Photo by J.D. Pleasant/A Pleasant Family Production (c) Copyright 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Rude, Crude"City Mangler" WILLIAM B. HARRISS refuses to resign, says "I haven't done anything wrong!" and tries to slam door on citizens' questions
Photo by J.D. Pleasant/A Pleasant Family Production (c) Copyright 2007
"We Shall Overcome" St. Augustine, Florida Cith Hall Scandals Including Environmental Racism, Illegal Dumping and Wetland-Killing Speculators' Power
Moments after City Commissioners agreed to pay more than $33,000 in fines and spend Moments after City Commissioners agreed to pay more than $33,000 in fines and spend over $800,000 to clean up illegal dumping, controversial St. Augustine City Manager William B. Harriss angrily refused to resign November 13th, yelling, "I haven't done anything," then trying to slam a door on me. Why does Harriss rage?
In secret, during 2005- 2006, Harriss's minions took the contents of the old illegal city dump at the south end of Riberia Street -- 30,000,000 pounds of pollution -- and dumped it into the Old City Reservoir on Holmes Blvd. Extended. They took the contaminants from one lower-income, minority community in the city and dumped it into another one in the county, without permits or public notice or discussion.
Contents of the old dump included bed springs, toilets, sewage, heavy metals, vinyl chloride, arsenic and other poisons. City workers sorted through the contaminants without proper worker safety training. Enough stuff was deposited in the Old City Reservoir to fill in six Olympic-sized swimming pools to a depth of six feet (or cover a football field to a depth of 11.2 feet).
Out in the City and Collective Press broke the story of the dumping, later reported in the St. Augustine Record in articles and editorials.
Federal and state environmental criminal investigators failed to obtain any written statement from Harriss or City Commissioners, whom he told he'd been dumping "clean fill." As EPA told us in February 2006, "there's no bedsprings in clean fill."
For political reasons, based upon inaccurate factual assumptions about a supposed lack of motive, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP a/k/a "Don't Expect Protection") refused to prosecute a case involving government officials. FDEP's blatant nonenforcement is under investigation by the FDEP Inspector General and the Governor's Chief Inspector General.
FDEP delayed announcing its proposed $47,000 fine until shortly after the November 2006 elections, depriving voters of information they had a right to know before the coronation of Mayor Joseph Leroy Boles, Jr.
FDEP then wasted another year allowing St. Augustine officials and lawyers to engage in pettifoggery, claiming the dumping was "de minimis" or "de micromis" and demanding to leave the contaminants in the Old City Reservoir and then demanding to take them to back to the old city dump (instead of putting them in a proper landfill as DEP initially ordered).
Now FDEP has agreed to St. Augustine's demand that thousands of truckloads of contaminants are to be trucked back into Lincolnville. Lincolnville residents were never asked. This is an outrageous example of environmental racism -- one that may make St. Augustine a household name again, as in 1964.
If the contaminants are ever actually brought back to Lincolnville, there would be a monument to St. Augustine's racism in the form of a nineteen foot mound of contaminants erected next to the sewage plant by an artificial wetland.
That wetland -- and the phony urgency of creating it to allow Sebastian Inner Harbor project work to proceed -- apparently led our corner-cutting City Manager's regime to dump illegally without permits, without asking the city's outside environmental lawyer. City officials deliberately disobeyed repeated oral and written orders by the St. Johns River Water Management District that the City of St. Augustine not dump and answer questions about its plans.
Empowered local citizens took videos and reported the city's actions to the National Response Center in February 2006. City officials at first told me I could not show videos to the Commission on February 27, 2006, then switched signals and demanded I provide them copies in advance. Criminal investigators requested I not share the videos with the city.
As a result, the city was caught in a perjury trap, unable to tell more lies when its actions were on videotape.
City officials continued dumping March 1, 2006, two days after criminal investigators arrived.
Since that time, City commissioners and the city manager have refused to answer over 90 questions about the illegal dumping and the city's actions. Commissioner Jones accused me of "whipping" Commissioners, saying "uncle." Commissioner Gardner asked if I had "lint in [my] pocket."
Commissioners declared my home no longer in the city. They threatened arrests for asking questions. They reduced public comment time opportunities, first making people choose between the beginning and end of meetings, then ending public comment at the beginning of meetings, referring to three outspoken residents. Commissioners actually gave City Manager Harriss a plaque and an atta-boy in the midst of a pending criminal investigation in 2006, expressing their "confidence" in him, thereby discouraging city employees from reporting dumping wrongdoing.
