Saturday, March 05, 2016

RON BROWN, RESIGN FROM CULTURAL COUNCIL: HE "COMES AS A WOLF," In Justice Antonin Scalia's Words







Former City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN must resign from the Board of the St. Johns Cultural Council.  

Architect of the City's anti-artist prosecutions, persecutions and legislation, 2006-2014 it's time for him to go.  Now.  

His putrid policies are a stench in the nostrils of our Nation, and unconstitutional.

RONALD WAYNE BROWN is no "wolf in sheep's clothing." In the immortal words of the late United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia, "This wolf comes as a wolf."  Morrison v Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 699 (1988)(Scalia, J., dissenting).

-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin
To: ron
Cc: awitt340
Sent: Sat, Mar 5, 2016 4:44 pm
Subject: Re: RONALD WAYNE BROWN's resignation from St. Johns County Cultural Council Board
Dear Ronnie:
Please respond.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am, 
Sincerely yours, 
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998



-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: ron <ron@lawronbrown.com>
Sent: Wed, Mar 2, 2016 10:13 am
Subject: Re: RONALD WAYNE BROWN's resignation from St. Johns County Cultural Council Board
Dear Ronnie:
1. Please resign from the St. Johns County Cultural Council Board, effective immediately. 

2. Your behavior as City Attorney toward artists was despicable, and contrary to the public interest.
3. So was your behavior in not raising any questions or legal concerns before the City of St. Augustine in 2010 gave away $275,000 of CIty funds to a newly created secretive foundation -- attempting to privatize the 450th anniversary commemoration to "First America Foundation" for the express purpose of violating Florida Sunshine and Open Records laws -- and planning a Sunshine violating "business trip to Spain" (both cancelled after eighteen of us retaining the law firm of Holland & Knight as pro bono counsel).  Your lack of respect for citizens' rights under federal and state constitutions was a stench in the nostrils of our Nation's Oldest City
4. So was your lack of constitutional law knowledge as Town Attorney for Hastings, where you stated you did not know what the Fifteenth Amendment says when residents objected to New York real estate speculator Robert Michael Graubard's annexations of 800 acres of farmland into the Town of Hastings for real estate speculation purposes, without providing any funding for sewer, water or other infrastructure that new housing would require.  You were a lapdog, not a watchdog.
5. So was your being the lapdog accomplice of controversial City of St. Augustine City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRISS until 2010 and of Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR. (2006-2014) and their reign of error.
6. The people of St. Augustine have too often paid the price for your mindless mendacity and your grossly malfeasant legal work as City Attorney, including your futile attempts to cover up illegal dumping of a landfill in a lake, illegal emissions of semi-treated sewage effluent into our saltwater marsh, waste, fraud, abuse, misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance, breach of fiduciary duty, favoritism toward developers, racism, sexism and no-bid contracts and below-market commercial leases of City property --- including the noisome renewal in 2014 of a badly drafted, one-sided, below-market rate lease between the City of St. Augustine and ex-Mayors LEN WEEKS AND JOE BOLES for 81 St. George Street (Florida Cracker Cafe and Savannah Sweets), subject of a 2014 FOLIO WEEKLY investigative cover story.
7. Please resign today, Ronnie, as you lack the requisite qualifications to be a board member of an arts advocacy organization.
8. Your being the architect of the anti-artist prosecutions and ordinances, 2006-2014, alone disqualifies you from being on the Arts Council Board.
9. You never returned a phone message that I left for you several days ago.  Why?
10. Please call me to discuss and arrange for a time for a meeting.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am, 
Sincerely yours, 
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: ron <ron@lawronbrown.com>
Cc: awitt340 <awitt340@gmail.com>;
Sent: Mon, Feb 29, 2016 2:01 pm
Subject: Re: RONALD WAYNE BROWN's resignation from St. Johns County Cultural Council Board required today

Dear Ronnie:
Please respond before close of business today. 
Thank you.
Cordially,
Ed
-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: ron <ron@lawronbrown.com>
Cc: awitt340 <awitt340@gmail.com>; bamcnees <bamcnees@yahoo.com>
Sent: Mon, Feb 29, 2016 11:56 am
Subject: RONALD WAYNE BROWN's resignation from St. Johns County Cultural Council Board required today
Dear Ronnie:
1. Please resign from the Board of Directors of our St. Johns County Cultural Council. 

