barrier," so that he would know when I was approaching his inner sanctum.
General Ramsey helped empower honest lawmen to do their jobs without fear or favor -- he took risks.
General Ramsey identified with the people, not the powerful -- he was not the DA for the 1%.  He was elected with significant union support (after the school superintendent busted the school bus driver union by contracting out busses to his cronies).
He helped empower activists and journalists.  We ran off a crooked school superintendent, helped imprison a crooked sheriff and exposed nuclear weapons plant pollution, including the world's largest mercury pollution event at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant. 
General Ramsey joined with what he called "The Gang of Four" -- two County Attorneys and two District Attorneys for Anderson and Roane Counties -- to plan on bringing a sworn, verified public nuisance action against Union Carbide and the Department of Energy's Y-12 nuclear weapons plant over pollution.  (They dropped the idea when the State Attorney General filed an historic federal court action).
General Ramsey did not win all his cases. He wasn't perfect.  He wasn't a knight in shining armor.  Like a lot of lawyers and intellectuals, he could be lazy, overbearing and egotistical. But he was heroic, and fun to watch.
He taught activists the value of courage.  He was my first law professor, de facto, if not de jure -- he told me about legendary corruption and how to fight it.
General Ramsey's papers are at Dartmouth University.  Some day, someone will write a book on him.  Flawed though he was, he was heroic in a very dangerous place -- Appalachia, in a place where hundreds of workers have died in coal and nuclear weapons industries.
Our times call for heroes, and not zeroes.
Imagine what it would be like to have a State's Attorney here more like General Ramsey and less like Boss Hogg.
What do you reckon?

State's Attorney Ralph Joseph Larizza and the Political Decision to Prosecute (or Not)

Our estimable State's Attorney's office and its currrent confused occupant, Ralph Joseph Larizza, owe us an explanation.
Under two successive elected officials, this office adamantly refused to prosecute white collar crime and corruption, refusing to prosecute former St. Augustine City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS for dumping 40,000 cubic yards of contaminated solid waste in our Old City Reservoir, refusing to prosecute Sunshine and Open Records violations, including irrefragable, videotaped Sunshine violations by of the Anastasia Mosquito Control District of St. Johns County Chair Barbara Bosanko (spouse of the former County Attorney Daniel Bosanko) and another Mosquito Control Commissioner, Charles Crist political appointee Linda Wampler.  SAO's estimable and ungracious Deputy Bennett Ford once advised me to "call the Sheriff" about county government lawbreaking.  Cute.  Voters rightly rejected this smarmy smart-aleck when he ran for Public Defender.
The discretion to choose to prosecute or not to prosecute alleged crimes rests with an elected State's Attorney and his hired attorneys.  Except in West Virginia, this discretion is absolute.
Not every technical crime is prosecuted.
So when I read yesterday of the prosecution of Michel Pawlowski, the father of a St. Augustine Beach Ciy Commissioner Undine Pawlwski, for registering to vote here for his daughter, I had to wonder -- why?  Is this payback?  Is this how Ralph Joseph Larizza and his henchmen choose to celebrate Father's Day?
Based upon the Michel Pawlowski prosecution, I seriously question the priorities, ethics, values and morality of the State's Attorney's office and Ralph Joseph Larizza. 
Was this payback for Commissioner Undine Pawlowski winning a $10,000 judgment against former Commissioner Frank Charles for a client? 
Was this payback for Commissioner Pawlowski winning unanimous adoption of both Fair Housing and employment nondiscrimination ordinances for St. Augustine Beach, including protection for GLBT people? 
Was this prosecution requested by KKK and St. Augustine Rod & Gun Club members to keep GLBT people "in line" and discourage us from being "out" and active in politics?
I wonder. 
St. Johns County was long run by racist, sexist homophobes, leading the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to call it the "most lawless" place in America, leading to the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history, on June 18, 1964. 
Our overpaid St. Johns County Commissioners refused in 2008 to protect GLBT people in the proposed County Charter (we defeated the charter twice). 
Our overpaid St. Johns County Commissioners have not yet ever even debated a Human Rights ordinance.  The cities of St. Augustine and  St. Augustine Beach, the Anastasia Mosquito Control District and Sheriff David Shoar are light years ahead of these lugubrious goobers (all known Republicans).
Our overpaid Republican State's Attorney Ralph Jospeh Larizza owes his election to the entrenched local political machine, and thus to KKK and Tea Party intolerance. 
One need only read the homophobic reader remarks directed against Commissioner Undine Pawlowski on the St. Augustine Record website to ask the question -- is this a prosecution or a persecution?
We need an open public debate about the nature, structure and performance of our State's Attorney's office, its refusing to prosecute white collar crme and corrupon, and its now possibly being used as a bullet in the gun of racists, homophobes, political dirty tricksters and retaliators.
What policies, practices and procedures does the SAO have to prevent retaliatory prosecutions?
Does SAO have a nondiscrimination policy based on sexual orientation and gender identity?
If not, why not?
What do you reckon?

FDLE Arrests Sheriff

Eight (8) days ago, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrested the Liberty County Sheriff, Nicholas Finch, a Republican, who was elected in 2012 with no party affilliation, opposing alleged local corruption.  FDLE has charged Finch with intentional destruction of evidence concerning the detention of a man found to have a concealed weapon. In interviews with right-leaning segregationists and John Birch Society bloggers on the internet, Sheriff Nicholas Finch has claimed the right to destroy evidence because he supports "the Second Amendment."  That dog won't hunt.
Upon his arrest, Sheriff Finch allegedly destroyed government records at the Liberty County Jail.  Spoliation of evidence is a serious crime.
Sheriff Finch was rightly suspended from office by Florida Governor Richard Scott pendente lite (pending litigation).  The Florida Governor has the power to remove elected officials from office when they are charged with crimes, and to remove them permanently upon conviction. 
Here's Gannett's Tallahassee Democrat article about the arrest of Sheriff Nicholas Finch (which was evidently not considered newsy enough for more than a single sentence -- only one unilluminating sentence from AP -- by the conservative-Republican-leaning St. Augustine Record, whose credo is definitely not "All the News That's Fit to Print").

Liberty County Sheriff Finch arrested in alleged jail coverup
Written by Jeff Burlew Democrat senior writer
 4, 2013 Tallahassee.com

Liberty County Sheriff Nick Finch was arrested earlier today on charges he released a man from the county jail and tried to cover up his arrest by altering or destroying official documents.
Gov. Rick Scott suspended Finch from office and appointed Carl Causey, assistant special agent in charge of FDLE's Pensacola Region, as interim sheriff.
Finch, 50, of Bristol, was booked into the Liberty County Jail on a charge of official misconduct, a third-degree felony, and released on his own recognizance, said Gretl Plessinger, spokeswoman for FDLE.
According to court records, Finch's arrest stems from the March 8 arrest of another man, Floyd Eugene Parrish, on a charge of carrying a concealed deadly weapon.
Sgt. James Joseph Hoagland of the Liberty County Sheriff's Office arrested Parrish after stopping his car and finding a loaded semi-automatic pistol hidden in his pocket. Parrish was taken to jail and placed into a holding cell while jail workers began documenting his arrest and processing him, according to court records.
One jail worker told investigators that after Hoagland left the jail, Finch arrived with one of Parrish's family members and spoke with Floyd Parrish inside the holding cell. Finch then went into the jail control room, took possession of the arrest file and said Parrish would be released and no charges would be filed, according to court records.
Hoagland told investigators that several days later, he talked with Finch about Parrish's release, and Finch told him he "believed in Second Amendment rights."
Investigators said in court records that Parrish's name was whited-out from the county jail log. While Hoagland was able to provide a copy of Parrish's arrest affidavit, the original arrest record has not been found.
Liberty County Sheriff's Office workers also told investigators that Finch ordered the release of the confiscated pistol and another gun found in Parrish's vehicle from the evidence room.
Finch was elected sheriff last year. In a written statement, Gov. Scott said he's confident that Causey "will serve the families of Liberty County well during this interim term.” In addition to various FDLE posts, Causey, 53, of Gulf Breeze, also served 11 years with the Escambia County Sheriff's Office.