Three city employees -- the city attorney, public works director and utilities director -- left the city after the dumping was revealed, perhaps as scapegoats for City Manager Harriss, who later accused the first two of "incompetence" for giving him bad legal advice. Bad legal advice? The two were professional engineers and that wasn't there job. A third professional engineer on staff was left unscathed. Meanwhile, neither they nor Harriss ever called the city's outside environmental counsel, William Pence of Akerman, Senterfitt, Florida's largest corporate law firm. Chief Operations Officer and Assistant City Manager John Regan says it would have cost only $75 for the city to call Pence and ask the question about dumping in the Old City Reservoir, which would have saved the city liability, fines and cleanup costs.
Efforts to interview Pence (who claims to be a Superfund expert) have been unavailing. Last year, paged before a meeting with FDEP in Jacksonville, Pence hung up the telephone without excusing himself or saying a word.
The City Commission vote on November 13 was without two of its five members. Ex-Mayor George Gardner and ex-Vice Mayor Susan Burk -- both serving in those positions at the time of the dumping -- left the meeting before the dumping was discussed. The meeting was oddly set for 8 AM, with only one other item on the agenda the closing of the Slave Market to artists and vendors. Commissioners had no expressed justification or excuse for their refusing to allow public comment on the FDEP dumping settlement, which Assistant City Manager John Regan told St. Augustine Record Opinion Editor Margo Pope would be open for public comment and was so reported in the November 11 Record editorial.
After a pro forma presentation by Regan,
Commissioners Errol Jones, Donald Crichlow and Mayor Joseph Leroy Boles voted to accept the plea bargain without dissenting voice or public comment or questions being answered.
The settlement left people scratching their heads at the city's intransigence, which will have wasted at least $1 million by the time the cleanup is completed.
Congressman John Mica (R-Winter Park) is already trolling for $1 million in federal funds for a new roof for City Hall (another mistake by the city, with City Manager William Harris' nephew missing a grant application deadline). Federal taxpayers would in effect bail out Harriss' mistakes, while the traditionally African-American community of Lincolnville gets the contaminants back, and more damage to Riberia Street from heavy trucks carrying contaminants. Lincolnville residents are organizing and planning their next steps. Meanwhile, St. Augustine ponders what has happened under City Manager Harriss' misrule since 1998. Marshall Burns was force-tackled and rendered a quadriplegic due to poor police training ($1.5 million of the settlement was paid by raising taxes). First Amendment rights have been violated. Artists and entertainers and musicians have been hustled off St. George Street and the Slave Market Square (Plaza de la Constitucion), with courts finding free speech violations.
Our city denied Bridge of Lions flag-flying permits to Gays in 2005, resulting in a landmark federal court decision requiring Rainbow flags fly on the Bridge June 7-13, 2005.
Wetland-destroying developers misrule, even forgiven a $15,000 tree-killing fine.
Immunity is given to corporate and governmental "crime in the suites," while St. Augustine gentrifies.
Will someone please show City Manager William B. Harriss to the door? As Jimmy Breslin's book, "How the Good Guys Finally Won" teaches about Watergate, persistence will defeat corruption every time. Regan said, "this was a pretty traumatic event for everyone all the way to the top" of the city hall hierarchy. What of those outside the hierarchy, like the residents who will pay for Harriss' intentional acts (inaccurately termed "mistakes").
What can you do:
Activate in 2008. St. Augustine voters will elect as many as four new Commissioners. (If Boles seeks re-election as mayor, he must resign the last half of his four-year term). That means that Mayor Boles, Vice Mayor Donald Crichlow, ex-Vice Mayor Susan Burk and ex-Mayor George Gardner could all be gone within one year.
Like Nixon's "Final Days," this is a fascinating time. It is time for St. Augustine to expect democracy and reject autocracy.
They've had their turn. Now it's our turn. Activate in 2008
In secret, during 2005- 2006, Harriss's minions took the contents of the old illegal city dump at the south end of Riberia Street -- 30,000,000 pounds of pollution -- and dumped it into the Old City Reservoir on Holmes Blvd. Extended. They took the contaminants from one lower-income, minority community in the city and dumped it into another one in the county, without permits or public notice or discussion.