2. Only after you resign will visual artists and the Cultural Council be empowered to have a robust and uninhibited discussion of preserving, protecting and restoring plein air artists' rights under the First Amendment in St. Augustine -- without conflict of interest or appearance of impropriety inherent in your being a board member.
3. Your service on the Cultural Council board has a chilling effect on discussion of the most important art issue in St. Augustine -- three decades of First Amendment violations by the City of St. Augustine, in which you played a central role from 2006-2014.
4. Your service on the Cultural Council board, 2015-2016, is indefensible, and must be ended at once.
5. Please call to discuss.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: awitt340 <awitt340@gmail.com>
Sent: Mon, Feb 29, 2016 10:28 am
Subject: Re: Bates v. City of St. Augustine; Former City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN's resignation from St. Johns County Cultural Council Board required today
Dear Andy:
1. Your lack of any substantive response is freighted with admissions by silence.

2. You moved to St. Augustine and have since accepted as Gospel the Establishment's ranting cant against plein air artists, and repeated it as your mantra.
3. You airily refused to meet with Bruce Kevin Bates, stating you needed to learn "the facts" first, as if they were being handed you on cue cards.
4. It is legally and morally wrong for attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN to continue serving one more day on a Cultural Council Board supposedly dedicated to promotion of the arts.  
5. RONALD WAYNE BROWN made stigmatizing, marginalizing, hounding and arresting plein air artists his unethical legacy as City Attorney, 2006-2014.  He prevented artists from making a living at their profession.  He seemed to take pleasure in his attacks on First Amendment protected activity.  He was no innocent bystander.
6. RONALD WAYNE BROW made materially false and misleading statements to Commissioners to further his anti-artist arrest agenda.  RONALD WAYNE BROWN has no business serving on the Cultural Council Board for another day. 
7. RONALD WAYNE BROWN's conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety is indefensible, and must be ended at once.  
8. RONALD WAYNE BROWN is no "wolf in sheep's clothing." In the immortal words of the late United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia, "This wolf comes as a wolf."  Morrison v Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 699 (1988)(Scalia, J., dissenting).
9. Will RONALD WAYNE BROWN kindly resign today from the Cultural Council?
10. Are you available to meet today?
Thank you for your very prompt attention to these urgent matters.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: awitt340 <awitt340@gmail.com>
Sent: Sun, Feb 28, 2016 2:28 pm
Subject: Re: Bates v. City of St. Augustine; Former City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN's resignation from St. Johns County Cultural Council Board

Dear Andy:
1. Please respond to my February 27, 2016 e-mail (below).

2. Have you sent the enclosed federal judge's order to your board yet?
3. Please send me all of the e-mall addresses of every single one of the members of the St. Johns County Cultural Council.
4. When is the next board meeting of the St. Johns County Cultural Council?
5. Please place this matter on the agenda for the next board meeting of the St. Johns County Cultural Council, with public comment on it.
6. Has the mastermind of the City's anti-artist policies, 2006-2014 (mendacious malfeasant maladroit ex-City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN) resigned yet from the Board of the St. Johns County Cultural Council?  If not, when will he do so?
7. Is he the person you airily told plaintiff Bruce Bates was going to fill you in with "the facts" as you delayed meeting with Mr. Bates?  How gauche and louche.
8. Are you available to meet tomorrow?
9. The St. Johns County Cultural Council cannot ignore or delay taking a position on these matters of fundamental human rights, and decades of City wrongdoing by the City that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote on June 11, 1964 was "the most lawless city in America."
10. Thank you in advance for your prompt assistance.
Cordially,
Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: awitt340 <awitt340@gmail.com>
Sent: Sat, Feb 27, 2016 1:44 pm
Subject: Bates v. City of St. Augustine; Former City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN's resignation from St. Johns County Cultural Council Board


Dear Andy:
1.  This is an urgent First Amendment issue that won't wait. As I requested yesterday, please send the PDF of United States District Court Judge Brian J. Davis's Order Granting Preliminary Injunction to the Board.  When and where is the next St. Johns County Cultural Council board meeting?  
2. Will you please place Bates v. City of St. Augustine (Bates II) on the Board agenda and kindly discuss filing of an amicus curiae brief in support of the artists?.
3.  A.  What are your thoughts about the appearance of impropriety and conflict of interest inherent in former City of St. Augustine City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN (2006-2014) serving on the Board?  
    B. Controversial St. Augustine City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN is a likely federal court trial witness in Bates II, and might well be called by the artists as an adverse witness in their case-in-chief under Federal Rule of Evidence 611c (direct examination as if on cross-examination).

    C. "On what theory?" as Henry Kissinger might say, is RONALD WAYNE BROWN on the Cultural Council Board?  If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know that someone put him there.  How and why was BROWN appointed to the Board?  Who put him there?  Please provide all documents and information on the etiology of this decision.