The late Birmingham, Alabama Police Commissioner Bull Connor

MIAMI HERALD COLUMNIST FRED GRIMM ON PERVASIVENESS OF CORRUPTION IN FLORIDA

In My Opinion

Fred Grimm: Florida’s corruption knows no ethnicity
Fred Grimm The Miami Herald
By Fred Grimm
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com

After Miami Herald stories exposing corruption in Miami-Dade County, a familiar disparagement has become inevitable in the e-mail reaction and readers’ comments. “Nothing but a damn banana republic,” they complain, implying an ethnic superiority, as if local government was a pristine enterprise before an influx of Cuban exiles ruined South Florida’s fine Anglo ethic.

Smiling Jimmy Sullivan, the sheriff of Dade County excoriated by the 1950 Kefauver Commission for his lucrative ties to mobsters, would have been amused.

The tired, familiar references showed up in my e-mail in-box after last week’s column about election-rigging allegations against the campaign organizations of both U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia and his predecessor David Rivera. Not that jobbing the vote should be a forgivable transgression, but compared to the days when Smiling Jimmy was banking $75,000 a year off his $12,000 salary, this was tepid stuff. In the 1930s and ’40s and ’50s, Miami-Dade College history professor Paul George reminds us, the Dade County Courthouse was widely known as the “steal” courthouse.

Sen. Estes Kefauver’s commission, during those explosive hearings into organized crime, discovered that legions of our local government officials were hired toadies for the likes of mobsters like Joe Adonis, Frank Erickson, Vincent Jimmy “Blue Eyes” Alo, “Trigger Mike” Coppola, Sammy “Game Boy” Miller and Willie “Lefty” Bischoff, not to mention the casino kingpin brothers, Meyer and Jake Lansky. Al Capone, who owned a palace on Star Island and a throng of Miami politicians, had died, else he would have headed the list.

Not that the Kefauver findings were big news in Miami. A 1949 Dade County Grand Jury panel complained, “We could not see any purpose in repeating the work of our predecessor juries to discover officially and at great length that crime and corruption do exist here. Conditions have apparently not changed since the writing of the 1944 grand jury report. There is present in our community a large number of individuals of unsavory reputation. These persons are criminals of national stature. All forms of gambling are flourishing and there appeared to be little effort to curb them, although they were being carried on right under the eyes of the police.”

“I guess we were a mango republic before we were a banana republic,” said Paul George, who, as official historian of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, ought to know. Off the top of his head, he rattled off a long list of elected officials in Miami and Dade County nabbed for kickbacks and bribery and other malfeasances, long before the great Latin influx.

North of Dade, Sheriff Walter Clark took it even further. The Kefauver Commission noted that Broward’s most powerful elected official not only permitted 52 illegal mob-run casinos to operate in plain sight, he and his brother raked in a million bucks a year supplying these joints their slot machines. The sheriff called his little sideline the Broward Novelty Company.

“This is the reason I got out of Dade [Miami-Dade],” a reader e-mailed me last week, after the column about the unseemly allocations in Congressional District 26. He was e-mailing from that same Broward County, which he seemed to regard as a refuge from this insidious wave of Latin corruption. He must have forgotten the corruption convictions over the last six years of a Broward sheriff, a Broward state senator, two Broward County commissioners, one Broward school board member, the former mayor of Parkland and city commissioners from Hollywood, Miramar, Fort Lauderdale and Deerfield Beach.

In the next Anglo refuge north of Miami’s corruption sump, four Palm Beach County commissioners and two West Palm Beach city commissioners and the former chairman of the South Florida Water Management District have gone down for various kickback and bribery schemes.

My own skepticism about the immigrant dimension to political corruption probably goes back to my own roots, in West Virginia, a state, 94 percent non-Hispanic, that in 1990 sent a three-term governor to prison to join two successive presidents of the State Senate, the former Senate majority leader and a member of the House of Delegates.

Two years before that, the Herald dispatched me to southern West Virginia, to Mingo County, 96.39 percent white, and the spectacularly corrupt town of Kermit, 99.5 percent white, and not a single person listed on the census as foreign born. Sixty city and county officials had just been busted. The police chief was nabbed for selling drugs. The fire chief for arson. The school board president was busted for bribing jurors. The head of the antipoverty agency was stealing program money. Federal investigators photographed a handwritten sign taped to a walk-up window by the Kermit police station: “Out of drugs. Back in 30 minutes.”

Federal investigators said Kermit’s convenient “drive-in, carry-out” became so busy peddling pot, cocaine, LSD, PCP — some of it filched from the Mingo County sheriff’s evidence locker — that the town cops had trouble finding a parking place.

The pervasiveness of official corruption in Mingo eclipsed anything we’ve seen lately in South Florida with three county commissioners and a city commissioner arrested, along with the sheriff, the police chief, a police captain, the county surveyor, the county public service commissioner, the county director of senior affairs, the county clerk. Even the cook at the county jail was convicted of bribing a public official.

The year before that, I was in East St. Louis, Ill., writing about an election in which three candidates running for mayor had done hard time for extortion, fraud, forgery, mail fraud and perjury, and one of the candidates was accused of attempting to arrange the murder-for-hire of a rival mayoral candidate.

At the time, East St. Louis was regarded as the most corrupt, dysfunctional city in America. Yet, no one employed the term “banana republic.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/08/v-fullstory/3440842/fred-grimm-floridas-corruption.html#storylink=cpy

Progress!

This morning's Record brings cheerful news of two positive trends.


First, El Galeon, the 650 ton Spanish replica of Pedro Menendez' galleon, may stay in St. Augustine as its home port through the 450th anniversary of St. Augustine in 2015. Good news for those who love our history, and want to preserve amd protect it forever, making St. Augustine a shining beacon for showing off 11,000 years of history, including a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. www.staugustgreen.com

Saturday night, I spoke to Tourist Development Council Executive Director Glenn Hastings, this year's chair of of Visit Florida, as he was photographing the 1586 Francis Drake Raid re-enactment in the Plaza de la Constitucion. We taked about El Galeon, and I said I wished there would always be a Spanish ship in our St. Augustine Harbor. He smiled knowingly -- turns out he and the City staff were already working on it! Good work.

Second, the "developer" who got our Florida legislature to carve a sleazy, last-minute exception for one 607 acre parcel in northwest St. Johns County -- and saw the legislature revoke the loophole unanimously repealed last month -- has dropped the oyster and left the wharf. The lawsuit is dropped. The project is defeated, dead as a doornail.

Good news for local environmental activists, who once again scored a major victory in halting sprawl and ugliness by tree-killing, wetland-filling "developers" and their foreign-funded monstrosity "developments."

This time, every single Florida legislator, in both houses, was on the side of St. Johns County and its residents. We were all duped in 2012 by Tallahassee trickery and legerdemain (which dupery included support for the loophole by the League of Cities and Association of Counties, who should be carefully scrutinized).

Our County Commission and County Attorney were prepared to file a lawsuit challenging the 2012 loophole as unconstitutional -- they issued a press release upon the developer dropping its lawsuit.

This is a new day, in a town and county that is in the process of throwing off the shackles of corruption and protecting our environmental and historic heritage.