Contents of the old dump included bed springs, toilets, sewage, heavy metals, vinyl chloride, arsenic and other poisons. City workers sorted through the contaminants without proper worker safety training. Enough stuff was deposited in the Old City Reservoir to fill in six Olympic-sized swimming pools to a depth of six feet (or cover a football field to a depth of 11.2 feet).
Out in the City and Collective Press broke the story of the dumping, later reported in the St. Augustine Record in articles and editorials.
Federal and state environmental criminal investigators failed to obtain any written statement from Harriss or City Commissioners, whom he told he'd been dumping "clean fill." As EPA told us in February 2006, "there's no bedsprings in clean fill."
For political reasons, based upon inaccurate factual assumptions about a supposed lack of motive, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP a/k/a "Don't Expect Protection") refused to prosecute a case involving government officials. FDEP's blatant nonenforcement is under investigation by the FDEP Inspector General and the Governor's Chief Inspector General.
FDEP delayed announcing its proposed $47,000 fine until shortly after the November 2006 elections, depriving voters of information they had a right to know before the coronation of Mayor Joseph Leroy Boles, Jr.
FDEP then wasted another year allowing St. Augustine officials and lawyers to engage in pettifoggery, claiming the dumping was "de minimis" or "de micromis" and demanding to leave the contaminants in the Old City Reservoir and then demanding to take them to back to the old city dump (instead of putting them in a proper landfill as DEP initially ordered).
Now FDEP has agreed to St. Augustine's demand that thousands of truckloads of contaminants are to be trucked back into Lincolnville. Lincolnville residents were never asked. This is an outrageous example of environmental racism -- one that may make St. Augustine a household name again, as in 1964.
If the contaminants are ever actually brought back to Lincolnville, there would be a monument to St. Augustine's racism in the form of a nineteen foot mound of contaminants erected next to the sewage plant by an artificial wetland.
That wetland -- and the phony urgency of creating it to allow Sebastian Inner Harbor project work to proceed -- apparently led our corner-cutting City Manager's regime to dump illegally without permits, without asking the city's outside environmental lawyer. City officials deliberately disobeyed repeated oral and written orders by the St. Johns River Water Management District that the City of St. Augustine not dump and answer questions about its plans.
Empowered local citizens took videos and reported the city's actions to the National Response Center in February 2006. City officials at first told me I could not show videos to the Commission on February 27, 2006, then switched signals and demanded I provide them copies in advance. Criminal investigators requested I not share the videos with the city.
As a result, the city was caught in a perjury trap, unable to tell more lies when its actions were on videotape.
City officials continued dumping March 1, 2006, two days after criminal investigators arrived.
Since that time, City commissioners and the city manager have refused to answer over 90 questions about the illegal dumping and the city's actions. Commissioner Jones accused me of "whipping" Commissioners, saying "uncle." Commissioner Gardner asked if I had "lint in [my] pocket."
Commissioners declared my home no longer in the city. They threatened arrests for asking questions. They reduced public comment time opportunities, first making people choose between the beginning and end of meetings, then ending public comment at the beginning of meetings, referring to three outspoken residents. Commissioners actually gave City Manager Harriss a plaque and an atta-boy in the midst of a pending criminal investigation in 2006, expressing their "confidence" in him, thereby discouraging city employees from reporting dumping wrongdoing.
Three city employees -- the city attorney, public works director and utilities director -- left the city after the dumping was revealed, perhaps as scapegoats for City Manager Harriss, who later accused the first two of "incompetence" for giving him bad legal advice. Bad legal advice? The two were professional engineers and that wasn't there job. A third professional engineer on staff was left unscathed. Meanwhile, neither they nor Harriss ever called the city's outside environmental counsel, William Pence of Akerman, Senterfitt, Florida's largest corporate law firm. Chief Operations Officer and Assistant City Manager John Regan says it would have cost only $75 for the city to call Pence and ask the question about dumping in the Old City Reservoir, which would have saved the city liability, fines and cleanup costs.
Efforts to interview Pence (who claims to be a Superfund expert) have been unavailing. Last year, paged before a meeting with FDEP in Jacksonville, Pence hung up the telephone without excusing himself or saying a word.