    D. Does RONALD WAYNE BROWN's service on the Board neuter, nullify and negate the Board's artist advocacy, chilling robust and uninhibited discussion of BROWN's artist-oppression legislation and prosecution?
    E. Neither you nor RONALD WAYNE BROWN are in any position to presume to block or delay Cultural Council support for our City's artists or to pressure plaintiff artists to dismiss their lawsuit. Please cease and desist from uninformed unctuous ukase utterances such as your February 13, 2016 e-mail:
From: Andy [mailto:awitt340@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2016 12:55 PM
To: Ron Brown
Cc: sjcc@historiccoastculture.com; NADIA RAMOUTAR; diane@dlmatarazainc.net
Subject: Re: Artists issues
Great thanks
What's the current court case. Plaintiff and defendant. And can I get the docs off the web.  
Am thinking is the plaintiffs attorney doing it pro bono or hoping to get fees in a settlement 
If we could get both parties to drop the suit maybe we could start fresh with some form of mutually agreed regulation 
Keep st George street clear but allow some art on the plaza 
That seems to be the sticking point from what I hear
(Emphasis added)

4. Having on our Cultural Council Board RONALD WAYNE BROWN -- one of the adversarial architects of the City's anti-artist criminal prosecutions, policies, practices and ordinances, 2006-2014 -- does not pass the "smell test" or the "laugh test."  It is deeply offensive.  Upon reflection is RONALD WAYNE BROWN serving on the Cultural Council Board not unlike inviting the co-author of the Nuremberg Laws to serve on the board of a Holocaust Museum? In the immortal words of Senator Dale Bumpers, "That dog won't hunt."
5. One way to cure the nasty nagging noisome RONALD WAYNE BROWN problem is BROWN's immediate resignation, which I hereby respectfully request today. 
6. Otherwise, please expect to read, see and hear First Amendment protected activity until former City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN resigns.
7. Cultural Council Board members must all be advocates for artists, and not adversaries: this is the Cultural Council's purpose and function.
8. As estimable City Attorney of St. Augustine, RONALD WAYNE BROWN did not carry out City policy, he instigated it and proposed it, acting as a bully, bullet in the gun of City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRIS, Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR., ex-Mayor CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR. -- hick hacks who criminalized art in our City and ran artists out of our Plaza de la Constitucion and St. George Street.  
9. The simple palpitating truth of the matter is that artist tormenter and prosecutor RONALD WAYNE BROWN has no credibility.  
10. It is time for RONALD WAYNE BROWN to go.  Please call to discuss.
Thank you for all that you do.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
-----Original Message-----
From: andy <awitt340@gmail.com>
To: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
Cc: 'Barbara McNees' <bamcnees@yahoo.com>; ron <ron@lawronbrown.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 26, 2016 5:09 pm
Subject: RE: Bates v. City of St. Augustine Order Granting Preliminary Injunction

1-      Board has already been advised of the document 
2-      We are conducting a planning process where we are “listening” to the community on issues of interest  in advancing the arts,  since several artists have raised the Bates/COSA, we will include that in our findings.  Next step is a survey of the community that will develop and list of community priorities.  At that point, probably this summer following the tabulation of the surveys and a draft report, all the issues will be brought to the board
3-      We don’t know enough yet to comment.  We have in the past expressed interest in prtobidng the COSA with sample ordinances/policies from other cities
4-      That’s  board decision as to time
5-      Not enough info to comment other than we believe in fostering an environment where artists of all disciplines can thrive.
Andrew Witt
Executive Director
St Johns Cultural Council
15 Old Mission Avenue
St Augustine, FL 32084
904-808-7330
From: easlavin@aol.com [mailto:easlavin@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 3:12 PM
To: awitt340@gmail.com
Subject: Bates v. City of St. Augustine Order Granting Preliminary Injunction
Dear Andy:
1. Please distribute the enclosed February 24, 2016 federal court injunction to our Cultural Council Board.   
2. Kindly place this issue on their next meeting agenda.
3. Please invite public comment on the legal, moral and ethical duties of our Cultural Council in the face of repeated, open, notorious and blatant violations by our City of St. Augustine of artist rights for 25 years -- criminalizing artistic expression in an arts colony.   
4. I suggest that the Cultural Council file an amicus curiae brief with the United States District Court in support of the artists and provide supportive trial witnesses knowledgeable about the economic, social and cultural benefits of plein air painting.
5. Please call to discuss.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin









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