Where once there were only a few "lone voices in the wilderness" -- Diane Mills, David Thundershield Queen, Louise Thrower, Robin Nadeau, Gina Burrell, Ellen Whittmer, Don Beattie, later joined by Nancy Sikes-Kline (now Vice Mayor, who valiantly helped to save the Bridge of Lions), et al. -- today, environmental and historic preservationists enjoy majority support, both here in St. Augustine and St. Johns County. We are being heard and heeded from City Hall to the County Administration Taj Mahal Palace to Tallahassee. It's a beautiful day. Enjoy!

Yes we can!

St. Augustine Record letter: 450th Commission meetings must be open

Letter: Meetings must be open

Posted: June 6, 2013 - 12:08am
By ED SLAVIN
St. Augustine
Letter: Meetings must be open
St. Augustine Record


Copyright 2013 St. Augustine Record. 

Editor: On March 30, 2009, Congress and the president enacted a St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission. On April 14, 2011, Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar appointed the Commissioners: former Senator/Governor Robert Graham; former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young; Cathedral Parish pastor Fr. Thomas Willis; St. Augustine Mayor Joseph Boles; billionaire-philanthropist Jay Kislak, Miami-Dade College President Eduardo Padron; historic preservationist Katherine H. Dickenson; Miami State’s Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle; former Florida Secretary of State Bruce Smathers; former National Park Service Director Robert Stanton; Castillo de San Marco Monument Superintendent Gordon Wilson; and Professors Michael Gannon and Michael Francis. This is a diverse and well-qualified Commission – exactly what StAugustgreen requested the Secretary to do (by July 15, 2009 letter, objecting to the then city manager’s demand for “affluent” members).

Hundreds attended the federal 450th Commission’s one public meeting in St. Augustine on July 18, 2011. There was applause when I called for creation of a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore to preserve and protect what we love, including current state parks, forests and water management district lands. Last month, St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau’s consultant, MMGY Global Vice Chairman Peter Yesawich, said that a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore would have a positive impact on our economy. The 450th Commission must hold open meetings to discuss the National Historical Park and National Seashore concept.

But sadly, Congress has still not authorized funds for the 450th Commission, which conducts secret meetings/calls in probable violation of the sunshine requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. A maladroit federal attorney once opined the Commission was “exempt” from sunshine as an “operational committee.” It’s not “operating” anything. Meetings must be open. The people must be heard. It’s our town, our time and our money. Congress must act.

ED, RECKONING


Federal 450th Commission Must Hold Open Public Meetings

By Ed Slavin



Our community had high hopes for the federal 450th Commission. Where is it? What happened?

On March 30, 2009, Congress and the President created St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission. On April 14, 2011, Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar appointed thirteen Commissioners: former Senator/Governor Robert Graham; former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young; Cathedral Parish pastor Fr. Thomas Willis; St. Augustine Mayor Joseph Boles; billionaire-philanthropist Jay Kislak, Miami-Dade College President Eduardo Padron; historic preservationist Katherine H. Dickenson; Miami State's Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle; former Florida Secretary of State Bruce Smathers; former National Park Service Director Robert Stanton; Castillo de San Marco Monument Superintendent Gordon Willis; and Professors Michael Gannon and Michael Francis.

This is a diverse and well-qualified group – “fairly balanced” in the terms of the Federal Advisory Committee Act – which is exactly what StAugustgreen requested the Secretary to do (by July 15, 2009 letter, objecting to then-City Manager William B Harris' demand that the Secretary of the Interior appoint only “affluent and influential” members of the federal 450th Commission).

This diverse and well-qualified group is now moribund, thanks to Tea Party control of the House of Representatives and refusal to authorize a mere $500,000 for the federal 450th Commission to have meetings and a small staff.

Hundreds of us took the day off, and attended the federal 450th Commission's one public meeting in St. Augustine, on July 18, 2011. There was applause when I called for creation of a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, to preserve and protect what we love, including current state parks, forests and water management district lands.

The more people learn about the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, the more they agree with Sheriff David Shoar, who told me after a Democratic Club meeting that it was a “no-brainer,” and would be the best way to protect our environment, rivaling Cape Code National Seashore in his native Massachusetts. The St. Augustine National Historical Park and Seashore would preserve and protect wildlife habitat for endangered and threatened species, including right whales (350 left in the North Atlantic and they give birth here every year); turtles; bald eagles; beach mice and butterflies. It would prevent golf courses and other hair-brained “development” schemes in existing state parks and water management district lands, while saving tens of millions of dollars in operation and maintenance from state and local government budgets.

Last month, at a packed meeting of local tourism-related businesses at World Golf Village on May 14th, St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau's longtime consultant, MMGY Global Vice Chairman Peter Yesawich, said that a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore would have a “positive: impact on our economy. Yes we can! The 450th Commission must hold open meetings to discuss the National Historical Park and National Seashore concept. www.staugustgreen.com

But sadly, Congress has still not authorized funds for the 450th Commission, which conducts secret meetings and conference calls, in probable violation of the Sunshine requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. A maladroit federal attorney once opined the Commission was “exempt” from Sunshine as an “operational committee.” It's not “operating” anything. Meetings must be open.

This is non-negotiable. If DOI does not open up 450th meetings and records to public scrutiny, it can be successfully sued under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. In 1993, I invoked FACA to force the Department of Energy to abolish its system of secretive advisory committees on nuclear cleanups, resulting in the creation of the Site Specific Advisory Committee at DOE sites. We didn't even have to sue – it was one 32-page letter to Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary – that and the truth. Likewise, I raised concerns with the Department of the Interior's own industry-dominated San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program, resulting in greater attention to Interior scientists' concerns, and Sacramento Bee investigative articles.

There are some 1000 federal advisory committees, but none matters more to any of us here in St. Augustine, Florida. As required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, DOI must obey the law. Our St. Auguustine federal 450th Commission must “let the Sunshine in.” If not, the General Services Administration and Federal Courts can help focus DOI attorneys' attention on compliance, not defiance.

The people must be heard. It's our town, our time and our money..Congress must act.

What do you reckon?  
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998

Whatever happened to the federal St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission?

(From 1565Today, http://news.1565today.net/federal-450th-commission-must-hold-open-public-meetings/


