Sunday, May 01, 2016

Televise and Archive May 18-20, 2016 County Budget Meeting

St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners persists in violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Sunshine law expectations, repeatedly holding meetings that are not televised or archived on video in inconvenient times and places.

Why does St. Johns County, Florida insist on holding some County Commission meetings and many board meetings offline, untelevised, without cable tv or life streaming video or archives? Why are nearly all meetings during the daytime? Asking Commissioners to hold televised Budget Hearings May 18-20, 2016 to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Sunshine law. Is that too much to ask? It's our money.

-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin
To: mwanchick ; pmccormack ; bcc1jjohns ; bcc2jsmith ; bccd3 ; bccd4 ; bccd5
Subject: ADA Reasonable Accommodation and Sunshine Law Request on St. Johns County Budget Hearings May 18-20, 2016; Request No. 2016-175










Dear Chairman Smith, County Commissioners and Messrs. Wanchick and McCormack:
1. Please assure that there is live streaming internet, live cable TV video and archived video of the May 18-20, 2016 Budget Hearing of the St. Johns County Commission.
2. Why is the important annual budget meeting not being held at the County Commission Auditorium?  Please explain and provide documents.
3. This is a request for reasonable accommodation pursuant to ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and for using best available technology to comply with reasonable expectation of probity under Florida's Sunshine laws, enacted pursuant to Article I, Section 24, Fla. Constitution by vote of 3.8 million people (83% of voters) in 1992.
4. Please honor your duties under your constitutional oath, pursuant to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, to "support, protect and defend the Constitution and laws…."
5. Please send all documents concerning this and my prior ADA and Sunshine requests to open all public meetings to public scrutiny via live streaming video and archived video. 
6. St. Johns County has a custom, usage, practice and procedure violating First Amendment rights by holding BCC and Board meetings at the most inconvenient times and places,  so that we won't be able to go and discuss government actions, just as our Founders complained in the Declaration of Independence (1776), listing the offensives against democracy of King George III.  
7. Why do you hold meetings that are not televised?   Please explain and provide documents.
8. Why are virtually all of your meetings during the workday?   Please explain and provide documents.Please call me to discuss.


Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998




On Oct 20, 2015, at 3:32 PM, "easlavin@aol.com" <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:


Dear Priscilla, Mike, Pat and all:
1. Thank you for listening and for halting Priscilla's ill-advised plans to force the City of St. Augustine Beach to attend an illegal meeting.
2. When were any of you people planning to let the public know?
3. Does being County Commission Chair Priscilla Bennett or Administrator Michael Wanchick "mean never having to say you're sorry?"
4. Please cease and desist holding meetings that are not televised and otherwise ADA-accessible.
5. Why was our October 13, 2015 St. Johns County legislative delegation meeting never televised or archived on GTV, as it was in the past?  Shut-ins are unable to view that meeting. Why?
It's our money.
Thank you.
Cordially,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998

-----Original Message-----
From: Max Royle <mroyle@cityofsab.org>
To: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Oct 20, 2015 1:37 pm
Subject: FW: Joint Meeting between SJC BCC & City of St. Aug Beach Commission

In response to your recent inquiry.
From: Laura Taylor [mailto:ltaylor@sjcfl.us]
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2015 11:21 AM
To: Max Royle
Cc: Comm Samuels; 'Doug Burnett (dburnett@sjlawgroup.com)'; Joy Andrews; Michael Wanchick; Diane Lehmann; Linda Darty; Darrell Locklear; Betty Dixon; Thomas Filloramo; Yvonne King; Patrick McCormack; Melissa Lundquist; Lauren Ferro
Subject: Joint Meeting between SJC BCC & City of St. Aug Beach Commission
Please be advised that the Joint Meeting between SJCBCC and City of St. Augustine Beach Commission that was scheduled for Monday, October 26th will be rescheduled to later date.  We will be happy to work with the St Aug Beach City Manager’s office to find a date and location that we can mutually agree upon for a future Joint meeting.
Thanks for your cooperation!
Laura S. Taylor
St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners
Assistant to the County Administrator
Office of the County Administrator
Phone:  904.209.0533 | Fax  904.209.0534
Email:   ltaylor@sjcfl.us
-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: mwanchick <mwanchick@sjcfl.us>; pmccormack <pmccormack@sjcfl.us>; bcc1jjohns <bcc1jjohns@sjcfl.us>; bcc2jsmith <bcc2jsmith@sjcfl.us>; bccd3 <bccd3@sjcfl.us>; bccd4 <bccd4@sjcfl.us>; bccd5 <bccd5@sjcfl.us>; mlundquist <mlundquist@sjcfl.us>; bjihaad <bjihaad@sjcfl.us>; tfilloramo <tfilloramo@sjcfl.us>; dlocklear <dlocklear@sjcfl.us>
Sent: Tue, Oct 20, 2015 1:23 pm
Subject: Re: County Must Cease and Desist Sunshine and Constitutional Rights Violations: Joint County-City of SAB Meeting Must Be Televised In County Auditorium, Not Away From Cameras in Outbuilding Conference Room


Please respond -- still not on our SJC BCC meeting calendar.  Why?

