UPDATE: Committee doing. great job, but City needs to lighten up on its effort to deny rights to full, fair, equal public comment. Thus, I've sent a letter to City of St. Augustine Confederate Monument Contextualization Committee members today:
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Slavin
Sent: Thu, Feb 22, 2018 3:15 pm
Subject: Please end disparities in treatment of public comment at Monument Committee meetings
Dear Chairman Jackson and Committee members:
1. Thank you all for your fine work on the City of St. Augustine's Confederate Monument Contextualization Advisory Committee!
2. I agree with Chairman Thomas Jackson's statement at the inaugural meeting on February 7, 2018 that public comment should not be limited to three minutes. I agree with Steve Cottrell's column in The St. Augustine Record: "Dump the damn timer and let Chairman Jackson handle things."
http://www.staugustine.com/opinion/20180213/steve-cottrell-contextualization-committee-aims-for-balance
3. Now we have a precedent. Inserted on our agenda by City staff, and purporting to speak for our local "military community," a retired officer, Mr. George Leonardis was allowed some thirty (30) minutes to lecture the Committee (not counting Q&A). That was ten (10) times as much as any of the rest of us. No residents were permitted to ask Mr. Leonardis any questions or make any comments before he abruptly left, shortly before public comment commenced. His rather patronizing lecture included certain conclusory, misleading or inaccurate statements that are contrary to historic facts. His extolling "heroes" and condemning "historical revisionism" reflects a lack of scholarly appreciation for historic facts. His statements about the number of veterans in our city and county seemed threatening, as if he were making a political speech. Thankfully, based upon your knowledge, wisdom and experience, several of you Committee members rightly questioned and corrected Mr. Leonardis' misstatements during Committee members' Q&A. But, due to the City's agenda-writing, no public Q&A we provided for in the agenda in response to Mr. Leonardis' statements. The [t]ape is here: http://staugustinefl.swagit.com/play/02212018-856. [typo corrected for blog].
4. At your February 21, 2018 meeting, public comment on Mr. Leonardis's lengthy presentation was delayed until the end of the meeting, by which time he and another man with him left. When I asked Mr. Leonardi to stay, he put his hand on my shoulder and proceeded to bark at me, as if I were an enlisted man and he were still a military officer. How rude and disrespectful. He should have stayed another fifteen minutes and heard our responses to his statements.
5. Before he left, Mr. Leonardis was permitted to call out statements from the audience long after he finished his ukase, without being recognized or going to a microphone, and without being called out of order.
6. Meanwhile, SAPD Chief Barry Fox stigmatized another citizen (me) merely for asking for copies of a handout on cell phone interactivity. This was blatant content content discrimination. Enough. All citizens are entitled to equal treatment. Mr. Leonardis and no right to continue speaking after he left the podium, interjecting without being recognized, and without being gaveled. His hubris reflects his apparent expectation of privilege.
7. At your March 7, 2018 meeting, I request that the Committee kindly vote to adopt its own rule(s) on the time and timing of public comment. Already, the three minute rule's misapplication to our Monument advisory committee has had deleterious and discriminatory effects, chilling our cherished constitutional rights under the First, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments.
8. Our City's three minute rule does not make sense, not even for City Commission. It makes no sense whatever for our Monument advisory committee.
9. The three minute rule's origin is not known, but I reckon its etiology may lie in "Jim Crow" law, when a segregationist Mayor, City Commissioners and staff sought to chill public discourse. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rightly called the City of St. Augustine "the most lawless" city in America.
10. At City Commission meetings to this day, privileged Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) and undisclosed foreign investors and secretive, wealthy developers' lawyers have unlimited time to plump for "development" and gentricication. Meanwhile, average citizens concerned about preserving and protecting our history are kept in their place on threat of arrest, with an arbitrary, capricious time limit applicable only to average citizens, not dodgy developers and their mouthpieces.
11. This there minute rule is not binding on our Monument Advisory Committee.
12. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote, “It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.”
13. The eloquent words that Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816 are carved in marble on the Jefferson Memorial: "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
14. Will you please place the public comment time and timing question on your agenda for public comment, at your March 7, 2018 meeting?
