St. Augustine City Attorney Ronald Wayne Brown announced at the City Commission last night that ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD has deeded his residence at 33 Water Street to Prosperity Bank inlieu of foreclosure. This gorgeous home, overlooking the Castillo San Marco, was used for weddings in violation of local zoning and noise laws.
GRAUBARD obtained City Commission approval January 9, 2006 to build condos and a strip mall at Red House Bluff, north of St. Augustine High School, probable site of a 3000-4000 year old Native American Indian indigenous village, which is eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. GRAUBARD halted a contractor’s archeological investigation and used his influence with City Commission, where he bragged of influence ex-Commissioner SUSAN BURK (his ex-girlfriend, whom he kissed on the lips during a recess in a later Commission meeting).
GRAUBARD was fined $15,000 for tree-killing – a fine wrongfully forgiven by the St. Augustine Commission, outside the scope of local laws.
GRAUBARD is one of those speculators of whom our former County Commission Chairman Ben Rich said were “worse than any carpetbagger.”
GRAUBARD will not be missed.
GRAUBARD’s leaving town is a civic improvement.
The St. Augustine Record did not report the news in today’s paper.
While the motto of the New York Times is “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” the Record’s motto ought to be, “we aim to please our advertisers,” particularly developers and governments.
While the Record once zealously reported on speculators’ actions, slashed newsroom budgets have made the Record a shadow of its former self.
We expect newspapers to cover the news – all of it – and not cover it up.
When the wedding party issue was raised by residents – including Mrs. Maurine Boles, mother of Mayor Boles, no one at the City Commission even mentioned the property owner’s name. I found it using my I-phone in a New York minute.
Kudos to the new City Manager, John Regan, and the City staff for their willingness to adopt regulations to protect the community that GRAUBARD’s actions regulated.
As I earlier wrote of ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD on April 16, 2010:
Is it my imagination, or does the air suddenly seem cleaner?
Does politics seem cleaner?
Do City and County Commissioners suddenly appear less oleaginous?
Well, hold on to your seats. We have news on civic improvement, right here in St. Augustine.
The man whom developer mouthpiece GEORGE McCLURE once called the "most hated man in St. Johns County" -- tree-killing, wetland-destroying, tacky-house-building developer and conman ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD -- has left town. Gone. Good riddance. He's practicing law in Chester, New York.
That man, ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD would like to sell all of his properties. Surely the taxpayers can get a good price now for land that belongs in the St. Augustine National Historical Park, Seashore and Scenic Coastal Parkway.
It's too late for Red House Bluff -- the beautiful 3000-4000 year old Native American Indian villege next to St. Augustine High School.
St. Augustine City Commissioners voted 3-2 to let GRAUBARD destroy it for condominiums and a strip mall.
It's too late for other sacred places, which GRAUBARD was allowed to destroy by supine, solipsistic City and County Commissioners -- known Republicans who laughed all the way to the bank as GRAUBARD floor-planned their campaigns.
Why supercilious City Commissioners even forgave GRAUBARD a $15,000 fine for tree-killing, without complying with Due Process, or the City Code.
Florida is possibly the most corrupt state in America, and St. Johns County is reputedly the most corrupt state in FLorida.
ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD once dated former City Commissioner SUSAN BURK, whom he once kissed during a recess in the St. Augustine City Commission meeting room. (Gross me out! Gag me with a fork!)
Anything GRAUBARD wanted, GRAUBARD got from local governments.
Local newspapers (like the WRecKord) rarely exercised their watchdog function over the zoning and planning decisions that let GRAUBARD's reign of ruin rape and pillage the natural beauty and history of St. Johns County and St. Augustine.
This 800 pound gorilla is gone, but not forgotten.
Federal prosecutors need to investigate him and bring him to justice.
ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD reminds me of what Henry Demarest Lloyd wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in 1881 about oil monopolists HENRY FLAGLER, JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER and STANDARD OIL COMPANY in Pennsylvania, where it was said "they did everything to the Pennsylvania legislature except refine it"
For those federal agents, plaintiffs, process servers, investigators and activists who may be looking for ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD -- including the ghosts of the Indians whose final resting place GRAUBARD may have destroyed -- he may now be reached in Chester, New York:
GREENWALD LAW OFFICE
Robert M. Graubard
99 Brookside Avenue
Chester, New York 10918-1033
Phone: (845) 469-4900
Fax: (845) 469-2022
Web site: http://www.greenwaldlaw.com
Robert M. Graubard (J.D., University of California - Hastings College of The Law 1974.)
Syracuse University B.A. Degree in History 1969, is of counsel to Greenwald Law Office. He has been licensed since 1975 in the State of New York. [GRAUBARD makes a material omission here, failing to report his disbarment and reinstatement, but what's a little flummery and dupery among developer mouthpieces!]
Mr. Graubard has broad experience in real estate law and municipal law. He has been Town Attorney for the Town of Mamakating and Town Attorney for the Planning Board in both the Town of Mamakating and the Town of Lumberland.
Current Employment Position(s):
Of Counsel
Areas of Practice:
Real Estate
Municipal Law
Trust, Wills and Estates
Bar Admissions:
New York, 1975
Education:
University of California, Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, California, 1974, J.D.
Syracuse University, 1969, B.A.
NOTE: Just because ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD went to Berkeley does not make him a progressive. No self-respecting Berkeley graduate would approve of what GRAUBARD has done in St. Johns County. His Berkeley degree suggests he's intelligent -- it does, however, reveal what I once said of GEORGE McCCLURE and the phalanx of hired-gun expert witnesses (a/k/a witlesses) behind him at a St. Augustine City Commission zoning hearing: "What a waste of a good education!"
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