Jennifer Edwards' outstanding investigative article (below) on Sheriff DAVID SHOAR's $27 million radio proposal was the lead article in the St. Augustine Record on Easter Sunday.
In Ireland during Easter week 1916, Irish patriots rose up against British oppressors. Here in St. Augustine 94 years later, nearly four dozen reader comments appeared below the article about the Sheriff's $27 million radio plan (click above), which may be a record at the Record.
Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Greens, Tea Party and Coffee Party people all agree on at least three things -- governments too often waste money and they too often violate human and civil rights and allow damage to wildlife and our environment.
Reformers are empowered in our County and City, and there are now elected officials who actually listen to the people (instead of just the powerful). It gets better.
That's why America's Founders equipped our Constitution with the First Amendment, protecting the rights of the press and of the people to petition for a redress of grievances.
Last year, I saw and heard our County Administrator's budget presentation at World Golf Village, including slide(s) about the $27 million "FCC mandate." Now, thanks to Jennifer Edwards' prize-worthy reporting, it turns out that this "FCC mandate" may be a canard, as her outstanding article on the $27 million radio deal suggests.
As the late United States Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen (R-Illinois) famously said, "a billion dollars here, a billion dollars there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."
Here, we're talking about $500 per household in St. Johns County -- that's real money in this tough economy.
In the spirit of Senator Dirksen, we must review all government expenditures with a gimlet eye, and this one is no exception. It appears that FCC requirements can be met without spending $27 million, and that the County Sheriff and County Administrator have conflated the FCC requirements with their subjective preferences -- the governmental equivalent of, "but all the other kids have one, dad."
Radio equipment is sold by oligopolists, like Motorola. Oligopolists lack meaningful competition and have the market power to charge high prices.
Our local governments, like our Pentagon, need to knock off the "impulse buying" -- just because an oligopolist with powerful lobbyists and persuasive sales techniques wants you to buy something, you don't have to buy it.
It's our money.
Governments have often too often jumped at the chance to buy high-priced flubdubs from oligopolists.
Here in St. Augustine and St. Johns County, things are getting better. In particular, citizen activists persuaded our Anastasia Mosquito Control District in 2007 to reverse its ill-advised 2006 vote to purchase a no-bid $1.8 million Textron Bell Long Ranger Jet Helicopter. We overcame false AMCD findings that the no-bid purchase was somehow "sole source." Activists were even threatened with arrest by the Mosquito Control District's controversial then-Chair Barbara Bosanko, who called Sheriff's deputies to chill First Amendment rights.
It gets better.
In fact, I would argue that the purchase and cancellation of the helicopter was one of the best things to happen in St. Johns County, because it focused public attention on government waste.
Thankfully, it appears that Morris Communications has heard and in part heeded the concerns local activists expressed in seeking intervention in the MORRIS PUBLISHING bankruptcy case.
Thank you, Jennifer and Pete for a job well done!
By the way, over on the putative "news" website of the Sheriff DAVID SHOAR's political operative, MICHAEL GOLD f/k/a "MICHAEL TOBIN," there's no indication that the $27 million radio scandal story ever happened. www.historiccity.com
Nor is there any mention of the controversy on MICHAEL GOLD's noisome hate website, www.shamefulpeople.com, See also www.michaelgoldexposed.t15.org
Wonder why?
MICHAEL GOLD AND SHERIFF DAVID SHOAR
GOLD is not defending the $27 million radio deal today.
He is apparently exercising his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
Of course, controversial MICHAEL GOLD's "Historic City News" is, like a skimpy bikini, no cover for his hateful views.
Former DAVID SHOAR campaign manager and failed City Commission candidate MICHAEL
GOLD prints regular columns from Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, former County Commissioner BRUCE MAGUIRE, and even a column from the "League of the South," which the Southern Poverty Law Center has termed a racist, neo-Confederate hate group that wants Florida to secede from the Union (and defends slavery).
December 30, 2010 HISTORIC CITY NEWS column calling for Secession and Defending Slavery: http://www.historiccity.com/2010/staugustine/news/florida/guest-column-florida-marks-150th-anniversary-8754
Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence File re: League of the South:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/league-of-the-south
"What we need in the United States is not hatred": http://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-we-need-in-united-states-is-not.html
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