The City Commission vote on November 13 was without two of its five members. Ex-Mayor George Gardner and ex-Vice Mayor Susan Burk -- both serving in those positions at the time of the dumping -- left the meeting before the dumping was discussed. The meeting was oddly set for 8 AM, with only one other item on the agenda the closing of the Slave Market to artists and vendors. Commissioners had no expressed justification or excuse for their refusing to allow public comment on the FDEP dumping settlement, which Assistant City Manager John Regan told St. Augustine Record Opinion Editor Margo Pope would be open for public comment and was so reported in the November 11 Record editorial.
After a pro forma presentation by Regan,
Commissioners Errol Jones, Donald Crichlow and Mayor Joseph Leroy Boles voted to accept the plea bargain without dissenting voice or public comment or questions being answered.
The settlement left people scratching their heads at the city's intransigence, which will have wasted at least $1 million by the time the cleanup is completed.
Congressman John Mica (R-Winter Park) is already trolling for $1 million in federal funds for a new roof for City Hall (another mistake by the city, with City Manager William Harris' nephew missing a grant application deadline). Federal taxpayers would in effect bail out Harriss' mistakes, while the traditionally African-American community of Lincolnville gets the contaminants back, and more damage to Riberia Street from heavy trucks carrying contaminants. Lincolnville residents are organizing and planning their next steps. Meanwhile, St. Augustine ponders what has happened under City Manager Harriss' misrule since 1998. Marshall Burns was force-tackled and rendered a quadriplegic due to poor police training ($1.5 million of the settlement was paid by raising taxes). First Amendment rights have been violated. Artists and entertainers and musicians have been hustled off St. George Street and the Slave Market Square (Plaza de la Constitucion), with courts finding free speech violations.
Our city denied Bridge of Lions flag-flying permits to Gays in 2005, resulting in a landmark federal court decision requiring Rainbow flags fly on the Bridge June 7-13, 2005.
Wetland-destroying developers misrule, even forgiven a $15,000 tree-killing fine.
Immunity is given to corporate and governmental "crime in the suites," while St. Augustine gentrifies.
Will someone please show City Manager William B. Harriss to the door? As Jimmy Breslin's book, "How the Good Guys Finally Won" teaches about Watergate, persistence will defeat corruption every time. Regan said, "this was a pretty traumatic event for everyone all the way to the top" of the city hall hierarchy. What of those outside the hierarchy, like the residents who will pay for Harriss' intentional acts (inaccurately termed "mistakes").
What can you do:
Activate in 2008. St. Augustine voters will elect as many as four new Commissioners. (If Boles seeks re-election as mayor, he must resign the last half of his four-year term). That means that Mayor Boles, Vice Mayor Donald Crichlow, ex-Vice Mayor Susan Burk and ex-Mayor George Gardner could all be gone within one year.
Like Nixon's "Final Days," this is a fascinating time. It is time for St. Augustine to expect democracy and reject autocracy.
They've had their turn. Now it's our turn. Activate in 2008
Record sidebar summarizing DEP agreement that will truck 30,000,000 pounds of contaminants back into the community of Lincolnville
Publication Date: 11/14/07
The following are details of the city's agreement with the Department of Environmental Protection
Remove the thousands of tons of lime sludge and street sweepings from the North Holmes borrow pit.
Remove within 475 days all dirt taken from the Riberia site and return it there.
Cover the returned dirt on the Riberia Street site with clean fill and vegetation within 60 days.
Turn over within 45 days all bills or manifests documenting the excavation and transportation of the fill to Riberia.
Give a report that, among other things, shows analysis of the soil and surface water on Holmes Boulevard, plus the results from three monitoring wells.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/111407/news_stories_035.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
The following are details of the city's agreement with the Department of Environmental Protection
Remove the thousands of tons of lime sludge and street sweepings from the North Holmes borrow pit.
Remove within 475 days all dirt taken from the Riberia site and return it there.
Cover the returned dirt on the Riberia Street site with clean fill and vegetation within 60 days.
Turn over within 45 days all bills or manifests documenting the excavation and transportation of the fill to Riberia.
Give a report that, among other things, shows analysis of the soil and surface water on Holmes Boulevard, plus the results from three monitoring wells.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/111407/news_stories_035.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Artists, vendors must leave plaza
KATI BEXLEY
kati.bexley@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 11/14/07
Artists, vendors must leave plaza
It's official: The artists and vendors are gone from Plaza de la Constitucion after action by the St. Augustine City Commission on Tuesday.
The action did not sit well with local artists.
