Our City of St. Augustine needs some tough love from its citizens.
It wants $450,000 in Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs) from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It wants to start fixing the north (white) part of Riberia and work its way south to the African-American part, where the rutted, often ponded excuse for a "road" is at its worst. That won't work.
Our City has had bad luck in getting federal stimulus funds owing to the fact that it has notoriously bad management.
Riberia Street is a disgrace. Our seawall is leaking. We need more than a little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike to take care of our problems. We need vision, leadership and money -- which the National Park SErv ice has.
The only way that the City of St. Augustine can attract sufficient funds to rebuild decrepit Riberia Street and the leaking seawall is to:
1. Support a St. Augustine National Historical Park, Seashore and Scenic Coastal Parkway, including:
(A) A park at the south end of Riberia Street (promised by the City in response to its illegal dumping scandal);
(B) A promenade at the seawall (in the City's existing plans);
(C) A civil rights and indigenous history museum (perhaps south of the Sebastian WinerY);
(D) A light rail trolleys to move visitors;
(E) Federal management of what are now scattered state, county and local parks.
2. Show our City has truly grown past its past environmental racism in Lincolnville and West Augustine and other past "mistakes," including illegal dumping of 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir. Tell the feds in the CDBG grant application that as far as Riberia Street, "here we right a wrong" (the words on the Japanese interment memorial on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.) Don't write a dull grant application which insults the reader -- tell them what shape Riberia Street is in (and why).
3. Open City employment to women and minorities -- advertise and post all jobs. The hiring of yet another $83/000 white man without posting or advertising the job reeks of political patronage. Stop discriminating and retaliating against City employees and applicants.
4. Require a national search for the next City Manager and City Attorney, after accepting their resignations for the public good.
5. Require public performance appraials for the new City Manager and City Attorney
6. End the waste, fraud, abuse, misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance in our City government -- you can't expect federal funds without Inspector General audits. DOn't embarass our City with any more purchasing irregularities or flubdubs (like the $25 million parking garage and $1.2 million utility bill-paying building).
7. End the violationz of First Amendment free speech rights, which have resulted in numerous federal court orders against the City of St. Augustine, by artists, entertainers and Gay and Lesbian people. Start treating the people with respect.
8. Agree that the National Park Service is best qualified to share our City's history with the world and to protect nature forever. We need to enlist the National Park Service in creating a beautiful, contemplative park at the South end of Riberia Street. Thomas Jefferson's favorite spot in the whole world is at the confluence of two rivers, in Harper's Ferry, W.Va. Let a rebuilt Riberia Street carry light rail trolleys from a new NPS visitor center to this spectacular view of the rivers and marshes.
9. Agree to resolve the infrastructure problems in St. Augustine and environs. That means playgrounds, sidewalks and paving in Lincolnville and West Augustine.
10. Implement transparency. Let's put City documents on the City's website and stop hassling document records (even threatening arrests). Let's stop intimidating dissenters, including threats to arrest people at City Commission meetings.
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