Reinventing Government

Photo credit: GREG TRAVOUS & HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER


Our Founders taught us to "Reinvent Government"
Let's "Reinvent Government."
Here.
Now.
Enough crony contracts and leases -- Mayor BOLES and ex-Mayor WEEKS have made some $2-3 million on their no-bid lease of 81 St. George Street over the past 25 years. Enough flummery, dupery and nincompoopery.
Let's elect a new Mayor, open to new ideas -- one who will NEVER say, "we don't want to re-invent the wheel."
Why?
Mayor BOLES has said dozens of times, "We don't want to re-invent the wheel."
Who is "we?"
Why would we not want to "reinvent" government?
To whom does BOLES think he's talking.
"I hate that cliche," in the words of Harvey Korman's Wyoming Attorney General character in Mel Brooks' comedy, "Blazing Saddles."
This is America in 2014.
We're constantly "reinventing" the wheel -- more than 500,000 patents on wheels on the USPTO TTAB website.
We're constantly "reinventing" everything.
We're also constantly reinventing government. Al Gore wrote a book about it -- "Reinventing Government." It's what do here.
It's the American way.
It's what our Founders had in mind for us. It's even carved in marble on the Jefferson Monument, about not wearing either the clothes you wore as a child or following the institutional choices of "our barbarous ancestors."
If we don't "reinvent" government, we have corruption, waste, fraud, abuse, misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance.
Not to mention flummery, dupery and nincompoopery.
Not to mention cognitive misers -- overpaid officials who know not that they know not.
Our City government needs workers, not shirkers.
Our City government needs creative innovators reinventing government, not dullards who waste our dollars.
Our City government needs more activists and fewer faceless bureaucrats waiting for their pensions
Our City government needs more inspiration and perspiration.
Our City government needs a climate of openness and candor.
We must end forever the climate of fear and repression.
City founder Pedro Menendez de Aviles is dead.
Former City Manager WILLIAM BRUCE HARRISS is gone.
We're all proud of the progress St. Augustine is making -- two civil rights monuments in our Slave Market Square, a new civil rights museum at Dr. Hayling's former office, an honest City Manager, a Fair Housing ordinance that includes "sexual orientation" as a protected class.
But there is much still to be done.
We can do better.
We must do better.
We will do better.
St. Augustine must slash water rates for residents and raise them for businesses -- its time large water users pay fair rates -- residents pay double what they do elsewhere, due to the undue influence of large water users like Northrop Grumman, Flagler College, Flagler Hospital, hotel and motel owners, bars and restaurants who don't conserve water and have no economic incentives to do so.
St. Augustine must fix our aging streets and water and sewer pipes.
St. Augustine must solve traffic tie-ups and parking problems.
St. Augustine must have easy bicycling, walking and public transportation -- trolleys for all.
St. Augustine must solve long Bridge of Lions openings, which waste gasoline and frustrate residents and visitors.
St. Augustine deserves an employment nondiscrimination ordinance, applicable to all employers, like St. Augustine Beach adopted last year, unanimously, 5-0.
St. Augustine deserves a whistleblower protection policy second to none, like the Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission of St. Johns County adopted five years ago, unanimously.
St. Augustine still has racial and income divisions that must be healed.
There's not even a water fountain on our Slave Market Square -- it was renewed sometime in or after 1964.
We must promote equality in employment, services, water, sewer and public accommodations.
We must end racism and classism in all their forms.
Some St. Augustine employees and residents are still afraid to speak their minds for fear of retaliation.
Some are threatened by employers, including the county and city.
Enough.
Amid our rising expectations, Mayor BOLES has not done nearly enough to bring about change and healing.
Mayor BOLES' trite, tired, tiresome mantra is "we don't want to reinvent the wheel."
Really?
Tired of that dumb 'ole cliche? Me too!.
Ancient Athenians likewise eventually grew tired of hearing the name of "Aristides the Just."
They sent him packing.
Modern St. Augustinians have grown tired of hearing "Mayor Joe Boles" say "we don't want to reinvent the wheel."
Yes we do!
Yes we can!
We get to overthrow our government every two years.
This is America.
It's our country.
Absentee ballots may be cast now.
Early voting begins July 15th.
The primary is July 26th.