"You are destroying, out of anger, those things that make this town beautiful," artist Helena Sala told the commission as she began to get teary. "We are the carriers of culture. Please, let's work together."
Sala and about 10 other artists pleaded with the commission at the Tuesday meeting to nix the ordinance. After more than three hours of discussion and public comment, the commission seemed to pass the measure reluctantly on second reading.
"We can't choose who gets to be in the plaza and who doesn't. We tried that already and the courts said no," said City Commissioner Errol Jones. "The courts said all or none. The ews and ahs (from the public) won't take away from that."
The city's previous ordinance allowed only sculpture, paintings, printed materials and photography to be sold in the Plaza de la Constitucion. Vendors selling anything but those items were ticketed by police. Three artists took their cases to court and had the cases against them dismissed.
County Court Judge Charles Tinlin ruled that the Plaza ordinance was "an unconstitutional restriction of (the artists') freedom of speech or expression as guaranteed under the First and 14th amendments to the Constitution."
The city's ordinance was vague because it made police officers arbiters of what is art and what is not, the ruling said.
Artist Gregory Travis said the city's new ordinance, which bans all artists and vendors from the Plaza, also steps on the public's First Amendment rights.
"There will be a battle that shouldn't happen if this ordinance is passed," he said.
The city originally tried to regulate who was allowed to sell items in the Plaza because of complaints that it had become "a flea market circus" with vendors displaying everything from paintings to sunglasses. To keep that from happening again, the commission approved the new ordinance affective immediately, instead of the usual 10-period before an ordinance is enforced.
Commissioner George Gardner said he wants the city to have a workshop on the issue to find another way of resolving the problem. Jones said he plans bring a new idea to handle the issue at the next commission meeting, on Nov. 22. And Commissioner Don Crichlow suggested the city open the plaza once a week to vendors, opposed to when the plaza was used every day by vendors.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/111407/news_stories_014.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Not exactly "crippled by compassion" -- Five Scrooge City Commissioners voted to kick artists out of the Slave Market Square (Plaza de la Constitucion), for 442 years a public marketplace, first in the Nation.
kati.bexley@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 11/14/07
Artists, vendors must leave plaza
It's official: The artists and vendors are gone from Plaza de la Constitucion after action by the St. Augustine City Commission on Tuesday.
The action did not sit well with local artists.
"You are destroying, out of anger, those things that make this town beautiful," artist Helena Sala told the commission as she began to get teary. "We are the carriers of culture. Please, let's work together."
Sala and about 10 other artists pleaded with the commission at the Tuesday meeting to nix the ordinance. After more than three hours of discussion and public comment, the commission seemed to pass the measure reluctantly on second reading.
"We can't choose who gets to be in the plaza and who doesn't. We tried that already and the courts said no," said City Commissioner Errol Jones. "The courts said all or none. The ews and ahs (from the public) won't take away from that."
The city's previous ordinance allowed only sculpture, paintings, printed materials and photography to be sold in the Plaza de la Constitucion. Vendors selling anything but those items were ticketed by police. Three artists took their cases to court and had the cases against them dismissed.
County Court Judge Charles Tinlin ruled that the Plaza ordinance was "an unconstitutional restriction of (the artists') freedom of speech or expression as guaranteed under the First and 14th amendments to the Constitution."
The city's ordinance was vague because it made police officers arbiters of what is art and what is not, the ruling said.
Artist Gregory Travis said the city's new ordinance, which bans all artists and vendors from the Plaza, also steps on the public's First Amendment rights.
"There will be a battle that shouldn't happen if this ordinance is passed," he said.
The city originally tried to regulate who was allowed to sell items in the Plaza because of complaints that it had become "a flea market circus" with vendors displaying everything from paintings to sunglasses. To keep that from happening again, the commission approved the new ordinance affective immediately, instead of the usual 10-period before an ordinance is enforced.
Commissioner George Gardner said he wants the city to have a workshop on the issue to find another way of resolving the problem. Jones said he plans bring a new idea to handle the issue at the next commission meeting, on Nov. 22. And Commissioner Don Crichlow suggested the city open the plaza once a week to vendors, opposed to when the plaza was used every day by vendors.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/111407/news_stories_014.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Not exactly "crippled by compassion" -- Five Scrooge City Commissioners voted to kick artists out of the Slave Market Square (Plaza de la Constitucion), for 442 years a public marketplace, first in the Nation.