ED, RECKONING
Federal 450th Commission Must Hold Open Public Meetings

By Ed Slavin

Our community had high hopes for the federal 450th Commission. Where is it? What happened?
On March 30, 2009, Congress and the President created St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission. On April 14, 2011, Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar appointed thirteen Commissioners: former Senator/Governor Robert Graham; former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young; Cathedral Parish pastor Fr. Thomas Willis; St. Augustine Mayor Joseph Boles; billionaire-philanthropist Jay Kislak, Miami-Dade College President Eduardo Padron; historic preservationist Katherine H. Dickenson; Miami State's Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle; former Florida Secretary of State Bruce Smathers; former National Park Service Director Robert Stanton; Castillo de San Marco Monument Superintendent Gordon Wilson; and Professors Michael Gannon and Michael Francis.
This is a diverse and well-qualified group – “fairly balanced” in the terms of the Federal Advisory Committee Act – which is exactly what StAugustgreen requested the Secretary to do (by July 15, 2009 letter, objecting to then-City Manager William B Harris' demand that the Secretary of the Interior appoint only “affluent and influential” members of the federal 450th Commission).
This diverse and well-qualified group is now moribund, thanks to Tea Party control of the House of Representatives and refusal to authorize a mere $500,000 for the federal 450th Commission to have meetings and a small staff.
Hundreds of us took the day off, and attended the federal 450th Commission's one public meeting in St. Augustine, on July 18, 2011. There was applause when I called for creation of a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, to preserve and protect what we love, including current state parks, forests and water management district lands.
The more people learn about the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, the more they agree with Sheriff David Shoar, who told me after a Democratic Club meeting that it was a “no-brainer,” and would be the best way to protect our environment, rivaling Cape Code National Seashore in his native Massachusetts. The St. Augustine National Historical Park and Seashore would preserve and protect wildlife habitat for endangered and threatened species, including right whales (350 left in the North Atlantic and they give birth here every year); turtles; bald eagles; beach mice and butterflies. It would prevent golf courses and other hair-brained “development” schemes in existing state parks and water management district lands, while saving tens of millions of dollars in operation and maintenance from state and local government budgets.
Last month, at a packed meeting of local tourism-related businesses at World Golf Village on May 14th, St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau's longtime consultant, MMGY Global Vice Chairman Peter Yesawich, said that a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore would have a “positive: impact on our economy. Yes we can! The 450th Commission must hold open meetings to discuss the National Historical Park and National Seashore concept. www.staugustgreen.com
But sadly, Congress has still not authorized funds for the 450th Commission, which conducts secret meetings and conference calls, in probable violation of the Sunshine requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. A maladroit federal attorney once opined the Commission was “exempt” from Sunshine as an “operational committee.” It's not “operating” anything. Meetings must be open.
This is non-negotiable. If DOI does not open up 450th meetings and records to public scrutiny, it can be successfully sued under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. In 1993, I invoked FACA to force the Department of Energy to abolish its system of secretive advisory committees on nuclear cleanups, resulting in the creation of the Site Specific Advisory Committee at DOE sites. We didn't even have to sue – it was one 32-page letter to Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary – that and the truth. Likewise, I raised concerns with the Department of the Interior's own industry-dominated San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program, resulting in greater attention to Interior scientists' concerns, and Sacramento Bee investigative articles.
There are some 1000 federal advisory committees, but none matters more to any of us here in St. Augustine, Florida. As required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, DOI must give and follow proper legal advice and open its meetings and records. Our federal 450th Commission must “let the Sunshine in.” If not, the General Services Administration and Federal Courts can help focus DOI attorneys' attention on compliance, not defiance.
The people must be heard. It's our town, our time and our money.  Congress must act.
What do you reckon?  

Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998

Whetstones' Spite Fence

Davis Shores and Anastasia island residents are right to protest VIRGINIA WHETSTONE-MAGUIRE's hideous fence, erected ON our restored 1927-style Bridge of Lions, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 
The solid wooden fence detracts from the view of our waterfront from the bridge -- wrought iron would have worked, as at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind.
The ugly wood fence at the southeast end of the Bridge of Lions is nothing more than a "spite fence," retaliation by disgruntled frequent litigants, now suing the City, claiming the right to build another dock downtown.  
Our City has rightfully spent more than $100,000 in legal fees defending against this bogus case: the WHETSTONE-MAGUIRE family is angry at the City for resisting her indecent demands.  Again, the ugly wooden fence is nothing more than a "spite fence,' a stench in the nostrils of our Nation's Oldest City.
Uglier still are the hateful words directed by WHETSTONE-MAGUIRE's hey-boy against Davis Shores residents, which are being emitted by the Whetstone's hey-boy on a local hate site (Historic City News)  MICHAEL GOLD is not only a local Republican fundraiser, he is a propaganda purveyor, political operative, private investigator and former $700,000 no-bid uniform seller to the City and Sheriff's offices, among other government agenices, who once listed his business address as the Whetstone's office (and previously a Whetstone storage unit). 
Onee again, citizen-activists are being libeled and ridiculed by MICHAEL GOLD f/k/a "MICHAEL TOBIN," the man who raised $250,000 for Sheriff David Shoar to win in 2004 (with no opponents since that time).  "Be not afraid."
Thankfully, St. Augustine City Manager John Patrick Regan wrote Ms. Whetstone and asked for a meeting. 
Stay tuned.

Record Refuses to Print Truth About Visitor and Convention Bureau -- Who is Edward Albanesi and Why Does He Presume to Censor Record Readers Views?

The St. Augustine Record refuses to print a letter about antitrust and civil rights concerns arising out of our $4.6 million year tax-funded Visitor and Convention Bureau (similar to the blog post below), on the ground that it is too "antgonistic." 
This is the same viewspaper prints mainly right-wing columnists, including obscene Ann Coulter.  Ann Coulter is as opportunistic and antagonistic a bigot as ever lived. Ann Coulter was fired by conservative intelletual leader William F. Buckley, Jr. and his National Review for anti-Muslim bigotry after 9/11, when she called on us to kill and Christianize Muslims.  Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot." Ann Coulter makes a living by writing smarmy columns and books about who she hates -- Democrats, liberals, unions, activists, Jews, Muslims and Mexicans.  Ann Coulter is laughing all the way to the bank with money from syndication, part of which, dear Record readers, we pay every month.
The Record cannot excuse what VCB has done -- and not done.
It censors the news.  Watch a government meeting and then read what the Record leaves out -- it boggles the mind.
Now it censors its readers' views. 
The Record recently hired one Edward Albanesi as Opinion Editor.
Edward Albanesi is a longtime Public Relations man, who teaches PR to college students.
Edward Albanesi had two (2) letters printed in the Record.  One Edward Albanesi letter supported Karen Stern (after her electoral defeat when she was about to be appointed to a board by Governor Charles Crist).  The other Edward Albanesi letter opposed Amendment 4 (Hometown Democracy).  Both letters may be construed by some as "antagonistic."
Edward Albanesi formerly edited FloridAgriculture, the Florida Farm Bureau's house organ.
Edward Albanesi evidently supposes that he is Cato the Censor, rather than Opinion Editor. 
Edward Albanesi evidently thinks readers' views must agree with the hamhanded and subjective value preferences of a PR man (himself, Edward Albanesi)
Edward Albanesi evidently has the misimpression that readers' views must agree with him, or they will not be printed.
I have had 55 letters and columns in the St. Augustine Record since 2000. 
The Record has long been a forum for free voices -- at least on the editorial pages. 
Is that changing now because the Record hired an agribusiness PR man as its Opinion Editor?
I hereby issue a challenge to Edward Albanesi to debate the Record's Opinion page priorities -- what is the purpose of an editorial page, if not to print readers' views?

OPEN RECORDS, SUNSHINE, ANTIRUST AND CIVIL RIGHTS CONCERNS ABOUT ST. JOHNS COUNTY VISITOR AND CONVENTION BUREAU -- It's our money ($4.6 million/year)

First the good news – Peter Yesawich, Vice Chairman of MMGY Global consulting, says the St. Augustine National Hisorical Park and National Seashore will undoubtedly have a positive effect on local economy. See below. Yes, we can! www.staugustgreen.com
Now the bad news – St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach are missing opportunities to influence new guests to visit our town. The maladroit Visitor and Convention Bureau receives $4.6 in county funds to promote tourism, but rudely refuses to share documents – not even its Antitrust and Civil Rights compliance policies (if any).
VCB is not advertising the 500th anniversary of Spanish Florida in Miami. VCB is also not focused on African-Americans, young people, or GLBT people, or on our Civil Rights history, our Spanish, Catholic, African-American, Jewish, Minorcan, Greek, Civil War and nautical history.
VCB's consultant (MMGY) is not showing our City's diverse face to the world. VCB's 2013 brouchure has 199 images of white people, eleven African-Americans (mostly happy slaves), zero Native American Indians, four “Hispanics” (one is actor Chad Light as Ponce de Leon). This may violate our Fair Housing laws.
VCB's consultant charged us some $300,000 for a Destination Master Plan whose first draft wanted a water slide for St. Johns County, while eschewing African-American and Civil Rights tourism.
They wrongfully write off half the American people, only polling the top 50% of income earners among travelers, eshewing working class families. That is neither the way of Saint Augustine. nor his two cities.
VCB misconceives of hospitality as if it were an “industry” with a “product,” which they don't appreciate. They don't share our values.
In fact, VCB's consultant May 14th advised 100 local tourism experts to raise prices (an invitation to criminal antitrust violations, with no Antitrust Compliance policy such as that of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association (FRLA), which issues stern warnings against price-fixing and other nnti-competitive practices at every meeting -- see below).
VCB's three-year county contract expires September 30th.
There must be open, competitive bidding, and investigations.
It's our money – $4.6 million/year.