15. I strongly agree with you, Chairman Jackson, and with the Record's columnist, Steve Cottrell, that you have the right to write your own rules on public comment. Please consult with independent counsel and do the right thing.
16. This will comply with our First, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, and will preserve, protect and safeguard our constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection.
Thank you again for your fine work!
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
www.edslavin.com
Historian Susan Parker speaks during the City of St. Augustine Confederate Memorial Contextualization Advisory Committee’s first meeting on Wednesday at City Hall. [CHRISTINA KELSO/THE RECORD]
STEVE COTTRELL: Contextualization committee aims for balance
Posted Feb 13, 2018 at 2:08 PM
Updated Feb 13, 2018 at 2:08 PM
St. Augustine Record
“I had not anticipated being chair of this committee, but I plan to do as good a job as I can.” With those words from a genuinely humble Tom Jackson, the first meeting of the seven-member St. Augustine Confederate Memorial Contextualization Advisory Committee came to end last Wednesday afternoon.
I was impressed with Tom’s approach to chairing the ad hoc committee — especially his effort to encourage all members to take an equal and active role at the table, as well as encouraging the general public to get involved in the process.
There were only 10 to 12 citizens at the organizational meeting, but Jackson was ready to hear from any who wanted to speak. And he wasn’t one bit concerned about the city’s restrictive three-minute time limit for people wanting to comment at public meetings.
Here’s the exchange between Jackson and City Clerk Darlene Galambos when Tom opened the meeting to public comments:
Jackson: “This (committee) is not governed by the rules of the City Commission, so they can talk as long as they want, right?”
Galambos: “Three minutes.”
The chairman, seemingly surprised by the city clerk’s blunt directive, advised the first public speaker, “OK, we’ll do that three minutes, and if you feel like you need more time, just say so.”
Good for Tom.
Despite Jackson’s suggestion that speakers be given some flexibility, the city’s electronic timer was activated and buzzed obnoxiously whenever someone’s time expired. On at least two occasions, however, speakers continued talking for several more seconds then concluded their remarks without any prompting from the chair.
My suggestion: Dump the damn timer and let Chairman Jackson handle things.
Another suggestion: Now that the committee has been organized and a chair and vice chair selected, city staff should sit at a separate table.
I understand why Assistant City Attorney John Cary was at the table for the first meeting; he needed to discuss the Florida Sunshine Law and remind committee members of potential legal problems if they violate the open-meeting regulations.
City Manager John Regan also sat at the table, providing introductory comments and answering questions from the committee. But, once Tom Jackson was unanimously selected chair and Regina Phillips vice-chair, Regan promptly excused himself and sat in the audience.
Having a police presence and key city staffers at the committee table may have served an initial purpose, but there’s no need for any of them to sit at the table during future meetings any more than they sit at the table for City Commission meetings.
The committee has three Ph.D. historians, two of whom are connected with Flagler College. It also has three African-Americans, lifelong residents of St. Augustine who bring crucial personal histories and professional background to the table. The seventh member is also associated with Flagler, an adjunct history lecturer who has lived here for only a year.
They are seven intelligent people with what might prove to be seven different visions of what should be done at the eastern edge of the Plaza de Constitucion. Some might believe a single contextual marker at the Confederate war memorial will suffice, while others might prefer multiple markers.
Committee member Sharyn Wilson Smith Coley, a retired St. Johns County educator and lifelong Lincolnville resident, said the story of the Confederate war memorial and St. Augustine should be as inclusive as possible. Dr. Susan Parker, Ph.D. and longtime history contributor to The Record, reminded her colleagues that too much verbiage on markers becomes counterproductive — noting that many people tend to read the first couple lines of historical markers then skip to the final couple lines.
Trying to strike a balance between shorthand history and detailed history is the committee’s immediate challenge, and that process begins in earnest at 3 p.m. next Wednesday afternoon (Feb. 20) when the advisory group meets again in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.
If you plan to attend and address the committee, please limit your remarks to three minutes. Or at least try, OK?
Steve can be contacted at cottrell.sf@gmail.com.
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