Dear Chairman Sanchez:
1. I neglected to quote Ronald Reagan this morning when you rudely interrupted me at the podium as I was speaking about mosquito control and the County Administration playing politics with public health. As Ronald Reagan said in a debate in New Hampshire circa 1980, "I paid for this microphone."
2. People speaking to elected boards of Commissioners must no longer be interrupted or told what to say. We have a right to be heard. We do not require addled instructions about not being "adversarial" (sic) by which you apparently meant two (2) Democratic elected officials (Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission Chair Jeanne Moeller and Commissioner Vivian Browning) and I were saying things with which might disagree. Citizens must be treated with dignity, respect and consideration. If you as Commission Chair wish to state your views about opinions of citizens at our podium in our County Commission meeting room, in the future, will you kindly mind your manners and speak when we are finished? You did not ask me a question -- you interrupted to take umbrage and ululate. You sounded like a heckler or a schoolyard bully. In the future, please do not take up citizens' assigned three minutes to chill, coerce and restrain First Amendment protected activity in criticizing the sequelae of our County's one-party rule (e.g., failure of the Road and Bridge Department to remove standing water from county property).
3. Mr. Chairman, you were the one with an "adversarial" tone. You had a chip on your shoulder and you interrupted me, without justification or excuse. Power seems to have gone to your head.
4. "Ideas have consequences," as my Political Theory Professor at Georgetown University, Jose Sorzano (later Deputy UN Ambassador under Jeanne Kirkpatrick). Physics teaches that for every action, there is a reaction. The idea that St. Johns County would spend money on a worthless, outcome-oriented study and expect citizens to be silent is contrary to the genius of a free people. People have a right to respond to misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance, waste, fraud and abuse. Our Founding Fathers' vision and our God-given right to criticize government were not respected by you this morning.
5. No one has yet answered the concern about the Road and Bridge Department's failure to clear standing water in county-owned and maintained ditches and rights of way. This is a public nuisance. Please speak to Mr. Stephenson about it. Otherwise, you face the possibility of a public nuisance lawsuit against St. Johns County to protect public health from mosquito-borne diseases.
6. In the future, please do not attempt to chill, coerce or restrain First Amendment protected activity -- this violates civil rights.
7. And as President Harry S Truman said it best, "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
Cordially,
Ed Slavin
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