Priorities

Poetic summary of the St. Augustine Record this week:
How many column inches this week over a misdemeanor bar fracas?   
Dozens.
How many front page articles this week over a misdemeanor bar fracas?
Three.
How many column inches devoted to press releases? 
Lots.
How many column inches investigating anything that matters (e.g., Big Business and Big Government)? 
Nada.  Zilch.
Having a newspaper that won't cover the news? 
Priceless, if you're a developer or corrupt official.
Perilous, if you're a citizen in these trying times.
It's time to put the "news" back in newspapers.
What do you reckon?

"Fifth Amendment Rick" Scott's Drug-testing Executive Order 11-58 Held To Violate Fourth Amendment

It's our money. Florida Governor Richard Scott fought all the way to the U.S. Court of Appeals in a losing effort to defend his Executive Order 11-58, which both trial and appellate courts have now found violates our Fourth Amendment. Scott's order would have inflicted routine, suspicionless drug tests on every single Florida state government employee under his power (77% of the total, or 85,000 people), whether or not they perform safety or law enforcement functions.


"Fifth Amendment Rick," Governor Scott, stated in inept defense of his Fourth Amendment violation, "Many Floridians are required to take drug tests in their workplace and it is only right for state workers paid with taxpayer funds to be required to do the same." "Fifth Amendment Rick" Scott reckons that because some nosy-parker private sector employers (like Morris Communications and the St. Augustine Record) insist on drug tests for all employees, that he should too. That's specious illogic, pandering to anti-libertarians.

If a state government employee's function is safety-related or in law enforcement, the government can already legally ask him or her to take a drug test. So what's the fuss about? Demagoguery and control.

Why waste money on such invasive, intrusive, overbearing, foolishness? Perhaps because drug tests can be abused to indicate false positives for ethical employee whistleblowers -- in one federal case, a drug testing company was convicted of arranging for such false positives, on demand, for employees of Superfund hazardous waste disposal sites.

Governor Scott told the U.S. Court of Appeals that "state employees have a diminished privacy interest," so Scott somehow supposes he has suzerainty to make them pee in a cup. How demeaning and demoralizing. What errant nonsense.

If Scott appeals to the Supreme Court, let it be on his own dime, not ours – he spent $78 million of his own money to get elected, buying the office with crazy bigoted TV ads, including one about a mosque in Manhattan.

Our State of Florida has been the source of a good many Supreme Court decisions, including Chambers v. Florida (1940), where four African-Americans were wrongfully convicted of murder, Justice Hugo Lafayette Black (former Alabama Senator and onetime Ku Klux Klan member) wrote for the Supreme Court: “We are not impressed by the argument that law enforcement methods such as those under review are necessary to uphold our laws....The Constitution proscribes such lawless means irrespective of the end. And this argument flouts the basic principle that all people must stand on an equality before the bar of justice in every American court. Today, as in ages past, we are not without tragic proof that the exalted power of some governments to punish manufactured crime dictatorially is the handmaid of tyranny. Under our constitutional system, courts stand against any winds that blow as havens of refuge for those who might otherwise suffer because they are helpless, weak, outnumbered, or because they are nonconforming victims of prejudice and public excitement."

Under our Fourth Amendment, requiring drug tests for all state employees is unconstitutional. Don't take my word for it, read the 61-page May 30, 2013 Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision in AFSCME v. Scott.

South Carolina Democratic Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings was once pestered by a Republican challenger who demanded Hollings take a drug test. "I'll take a drug test when he takes an IQ test," Senator Hollings said. The challenger never took an IQ test. I was reminded of that bon mot upon reading the Eleventh Circuit decision. Shall we ask Governor Scott to take an IQ test? He definitely flunks the laugh test.

What do you reckon?

Finally, Record Reports Willie Galimore Story Six Days Later!

Breaking a world record for torpor, the Record finally reported today the Jacksonville Jaguars' generous gift of free admission to the Willie Galimore pool -- six days after the pool opened and the decision was announced and after the Memorial Day weekend.   See post immediately below, and the UPDATE appended to it.
The tatterdemalion Record suffers from bad morale, slashed news room budgets, and reduced newspaper space for news (called "the news hole" in the journalism business).
The Record's page one, six column banner headline yesterday -- on a Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team player's alleged bar kerfuffle Sunday -- stands in stark and marked contrast to the tiny one column   headline on today's page one story about last Friday's re-opening of Lincolnville's Willie Galimore pool.
Let's see.
So far, the score is:
May 26  Jaguar Misdemeanor Charge in Alleged Bar Kerfuffle      6 column inch headline
May 24  Jaguar's Galimore Free Admission Pool Promise               1 column inch headline, six days later
What priorities these alleged news reporters have at the St. Augustine WRecKord.
Thus, the box score is  Jaguar Kerfuffle 6, Jaguars Caring 1. 
The Record would rather report wrecks and kerfuffles than actual news of improvements in our city, including a string of victories for Equality and Environmental Justice. 
The Record is notable for its dearth of coverage of the GLBT nondiscrimination provisions passed by the cities of St. Augustine (2012) and St. Augusine Beach (2013), Anastasia Mosquito Contrel (2009), and by St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar.
The Record's new publisher should hold "Lessons Learned" meetings about the Record's insensitivity.
The Record should then repent of its insensitivity and atone, e.g., by allowing reporters to report the news without fear or favor, and by finally reporting what it failed to report during 1963-64 concerning Jim Crow segregation and Civil Rights demonstrations -- please see May 29th blog post, below:

St. Augustine Record Disappoints Readers Again -- This morning's St. Augustine Record reverberates with racism -- recovering from the ghosts of 1963-64

The May 29th St. Augustine Record front page reverberates with racism -- not the first time, but hopefully for the last. A front page banner scare headline about a minor bar brouhaha at Conch House, bearing the news that a Jacksonville Jaguars player has been charged with a misdemeanor assault on a security guard.  Two photos show the player -- presumed innocent under our judicial system -- is an African-American. The coverage is excessive and disproportionate.  How tacky.