City OKs DEP agreement
City OKs DEP agreement
KATI BEXLEY
kati.bexley@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 11/14/07
St. Augustine City Commissioners approved a plan Tuesday to fix the city's illegal dumping of dirt from an old landfill into a borrow pit.
The vote means the city will pay the Department of Environmental Protection a $33,698 fine and remove contaminated dirt from a borrow pit on North Holmes Boulevard.
The city will clean the borrow pit and put the dirt back on the landfill site on South Riberia Street, creating a 19-foot mound that will be monitored to prevent groundwater intrusion. The mound will be covered with vegetation and will back up to a marsh, with the hope it will eventually become a park and meeting spot for bird watchers. The project will cost $800,000.
Two senior city engineers were in charge of the dumping, and Mayor Joe Boles wanted them held accountable for this "big mess up."
"You're moving dirt from an old landfill... I imagine someone should have seen some red flags," Boles said. "If we haven't cleared up some heads we need to."
John Regan, city chief operations officer, said the two engineers had already left the city for promotions with other jobs. And, he said, they shouldn't take all the blame.
"I could spend three hours defending the staff," Regan said. "We never had anyone (St. Johns Water Management District or DEP) say they were heading on the wrong track. They thought they were doing the right thing."
"Let's get down to it. This was a pretty traumatic experience all the way to the top (of city staff)," he said. "When you're an organization you will make errors. The question is what are you going to do about it."
Other residents disagreed and said they believe City Manager Bill Harriss ordered the dumping, which Harriss has denied.
When the commission voted for the plan, with Commissioners George Gardner and Susan Burk absent, a few people who attended the meeting yelled out "He (Harriss) should be fired!" and "What about the arsenic in the dirt ..."
Regan met later with some of the public who had more questions about the city's plan.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/111407/news_stories_034.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
KATI BEXLEY
kati.bexley@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 11/14/07
St. Augustine City Commissioners approved a plan Tuesday to fix the city's illegal dumping of dirt from an old landfill into a borrow pit.
The vote means the city will pay the Department of Environmental Protection a $33,698 fine and remove contaminated dirt from a borrow pit on North Holmes Boulevard.
The city will clean the borrow pit and put the dirt back on the landfill site on South Riberia Street, creating a 19-foot mound that will be monitored to prevent groundwater intrusion. The mound will be covered with vegetation and will back up to a marsh, with the hope it will eventually become a park and meeting spot for bird watchers. The project will cost $800,000.
Two senior city engineers were in charge of the dumping, and Mayor Joe Boles wanted them held accountable for this "big mess up."
"You're moving dirt from an old landfill... I imagine someone should have seen some red flags," Boles said. "If we haven't cleared up some heads we need to."
John Regan, city chief operations officer, said the two engineers had already left the city for promotions with other jobs. And, he said, they shouldn't take all the blame.
"I could spend three hours defending the staff," Regan said. "We never had anyone (St. Johns Water Management District or DEP) say they were heading on the wrong track. They thought they were doing the right thing."
"Let's get down to it. This was a pretty traumatic experience all the way to the top (of city staff)," he said. "When you're an organization you will make errors. The question is what are you going to do about it."
Other residents disagreed and said they believe City Manager Bill Harriss ordered the dumping, which Harriss has denied.
When the commission voted for the plan, with Commissioners George Gardner and Susan Burk absent, a few people who attended the meeting yelled out "He (Harriss) should be fired!" and "What about the arsenic in the dirt ..."
Regan met later with some of the public who had more questions about the city's plan.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/111407/news_stories_034.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Dirt removal cost: $800,000
Dirt removal cost: $800,000
KATI BEXLEY
kati.bexley@staugustinerecord.com
Publication Date: 11/13/07
The St. Augustine City Commission will hear city staff's plan today to correct the city's million-dollar mistake of illegally moving dirt from an old landfill to a water-filled borrow pit.
The plan is part of a contract with the Department of Environmental Protection. In the agreement, DEP levies a $33,698 fine and requests the contaminated dirt taken from an old St. Augustine landfill on South Riberia Street be removed from a borrow pit on North Holmes Boulevard.
After finding that the tipping fees alone to dump the dirt in a landfill would cost $1 million to $2 million, the city found a cheaper, innovative way to handle the problem.
"Necessity is the mother of innovation when you're staring down a $2 million trash bill," said John Regan, city chief operations officer. "Plan B emerges quickly."