-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: mwanchick <mwanchick@sjcfl.us>; pmccormack <pmccormack@sjcfl.us>; bcc1jjohns <bcc1jjohns@sjcfl.us>; bcc2jsmith <bcc2jsmith@sjcfl.us>; bccd3 <bccd3@sjcfl.us>; bccd4 <bccd4@sjcfl.us>; bccd5 <bccd5@sjcfl.us>; mlundquist <mlundquist@sjcfl.us>; bjihaad <bjihaad@sjcfl.us>; tfilloramo <tfilloramo@sjcfl.us>; dlocklear <dlocklear@sjcfl.us>
Cc: dburnett <dburnett@sjlawgroup.com>; mroyle <mroyle@cityofsab.org>; comasamuels Sent: Fri, Oct 16, 2015 4:10 pm
Subject: Re: County Must Cease and Desist Sunshine and Constitutional Rights Violations: Joint County-City of SAB Meeting Must Be Televised In County Auditorium, Not Away From Cameras in Outbuilding Conference Room

There is no public notice of any kind on the County Commission website for any meeting with the City of St. Augustine Beach on October 26, 2015 at 9 AM.  
Why?


-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: mwanchick <mwanchick@sjcfl.us>; pmccormack <pmccormack@sjcfl.us>; bcc1jjohns <bcc1jjohns@sjcfl.us>; bcc2jsmith <bcc2jsmith@sjcfl.us>; bccd3 <bccd3@sjcfl.us>; bccd4 <bccd4@sjcfl.us>; bccd5 <bccd5@sjcfl.us>; mlundquist <mlundquist@sjcfl.us>; bjihaad <bjihaad@sjcfl.us>; tfilloramo <tfilloramo@sjcfl.us>; dlocklear <dlocklear@sjcfl.us>
Sent: Fri, Oct 16, 2015 11:49 am
Subject: County Must Cease and Desist Sunshine and Constitutional Rights Violations: Joint County-City of SAB Meeting Must Be Televised In County Auditorium, Not Away From Cameras in Outbuilding Conference Room

Dear Chair Bennett, et al.:
1. Please cease and desist your tentative plans to hold the October 26, 2015 County-City of St. Augustine Beach joint meeting outside the Sunshine, in an out-building conference room, instead of televised on GTV, in the County Administration Building Auditorium, the only place where it is legal for St. Augustine Beach City Commission to meet with you under F.S. 166.0213 and SAB's October 5, 2015 resolution authorizing the joint meeting.  
2. Background: the City of St. Augustine Beach City Attorney, Mr. Douglas Nelson Burnett, researched my concerns about F.S. 286.  
3. Thus, Mr. Burnett prepared a responsive resolution, which was unanimously enacted with my support October 5, 2015 pursuant to a 2014 Florida statute governing out-of-town meetings: it states that the meeting will be in the Auditorium of the County Administration Building at 500 Sebastian View.  
4. You may view the proceedings one hour and twenty minutes into the October 5, 2015 SAB Commission meeting on the City of St. Augustine Beach website here: http://www.staugbch.com/meetings/archived/
5. The SAB resolution is mandatory under F.S. 166.0213; any deviation is unauthorized by statutory and constitutional law. Prior City and St. Augustine Beach and City of St. Augustine meetings outside City limits without such a resolution were illegal, ultra vires and unconstitutional. 
6. The County Auditorium was specified by the October 5, 2015 SAB Commission resolution. Any other proposed location is unauthorized by the resolution and violates the resolution and therefore F.S. 166.0213, F.S. 286, and Florida Const. Article VIII, 2c.
7. Commission Chairman PRISCILLA ("RACHAEL") BENNETT' (a/k/a "The Muse" on The St. Augustine Record website) reported alleged remarks about the Commission's meeting room being "too formal" for the joint meeting betray once again her desire to violate Sunshine laws and her attempt to inflict her corporate background upon our governments, to the detriment of transparency.
8.  Enough.  No more shady un-televised County Commission meetings are desired are required.  
9. The public interest in development decisions outweighs Ms. Bennett's desire for a "less formal" setting -- this is our government, not a St. Johns County Republican club social meeting or a tea for government contractors, developers  foreign investors,  secretive Limited Liability Companies, and their ilk.
10. In the words of my late Irish-Bavarian grandmother, kindly "drop the oyster and leave the wharf."  
Please govern yourselves accordingly and herein faileth not.
Thank you.
Cordially,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998


-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Reynolds <thomasfreynolds@yahoo.com>
To: Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Oct 16, 2015 10:33 am
Subject: Fw: Joint County City Meeting

Update with notice sent to Beach City Commissioners.
On Friday, October 16, 2015 10:27 AM, Tom Reynolds <thomasfreynolds@yahoo.com> wrote:



On Tuesday, October 13, 2015 4:39 PM, Patrick McCormack <pmccormack@sjcfl.us> wrote:


Hi Tom,
The proposed date/location are:
Monday, October 26, 2015 9:00 AM-12:00 PM.
HHS Bldg (Health & Human Services) - Muscovy Conf Room (1st Floor)
v/r
Pat
Patrick F. McCormack
County Attorney
St. Johns County
500 San Sebastian View
St. Augustine, Florida 32084
(904)209-0805 office
(904)209-0806 fax

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

that's easy, they don't want to look bad on camera.