Meanwhile, last Friday, May 24th, the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team gave our City a great gift -- free admission to the Willie Galimore pool, in perpetuity, at a cost of some $15,000/year.  The deal was negotated by City Manager John Regan with the Jaguar's CEO.  This and the pool reopening are a victory for civil rights in our city. 
Was this news? Yes.  Did the St. Augustine Record report it? No.  No reporter attended.  How ungrateful. How unperceptive.
With no quotes and no reporter, the Record's front page had three photos of the same three white men (mayor, city manager and YMCA chair) cannon-balling into to the pool at the opening ceremony. Great pix, great guys, great day, but the shallow Record entirely missed the point of the pool dedication.
Incredibly, to date, the Record has not reported the news of the Jaguars generous gift, of free admission to our pool.
Incredibly, the Record did not bother reporting the fact that this is one of only four (4) municipal pools opened or rebuilt in Florida this year (after the City Manager negotiated with the County over its material breach of contract, netting $400,000 to rebuild and reopen the pool).
Not only did the St. Augustine Record not cover the Jaguars gift, it hasn't bothered thanking the Jaguars for it, either.  Nor did the Record describe the nature of the Environmental Justice battles in our City, 2005-date, which  led to the reopening of the Willie Galimore pool.
The St. Augustine Record has a lot for which to be thankful – its readers are very patient with its foibles.  Locals call the St. Augustine Record he “mullet wrapper” and have done so for decades.
The St. Augustine Record has a lot to atone for after 118 years. In particular, during the 1960s, the Record published addresses of KKK rallies in advance, inviting attendance.  It also published the names and addresses of African-American children attending previously all-white schools, leading to employer firings of their parents and at least one house being burned down.
The St. Augustine Record's publisher in 1964 was a racist. Today, the Record Publisher's are just downright insensitive, for the most part – they ignore the poor. The Record comforts the comfortable and afflicts the oppressed, as when it was part of the Chamber of Commerce juggernaut aimed at ridding St. George Street of artists and entertainers. 
Ever since Morriss Communications bought the Record, successive Record publishers have been promiscuously joining every non-profit board in sight, a walking conflict of interest/
Ron Davidson and another Record executive were members on the board of the secretive, illegal "First America Foundation" embarrassed us all – kicking off the planning of our City's 450th anniversary with a secretive group that did not do what it promised to do, while doing it illegally in secrecy, violating Florida's Sunshine and Open Records laws with $300,000 of City money (we got 2/3 of it back). 
Ron Davidson recently refused to print letters concerning the St. Augustine National Historical Park, historic preservation and restoration of buskers to St. George Street.  His errant editorials were the stuff of legend, with professional editors unable to restrain his Babbitt-like boosterism and unwillingness to stand up against arbitrary power and oppression and in favor of our human rights and our environment.
We hope that the Record's new Publisher, Delinda Fogel (formally commencing June 3, 2013), will not create conflicts of interest by joining every non-profit Board in sight, out of reflexive boosterism, not common sense.
How can the Record cover institutions on whose boards its publisher sits?
That's a conflict of interest if ever there was one.  Every Record Publisher has sat on oodles of Boards.
If Flagler Hospital commits medical malpractice or the First America Foundation creates Sunshine and Open Records violations, is it really proper for Morris Communications executives to be on their Board?   First America Foundation had two (2) Morris Communications execs from the Record on their board -- First America was dissolved and has ceased to exist because its creation and continued existence violated Sunshine and Open Records laws. 
Why would a real newspaper -- as opposed to a faux Fox-style newspaper -- allow itself to be co-opted so easily by those whom it should be reporting on?   This is an easy ethics question: join boards, create conflicts of interest, you are now in the tank. Why would any real journalist ever want to be in the tank with such bad actors as the Chamber of Commerce, Flagler Hospital and the defunct First America Foundation? It is unseemly. Never again.
We hope that Ms. Delinda Fogel will change the Record from being sexist, racist and anti-Gay to being more tolerant, as exhibited by yesterday's editorial about victmless crimes. 
We hope that Ms. Delinda Fogel will run the Record more like a newspaper and less like a morbid death watch (waiting for car and boat wrecks and bar fights and disdaining the Founder's faith in newspapers as watchdogs).  
Much of what American journalists report these days consists of what they call in Spanish  "successos menudos" -- trifling events -- whether wrecks or PR-driven fluff (like the Record's reflexively taking up for every single Sheriff and County Commissioners, great and small, honest and corrupt, without investigation, or kvelling over the retirement of City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS, our disdainful former City Manager, which included deletion of all critical comment from the Record's website).

We hope the Record will soon follow in the footsteps of the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader  and editor Marilyn Thompson: they blew the whistle on their forebear editors' racism and censorship in failing to cover the news, reporting what was never reported.  In observation of the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Record owes us an apology, and publication of the news and photos from its archives that it withheld in 1963-64.

We wish the new St. Augustine Record Publisher well.  We challenge Publisher Delinda Fogel to start covering the news, instead of covering it up, from this day forward.
What do you reckon?

UPDATE: Six (6) days after the May 24, 2013 Willie Galimore ribbon-cutting, the St. Augustine Record ran a story May 30th about the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team's gift.  The Record is often days late with news, sometimes reporting on a Saturday what happened in a government meeting five days before.
The belated May 30, 2013 page one, one column headline story was credited to "From Staff," usually the way the Record sugar-coats a press release, or something written by Record Editor Peter Ellis.  In this case, there seems to be some actual reporting, but no mention of the racially insensitive closing of the pool by St. Johns County Administrator Michael Wanchick, who called then City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS during his Final Days, asking him if it was okay -- HARRISS never reported it to City Commissioners or obtained their approval -- he gave County Administrator Wanchick the go-ahead unadorned by any approval or community support.  The Record did not report that, having long ago decided that it would ignore racism in our town. 
The Record in October 2007 editorially endorsed bringing contaminated solid waste back to Lincolnville and calling it a "park." Our community organized and stopped HARRISS' vile plan, which was actually endorsed by the Record (which also reported that the public would be allowed to speak, which did not happen, with the Record's silence in the face of then-City Manager HARRISS' insisting it was a "misunderstanding" making the Record a willing accomplice to HARRISS' flummery, dupery and nincompoopery).

Preserving and Protecting St. Augustine, Florida

It's up to us to preserve and protect what we love here in St. Augustine.

Let's finally honor this special place with a “St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore,” first proposed in 1939 (making for better, clearer, more succinct “branding” than sesquipedalianisms like “Guana-Tolomato-Matanazas-National-Estuarine-Research-Reserve,” “Anastasia State Park,” etc.)

Visitors love National Parks (“America's Best Idea”). St. Augustine deserves more NPS stewardship, for our 11,000 years of history and incomparable endangered vistas/nature. www.staugustgreen.com

Let's not wait for Congress – let us act now to preserve and protect St. Augustine's Historic Preservation (HP) Districts. Let's ban HP-unsuitable activities. Here are 20 activities to consider banning permanently from HP Districts:

“Adult” bookstores.

Antitrust violtions, price-fixing and fraud conspiracies.

Automobile, motorcycle and motor vehicle sales, rentals, repair, service and junkyards.

Balloon and helicopter/aircraft landings/takeoffs.

Casinos/gambling.

Chain-restaurants and chain-stores.

Chemical plants/refineries/storage-depots.

Classrooms.

Crematoria/funeral homes.

Dormitories.

Fortune-tellers.

Fuel-burning powerplants.

Manufacturing plants/warehouses.

Pawnshops.

Routine daytime eighteen-wheeler truck deliveries.

Sewage treatment-plants.

Slaughterhouses.

Tattoo-parlors.

Toxic/nuclear materials/wastes/weapons.

Zoos.

Our Ancient City;s patron Saint, Saint Augustine wrote, “an unjust law is no law at all.” St. Augustine City Commissioners: please repeal/amend dysfunctional “unjust laws” that purport to criminalize singing, painting, acting, music or dancing. Several successive anti-artist, Nuremberg-style laws were ruled unconstitutional -- a blot on the escutcheon of Our Nation's Oldest European-founded City.

Barbaric, Obsolete, Negative, Anti-Busker Ordinances (BONABO) wasted millions of dollars oppressing artists. A few commercial landlords (campaign contributors) demanded police enforce their prejudices, rolling out the “Unwelcome Wagon” with hundreds of artist, musician and entertainer arrests, in our name. These “Jim Crow” style arrests hurt talented tourism workers and our image – self-inflicted wounds, bringing shame upon our City, making St. George Street much less intriguing. Enough.

Everyone misses buskers – let's welcome them, with rational, fair regulations developed with mutual respect and understanding. Diversity, healing ancient wounds and respecting human rights are vital 450th legacies.

Finally, St. Augustine Police Chief Loren Lueders and former SAPD Chief (and current County Sheriff) David B. Shoar were both right to reject red-light cameras several years ago, as "tourist-unfriendly."  We don't need to privatize law enforcement to oligopolists. damaging our reputation (potential $500 fines for running a red light, while taking appeals away from judges).