Regan is proposing the city clean the city-owned borrow pit and put the dirt back on the landfill site. The materials will form a 19-foot mound and will be monitored to prevent groundwater intrusion. The mound will be covered with vegetation and will back up to a marsh, with the hope it will eventually become a park and meeting spot for bird watchers, Regan said.
"It seems counter intuitive, but we think it will work," Regan said.
The project's price tag: roughly $800,000.
The project could take 475 days to complete, Regan said. But before staff can move forward, the city commission must approve the plan.
DEP found that the dumping was recommended by two city engineers who did not carefully read the law before making a recommendation. The junior engineers have moved on to other jobs, for reasons separate from the dumping, Regan said. He said no one person is responsible for the wrongdoing, and the incident has created greater oversight for city projects.
"We did this as a city operation, and it was an organizational mistake," he said. "The responsibility is completely with the city and not with any other agency."
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/111307/news_stories_001.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
KATI BEXLEY
kati.bexley@staugustinerecord.com
Publication Date: 11/13/07
The St. Augustine City Commission will hear city staff's plan today to correct the city's million-dollar mistake of illegally moving dirt from an old landfill to a water-filled borrow pit.
The plan is part of a contract with the Department of Environmental Protection. In the agreement, DEP levies a $33,698 fine and requests the contaminated dirt taken from an old St. Augustine landfill on South Riberia Street be removed from a borrow pit on North Holmes Boulevard.
After finding that the tipping fees alone to dump the dirt in a landfill would cost $1 million to $2 million, the city found a cheaper, innovative way to handle the problem.
"Necessity is the mother of innovation when you're staring down a $2 million trash bill," said John Regan, city chief operations officer. "Plan B emerges quickly."
Regan is proposing the city clean the city-owned borrow pit and put the dirt back on the landfill site. The materials will form a 19-foot mound and will be monitored to prevent groundwater intrusion. The mound will be covered with vegetation and will back up to a marsh, with the hope it will eventually become a park and meeting spot for bird watchers, Regan said.
"It seems counter intuitive, but we think it will work," Regan said.
The project's price tag: roughly $800,000.
The project could take 475 days to complete, Regan said. But before staff can move forward, the city commission must approve the plan.
DEP found that the dumping was recommended by two city engineers who did not carefully read the law before making a recommendation. The junior engineers have moved on to other jobs, for reasons separate from the dumping, Regan said. He said no one person is responsible for the wrongdoing, and the incident has created greater oversight for city projects.
"We did this as a city operation, and it was an organizational mistake," he said. "The responsibility is completely with the city and not with any other agency."
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/111307/news_stories_001.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Editorial: St. Augustine's illegal dumping fix is correct
Editorial: St. Augustine's illegal dumping fix is correct
Publication Date: 11/11/07
The St. Augustine City Commission will be asked Tuesday to take steps to correct its huge mistake; illegally dumping solid waste in a borrow pit.
The fix estimated to cost approximately $800,000 of city tax dollars will require clean up of a city-owned borrow pit on North Holmes Boulevard, closure of an old city landfill site on South Riberia Street and other corrective measures stipulated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The city also has to pay DEP a $33,698 fine.
Holmes and South Riberia are linked because the errant waste in the Holmes pit came from the old South Riberia landfill near where the city has had a wastewater plant for years. Longtime residents will remember the former police pistol range being located in the area more than 30 years ago.
The illegally dumped materials will form a 19-foot mound over the landfill site as part of the closure process. The mound's materials will be safe, we're told. They will be cleaned up, capped and monitored to prevent groundwater intrusion, and covered with vegetation. City staff envisions a future passive park encompassing the mound.
Assistant City Manager John Regan is in charge of the cleanup project. The public will have to get up early to hear and to speak about the DEP order on which the City Commission will vote. The special meeting begins at 8 a.m. in the Alcazar Room at City Hall, 75 King St.
The city's mistake was reported in an anonymous tip to an environmental hot line in 2006. The Record, in an Oct. 23 story, identified Ed Slavin as the person who reported the tip. Slavin and the city are often at odds. Regan said he did not know who reported it.
