Some 8.5 years ago, I walked into my first City of St. Augustine City Commission meeting and called for a halt to residential annexations that violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. I said the City's decades-long pattern of residential annexations violated the Fourteen and Fifteenth Amendment.
The annexation at issue was allowed to proceed.
Thankfully, that was the last residential annexation by the City of St. Augusine.
Under new management, our City is no longer plotting to dilute minority voting strength, as it did with dozens of annexations for some 50 years, blatant retaliation for local African-Americans working to end Jim Crow segregation here in 1963-64, helping LBJ break the Southern filibuster in the United States Senate.
Some 8.5 years ago, GLBT people won a federal court preceent requiring that Rainbow Flags fly on the Bridge of Lions. After the flgas flew, three unhappy then-Commissioners voted to ban all but government flags, (then-Commission Joseph L. Boles, Jr. dissenting on First Amendment grounds). Mr. Boles is now our Mayor.
Six days ago, Mayor Boles joined Commissioner Roxanne Horvath and Commissioners Leeanna Freeman and Nancy Sikes-Kline in supporting restoring flags to the Bridge of Lions, as well as the Ponce e Leon Bridge -- the American flag, and other flags as well, including the Rainbow flag for Gay Pride week.
We have ended the era of "fear and smear" in our City government, when citizens and employees alike were made to feel uncomfortable in attending meetings, or raising concerns. "Fear and smear" is over.
Sure, there are a few anonymous hecklers on the St. Augustine Record's website, postng illiterate comments in the middle of the night, like the person who called for murdering our City Commissioners and officials in the Slave Market Square over the Mumford & Sons concert.
But no one pays much attention to them, or to the pitiful comment attributed to the late City Manager WILLIAM POMAR, who allegedly said, "The Bohemians have taken over."
More good news: today the Record announced it is abolishing anonymous comments effective November 3, 2013. This will help make ours a more civilized and compassionate city.
The idea that we should "be afraid, very afraid," of Rainbow flags, or GLBT people, or African-Americans, or th homless had its roots in the Ku Klux Klan political culture here, which led the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to call St. Augustine "the most lawless city" in America.
Today, we are a "Compassionate City," twentieth in the world and first in the State of Florida.
Our City Commissioners unanimously endorsed GLBT rights on December 10, 2012, amending our Fair Housing ordinance to make sexual orientation a protected class. The City of St. Augustine Beach joined them earlier this year, adding gender identity and including both housing and employment. KKK members can only wail and gnash their teeth, no longer having any votes at either table. Fifty years ago, the KKK ran our city and county.
Some days, I feel like an opposum -- every day I wake up in a new world.
In the spirit of Dr. King, diverse good and decent people, the thinking people, the cool people, here in St. Augustine have transformed this wonderful place. Meeting after meeting, I have been proud to watch our political culture transformed.
Hick hacks once ran our City. No longer.
Monday night, there were a number of policy initiatives passed by Commissioners, some covered by the Record this week, including a public private partnership repaving three histric streets and making them dazze the eye, like Aviles Street, as well as equality for storm water fees (with lifeline water rates in the offing), and a gathering place at the Bayfront Marina, with National Register of Historic Places status for the miniature golf course.
The Record missed the discussion of the flags. It was in Commissioner's comments, af the very end of the meeting, when often intriguing ideas and issues surface. The flag discussion is worth watching during the replay (the Commission meeting is replayed on GTV on Wednesday morning, October 23, at 9 AM).
The St. Augustine Ciy Commission has turned into a functional government before our eyes, in 8.5 years.
I reckon that I was treated crudely by City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS at that first meeting, but I never feared his threats ("I could have you arrested for disorderly conduct.") Both my parents were union organizers, and my father was a World War II 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper, "the old man" of his unit at age 31, jumping into Normandy, machine-gunning Nazis. They taught me to treasure the truth, and to work tirelessly to advance peoples' rights. As it says in the Bible, some 50 times, "Be not afraid."
Always remember, "Decisions are made by people who show up."
Our current City Commission's and City Manager's many good works show that, in St. Augustine, in James Madison's words, "here, sir, the people govern."
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