Inept News Quote of The Day

"They were dealt a harsh blow last year when neighbors in Riberia Point said they didn’t want the attraction there."
-- St. Augustine Record, online as "St. Augustine Aquarium breaks ground at site off S.R. 16," and in print with an even longer headline and subhead -- a PR-generated lead front page article with four (4) photos.

1. There is no such thing as "Riberia Point" -- that was City Hall's name for Punta de Buena Esperanza, the name the Spanish called the neighborhood hundreds of years ago -- the U.S. Board of Geographic Place Names does not recognize Riberia Point.

2. Lincolnville, the neighborhood surrounding acres of fill atop 35 foot tall submerged mountains of garbage, opposed the aquarium. Lincolnville was founded by freed slave African-Americans in 1866. The word Lincolnville does not appear in the article.

3. The aquarium cost City residents more than $50,000 in engineering and staff work for a project neighbors rejected.

4. The Record's former sportswriter, Stuart Korfhage, has consistently been pro-developer (that's his beat). He's also smarmily written that Nancy Shaver was an "upstart" in reporting her primary victory (she is now our Mayor).

5. I reported Shawn and Kathy Hiester to the Small Business Administration Inspector General over their loan guarantee application, falsely reporting on their website that they owned city owned land at the south end of Riberia.

6. FDEP 2011 guidelines and banking prudence militated against building an aquarium, a children's museum, or any other structure on top of 35 feet of garbage. Thanks to Nancy Shaver, Blake Souder, Cash McVay and Judith Seraphin for stopping this outrage.

7. No thanks to the Record for giving the false impression in today's story that Shawn and Kathy Hiester were some sort of early Christian martyrs for the "blow" wrought by "neighbors" who "said they didn't want the attraction" in Linolnville. Record never adequately covered neighbor concerns, including the garbage, or the fact the Aquarium website made materially false and misleading statements, e.g, about start dates and owning city land at "Riberia Point."