"Assuming Mr. Slavin made the call, he did the right thing," Regan told The Record on Friday. "The (caller) was a little misguided because they reported it was hazardous waste and it was not." [Ed Slavin's note: I told the feds what the photos showed. If anyone was misguided, it was John Regan, who was angry that I reported the city to DEP and told me that because of what I "had done" it would be a "long process." I nevery deposited the contents of the old city dump in the Old City Reservoir -- that was done by WILLIAM B. HARRISS. Regan also demanded copies of the video provided to EPA and DEP, which they advised me not to give the city. End of Ed Slavin's note[
Regan said the tip led to the subsequent DEP investigation and the order to the city to clean up the mess. "We wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't for the fundamental mistake made two years ago," he said.
The tip led to more than just the DEP action. City Manager Bill Harriss has reorganized responsibilities for key managers and established an immediate notification system for employees to report similar problems, without reprisal. As for the illegal dumping at the Holmes site, Regan said the city "was not savvy as an organization to catch it" initially. The city thought it was on the right track but later found out it was working with the wrong agency; the St. Johns River Water Management District rather than Florida DEP's solid waste division.
That mistake resulted, Regan said, because of a lack of knowledge of the process by some of the city's engineering staff. "What we did was wrong, no question about it," he said.
We agree. There should have been greater oversight and review by senior managers because of the potential for environmental mistakes.
The city is moving on correctly. It has acknowledged the error, negotiated a remedy and created new procedures for staff to follow.
Now, it is time for the cleanup to begin.
Click here to return to story:
http://www.staugustine.com/stories/111107/opinions_036.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Publication Date: 11/11/07
The St. Augustine City Commission will be asked Tuesday to take steps to correct its huge mistake; illegally dumping solid waste in a borrow pit.
The fix estimated to cost approximately $800,000 of city tax dollars will require clean up of a city-owned borrow pit on North Holmes Boulevard, closure of an old city landfill site on South Riberia Street and other corrective measures stipulated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The city also has to pay DEP a $33,698 fine.
Holmes and South Riberia are linked because the errant waste in the Holmes pit came from the old South Riberia landfill near where the city has had a wastewater plant for years. Longtime residents will remember the former police pistol range being located in the area more than 30 years ago.
The illegally dumped materials will form a 19-foot mound over the landfill site as part of the closure process. The mound's materials will be safe, we're told. They will be cleaned up, capped and monitored to prevent groundwater intrusion, and covered with vegetation. City staff envisions a future passive park encompassing the mound.
Assistant City Manager John Regan is in charge of the cleanup project. The public will have to get up early to hear and to speak about the DEP order on which the City Commission will vote. The special meeting begins at 8 a.m. in the Alcazar Room at City Hall, 75 King St.
The city's mistake was reported in an anonymous tip to an environmental hot line in 2006. The Record, in an Oct. 23 story, identified Ed Slavin as the person who reported the tip. Slavin and the city are often at odds. Regan said he did not know who reported it.
"Assuming Mr. Slavin made the call, he did the right thing," Regan told The Record on Friday. "The (caller) was a little misguided because they reported it was hazardous waste and it was not." [Ed Slavin's note: I told the feds what the photos showed. If anyone was misguided, it was John Regan, who was angry that I reported the city to DEP and told me that because of what I "had done" it would be a "long process." I nevery deposited the contents of the old city dump in the Old City Reservoir -- that was done by WILLIAM B. HARRISS. Regan also demanded copies of the video provided to EPA and DEP, which they advised me not to give the city. End of Ed Slavin's note[
Regan said the tip led to the subsequent DEP investigation and the order to the city to clean up the mess. "We wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't for the fundamental mistake made two years ago," he said.
The tip led to more than just the DEP action. City Manager Bill Harriss has reorganized responsibilities for key managers and established an immediate notification system for employees to report similar problems, without reprisal. As for the illegal dumping at the Holmes site, Regan said the city "was not savvy as an organization to catch it" initially. The city thought it was on the right track but later found out it was working with the wrong agency; the St. Johns River Water Management District rather than Florida DEP's solid waste division.
That mistake resulted, Regan said, because of a lack of knowledge of the process by some of the city's engineering staff. "What we did was wrong, no question about it," he said.
We agree. There should have been greater oversight and review by senior managers because of the potential for environmental mistakes.
The city is moving on correctly. It has acknowledged the error, negotiated a remedy and created new procedures for staff to follow.
Now, it is time for the cleanup to begin.
Click here to return to story:
http://www.staugustine.com/stories/111107/opinions_036.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
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