Please “nip it in the bud,” St. Augustine Beach Commissioners.

To be continued....

Our City is Making Progress, But Our County Requires Stricter Scrutiny

See below.

The St. Augustine Record hasn't reported the details of the Civil Rights victory at the Willie Galimore Center Pool.  

Thanks to our Mayor, City Commissioners and City Manager John Regan, the Willie Galimore Pool has reopened, and thanks to the Jacksonville Jaguars, pool admission will be free forever.   Thank you! 

In a stunning display of Environmental Racism, St. Johns County had neglected the Galimore Pool, but good lawyering to us $400,000 as remedy for the County's breach of contract (exacerbated by former City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS a/k/a "WILL HARASS" telling County Administrator Michael Wanchick it was okay (without asking Commissioners).

The pool, like nearly-complete Riberia Street, is proof that Civil Rights and Environmental Activism works.  It's our town and our time, and we're creating a new city before our eyes -- one where tolerance, historic and environmental protection and diversity rule (and not the KKK).  Thanks to all the activists who made this possible.  See below.

Meanwhile, our County contracts with a secretive $4.6 million/year organization, the Visitors and Convemtion Bureau, that refuses to provide documents on its Antitrust and Civil Rights Compliance Policeis, if any. Dr. Peter Yesawich, Ph.D., told VCB members at World Golf Village May 14, 2013 they should raise prices. Never again should there be any discussion of pricing at VCB meetings. It is illegal. It is unseemly and it's our money.  VCB must start advertising St. Augustine's 450th and Florida's 500th in Miami.  VCM must reach out to African-American, Hispanic, GLBT and youth tourists. It's our future. VCB and its contractor, multinational tourism consulting and advertising agency MMGY, need to get with the program and drop the snobbery.   Pray for them.  The contract with VCB expires at 11:59 PM on September 30, 2013.  Perhaps we can create our own 501(c)(6) for St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach, and let Ponte Vedra go its separate way.  What do you reckon?

We shall overcome!


See below.

IN HAEC VERBA -- Here's the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association statement on Antitrust Compliance -- It Says No Discussions of Pricing, Ever, Formal or Informal -- Where is the St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau (VCB) Anittrust Compliance Statement? VCB Must Adopt One At Its Next Meeting, Hesto Presto, and Apologize for and Reject MMGY Vice Chairman Urging.VCB Members to Raise Their Prices

Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association (FRLA) Anti-trust statement
ANTITRUST LAWS AND THEIR APPLICATION TO FRLA MEMBER ACTIVITIES
As important contributors to your local economy and to the economy of the state, it is critical that you have the ability to come together as FRLA members and discuss common areas of interest regarding Florida’s food service and lodging, hospitality, and tourism industries (sic). At the same time, however, it must be remembered that FRLA members are also competitors. Under federal and state antitrust laws, competitors are permitted to engage in cooperative behavior, under trade association auspices or otherwise, as long as these actions do not reduce competition among themselves or help their suppliers or customers to reduce competition.
In coming together as a trade association, FRLA members must avoid taking any collective action, or giving the appearance of taking any collective action, that would eliminate, restrict, or seek to control competition. If FRLA members engage in any discussions at FRLA meetings relating to significant factors of competition, it could be inferred that such a discussion among competitors is for the purpose of agreeing upon a common course of business conduct.
With this in mind, FRLA cautions all of its members that the following topics are not proper subjects for consideration or discussion at any meeting of FRLA members, officers, directors, whether formal or informal:
(a) Raising, lowering, or fixing the prices at which they will buy or sell goods or services;
(b) Dividing geographic markets, services offered, or customers served; or
(c) Group boycotts of a particular supplier of goods or services or a class of suppliers.
From the discussion of such topics, agreements among competitors may arise or be inferred, exposing participants to severe criminal and civil penalties under state and federal antitrust laws.
FRLA members, officers, and directors must be vigilant in preventing any meeting of FRLA members from becoming a forum for the discussion of the above topics. All agendas for sanctioned FRLA meetings are prepared and reviewed in light of the foregoing, and members should be mindful not to stray from the agenda prepared for such meetings.
THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT SHOULD BE READ ALOUD AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF ANY MEETING OF FRLA MEMBERS:
FRLA members are reminded that they should not enter into discussions with each other regarding the following:
(a) Raising, lowering, or fixing the prices at which they will buy or sell goods or services;
(b) Dividing geographic markets, services offered, or customers served; or
(c) Group boycotts of a particular supplier of goods or services or a class of suppliers.
A more detailed explanation of the effect of antitrust laws on the activities of FRLA members is available for your inspection and review.

IN HAEC VERBA: County Contract With VCB Requires Open Records Compliance; County Delegated Traditional County Government Function to VCB Ex Contractu

Dear Mr. Goldman:
1. As St. Johns County Assistant County Attorney Regina D. Ross eloquently admits (below), "Articles 8 and 9 [of the SJC-VCB contract] explicitly provide that access to, and disclosure of, any records related to the services rendered to the County are subject to applicable provisions of the Public Records Act."
2. Ipse dixit.
3. Hence, VCB's Open Records evasion is a material breach of VCB's contract with SJC BCC.  See Article 21 (Default) of the SJC-VCB contract.
4. The proof is irrefragable -- St. Johns County delegated VCB what is ordinarily a county governmental function. How do we know that? Our Florida Legislature adopted certain narrow exemptions in the Open Records Act, which are described by the Florida Attorney General's Sunshine Manual:

(3) Tourism promotion records

There are several statutes which exempt certain information obtained or held by state or local tourism agencies. For example, s. 125.0104(9)(d)1., F.S., exempts information given to a county tourism promotion agency, which, if released, would reveal the identity of those who provide information in response to a sales promotion, advertisement, or research project or whose names, addresses, meeting or convention plan information or accommodations or other visitation needs become booking or reservation list data.

Section 125.0104(9)(d)2., F.S., provides an exemption for the following records when held by a county tourism promotion agency: booking business records, as defined in s. 255.047, F.S.; a trade secret as defined in s. 812.081, F.S.; trade secrets and commercial or financial information gathered from a person and privileged or confidential, as defined and interpreted under cited federal law. See also ss. 288.1224(7) and 288.1226(8), F.S. (confidentiality of certain data submitted as part of marketing or advertising research projects undertaken by state tourism agencies).

http://www.myflsunshine.com/sun.nsf/manual/5a60474cbfb8dbf4852566f30068571f

(emphases added)

5. Our Legislature would never have enacted these narrow county touirsm exemptions if it did not understand "a county tourism agency" and tourism promotion to be a traditional county function. Hence, the SJC BCC delegated to SJCVCB, Inc. a traditional county government function. It's our money. They are our records. Please cease and desist from all further evasions -- VCB's "massive resistance" is an embarassment to our County, our citizens, our tourists, our State and to VCB and MMGY.
6. Again, there is no reasonable legal basis for you to continue to withhold VCB's Antitrust and Civil Rights Compliance Policies, if any.
7. There is no reasonable basis for you to continue to withhold VCB's other documents that I have requested.
8. VCB must not waste time and money on a display of bad manners -- it is bad PR, bad for the 450th/500th, and a waste of our bed tax dollars.
9. It is illegal to "contract, combine or conspire" to violate the antitrust laws. 15 U.S.C. 1 et seq.   I have raised questions about MMGY's Vice Chairman telling VCB members to raise there prices. Your response is to resist Open Records jurisdiction. In the words of Richard Milhous Nixon, VCB is "stonewalling it."
10. There is no Open Records exemption for evidence of possible antitrust violations.
11. There is no Open Records exemption for evidence of possible civil rights violations.
12. There is no justifying the actions of VCB and MMGY in refusing to advertise in Miami, to African-Americans, to youth and to GLBT people, or in allowing MMGY to tell some 100 assembled tourism business people to raise prices. Hence, I expect your full cooperation with our investigation, from this day forward. VCB must cease and desist from all further breaches of its contract with SJC BCC.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed
Ed Slavin
Clean Up City of St. Augustine
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998

