Posted: August 11, 2010 - 12:01am
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By Elizabeth Duran
Editor: In addition to the Marie Antoinette touch of having almost the entire city government take off -- with only two weeks' notice - for a tax-payer-paid jaunt to a foreign country, including a stay in a resort town nowhere near their supposed destination, city officials are expressing their contempt for our local Founders Day celebrations over the Labor Day weekend.
Historical groups and academic institutions have been planning their activities for months. This year is particularly special, because the celebration features the opening of the new Mission Nombre de Dios Museum and the formal transfer of the coffin of (city founder) Pedro Menendez to its new place of honor in the museum. There have been lectures planned on the topic at several local institutions, and civil and religious delegates, important historians, reenactors and a host of residents and tourists will be present at this event. But there will be no City Commission representation, because almost all of the City Commission will be on the beach at Malaga.
I am truly appalled by this slap in the face. Whatever impelled them, with virtually no notice, to arrange a trip like this, especially during dates when it is their duty to be in St Augustine, the city they theoretically serve.
In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!
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