IN HAEC VERBA: Letter to St. Johns County Visitors and Convention Bureau Executive Director Richard Goldman re: SJC VCB's Violation of Open Records and Sunshine Laws

Dear Mr. Goldman:
1. Your desire to talk to me, expressed in your message, is appreciated. I can meet you today. What time would be good for you?
2. Meanwhile, my May 20, 2013 and later Open Records requests are non-negotiable: VCB must comply with Open Records, Sunshine, Antitrust, Civil Rights and Fair Housing laws, from this day forward.   Failing that, a Florida court will order compliance, and payment of reasonable attorney fees [to remedy Open Records violations].
3. Kindly remember the ill-fated, misbegotten, money-wasting former "First America Foundation" and related violations of the Sunshine and Open Records laws by the City of St. Augustine, including a proposed trip to Spain by four out of five Commissioners. Eighteen of us were represented pro bono by Holland & Knight. The violations swiftly ended. We did not even have to file a lawsuit. The First America Foundation was dissolved. The experience of our City of St. Augustine and the First America Foundation -- a government contractor just like VCB -- demonstrates the meritless nature of your "defenses" to providing Open Records. You are barking up the wrong tree, Mr. Goldman, e.g., with such non sequitur statements that you don't work in a county-owned building The technical terms for your cavils and quibbles with Open Records jurisdiction are "malarkey" and "chutzpa."
4. Kindly contemplate the following excerpt from the Florida Attorney General's Manual on our Sunshine laws:  (snip -- see next blog entry for full text of excerpt)  
5. As Robert Kennedy once wrote Senator James O. Eastland in 1967, "repent now, there's still time."
6. I expect document production to commence by 11 AM on May 30, 2013. Herein faileth not.
7. Please govern yourself accordingly.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998

IN HAEC VERBA: 2013 FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL SUNSHINE MANUAL ON DUTY OF ST. JOHNS COUNTY VISITOR AND CONVENTION BUREAU TO COMPLY WITH OPEN RECORDS LAW

Delegation test


While the mere act of contracting with a public agency is not sufficient to bring a private entity within the scope of the Public Records Act, there is a difference between a party contracting with a public agency to provide services to the agency and a contracting party which provides services in place of the public body. News-Journal Corporation v. Memorial Hospital-West Volusia, Inc., 695 So. 2d 418 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997), approved, 729 So. 2d 373 (Fla. 1999); and Weekly Planet, Inc. v. Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, 829 So. 2d 970, 974 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002) (when a public entity delegates a statutorily authorized function to a private entity, the records generated by the private entity’s performance of that duty become public records).



Stated another way, business records of entities which merely provide services for an agency to use (e.g., legal professional services) are probably not subject to the open government laws. Memorial Hospital-West Volusia, Inc., supra. But, if the entity contracts to relieve the public body from the operation of a public obligation such as operating a jail or providing fire protection, the open government laws do apply. Id. And see Dade Aviation Consultants v. Knight Ridder, Inc., 800 So. 2d 302, 307 (Fla. 3d DCA 2001) (consortium of private businesses created to manage a massive renovation of an airport was an "agency" for purposes of the Public Records Act because it was created for and had no purpose other than to work on the airport contract; "when a private entity undertakes to provide a service otherwise provided by the government, the entity is bound by the Act, as the government would be").



Thus, in Stanfield v. Salvation Army, 695 So. 2d 501, 502-503 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997), the court ruled that the Salvation Army was subject to the Public Records Act when providing misdemeanor probation services pursuant to a contract with Marion County. See also Putnam County Humane Society, Inc. v. Woodward, 740 So. 2d 1238 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999) (where county humane society assumed the governmental function to investigate acts of animal abuse pursuant to statutory authority, the records created and maintained in connection with this function were governed by the Public Records Act).



Similarly, a private company under contract with a sheriff to provide medical services for inmates at the county jail must release its records relating to a settlement agreement with an inmate. Since these records would normally be subject to the Public Records Act if in the possession of the public agency, they are likewise covered by that law even though in the possession of the private corporation. Prison Health Services, Inc. v. Lakeland Ledger Publishing Company, 718 So. 2d 204 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998), review denied, 727 So. 2d 909 (Fla. 1999). And see Times Publishing Company v. Corrections Corporation of America, No. 91-429 CA 01 (Fla. 5th Cir. Ct. December 4, 1991), affirmed per curiam, 611 So. 2d 532 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993) (private corporation that operates and maintains county jail pursuant to contract with the county is "acting on behalf of" the county and must make available its records for the jail in accordance with Ch. 119); Mae Volen Senior Center, Inc. v. Area Agency on Aging, 978 So. 2d 191 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008), review denied, 1 So. 3d 172 (Fla. 2009) (private agencies on aging designated by the Department of Elder Affairs to coordinate and administer department programs and to provide services for the elderly within a planning and service area are subject to Public Records Law when considering any contracts requiring the expenditure of public funds).



In Multimedia Holdings Corporation Inc. v. CRSPE, Inc., No. 03-CA-3474-G (Fla. 20th Cir. Ct. December 3, 2003), the circuit court required a consulting firm to disclose its time sheets and internal billing records generated pursuant to a subcontract with another firm (CRSPE) which had entered into a contract with a town to prepare a traffic study required by the Department of Transportation. Rejecting the subcontractor's argument that Ch. 119, F.S., did not apply to it because it was a subcontractor, not the contractor, the court found that the study was prepared and submitted jointly by both consultants; both firms had acted in place of the town in performing the tasks required by the department: "[T]he Public Records Act cannot be so easily circumvented simply by CRSPE delegating its responsibilities to yet another private entity." And see AGOs 08-66 (not-for-profit corporation contracting with city to carry out affordable housing responsibilities and screening applicant files for such housing is an agency within the scope of Ch. 119), 99-53 (while not generally applicable to homeowners associations, Ch. 119 applies to architectural review committee of a homeowners association which is required by county ordinance to review and approve applications for county building permits as a prerequisite to consideration by the county building department), and 07-44 (property owners association, delegated performance of services otherwise performed by municipal services taxing unit, subject to Public Records Law when acting on behalf of the taxing unit).



The following are other examples of private entities that have been found to have been delegated a governmental function and thus subject to the Public Records Act in carrying out those functions:





Employment search firm: Shevin v. Byron, Harless, Schaffer, Reid and Associates, supra. Accord AGO 92-80 (materials made or received by recruitment company in the course of its contract with a public agency to seek applicants and make recommendations to the board regarding the selection of an executive director, subject to Ch. 119).

Engineering company providing ongoing engineering services to city: B & S Utilities, Inc. v. Baskerville-Donovan, Inc., 988 So. 2d 17 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), review denied, 4 So. 3d 1220 (Fla. 2009)



Towing company: Fox v. News-Press Publishing Company, Inc., 545 So. 2d 941 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989)





But see Sipkema v. Reedy Creek Improvement District, No. CI96­114 (Fla. 9th Cir. Ct. May 29, 1996), per curiam affirmed, 697 So. 2d 880 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997), review dismissed, 699 So. 2d 1375 (Fla. 1997), in which the court, utilizing both the delegation and totality of factors tests, held that reports prepared by Walt Disney World's private security force regarding incidents on roads within the Disney property are not public records even though Disney contracted to provide some security services for a public entity, the Reedy Creek Improvement District.