Friday, June 08, 2018

SNOWFLAKE: St. Augustine Beach PZB Chair JANE WEST called police to complain of my First Amendment protected activity

Have you ever been reported to the police for exercising First Amendment rights in America?  I have.  It happened in St. Augustine Beach, Florida, whose dysfunctional city government is a constant source of amazement.

Violating the First Amendment and abusing her public trust, St. Augustine Beach PZB Chair JANE WEST, environmental lawyer, has twice called the cops on me (Ed Slavin), blatant retaliation for disagreeing with her:
  • in November 2017, after I wrote PZB Chair WEST and questioned her legal authority to file an application for appointment to a vacant City Commission for another person, DAVID BRADFIELD, the only one of fourteen (14) candidates who did not follow instructions and file a letter explaining his interest.  WEST dropped by her business card, a handwritten note, and a dated obsolete eight (8) year old resume for City Commission applicant BRADFIELD.  She filed a police report because I sent her an e-mail?  The police told her they would talk to me about it.  (They didn't). 
  • in September 2015, I questioned WEST's mishandling opposition to the DOW PUD, now known as THE COLLECTOR, owned by DAVID BARTON CORNEAL  In response she called the police;  and complained of my telephone call and text messages.  Commander JAMES H. PARKER told me not to call her again; PARKER, a/k/a "PORKER," was later fired.
Snowflake JANE WEST 
lacks respect for the First Amendment.  

JANE WEST  reminds me of JAMES BYRNES, a Reagan-era Department of the Interior official, who filed an Inspector General criminal complaint against my seven Indian Probate Judge clients judges, filing a complaint against them for signing a one page faxed petition defending Chief Judge Parlen McKenna a against retaliatory reduction-in-force.  He claimed this abused the government fax machine, requesting criminal investigation.

The DoI IG bluntly told the official (JAMES BYRNES) to stop filing trivial, frivolous complaints and wasting the time of a law enforcement agency.*

SABPD Chief Robert Hardwick needs to do the same with JANE WEST.

We know JANE WEST's actions were unconstitutional, violating the First Amendment.

BUT Is she utterly ungrateful and ungracious?  I thrice recommended JANE WEST, to:
  • St. Augustine Beach Mayor GARY SNODGRASS. for a junior alternate position, introducing him to her during a meeting recess, stating, "She saved Briny Breezes!" (singing her praises for successful environmental litigation that stopped a small town from being torn down).  She got the gig and moved up to Chair.
  • Citizens who hired her to fight the proposed 7-Eleven at May & San Marco.  She did an excellent job and the project was halted.  
  • Citizens who hired her to fight the proposed DOW PUD.  She did a crummy job, was ill-prepared, forgot about a scheduled meeting with clients, failed to file pre-hearing motions on procedural issues, and refused to pursue an appeal, abruptly dumping her clients.
My three (3) recommendations of JANE WEST were sincere.

My 2015 dissent expressed to JANE WEST was sincere.

I wrote about it here. http://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2015/09/will-hp-1-neighbors-appeal-dow-pud.html

My 2017 dissent was never answered -- a November 28, 2018 e-mail asking questions of WEST, who applied for a City Commission seat "on behalf" of DAVID BRADFIELD.  I wrote her:

From: Ed Slavin 
To: janewestlaw ; db 
Cc: jpwilson ; comrobrien ; comugeorge ; commengland ; commkostka ; hardwickra ; mroyle ; braddatz ; pat.gleason 
Sent: Tue, Nov 28, 2017 8:03 am
Subject: Re: Request No. 2017-646: David Ashley Bradfield's "application" for St. Augustine Beach Commission vacancy incomplete, noncompliant, possibly ultra vires?



Dear Ms. West:
1. Did real estate salesman and former City of St. Augustine Beach PZB Vice Chair David Bradfield: 

(a) take a vacation in Costa Rica, then 
(b) hire you as his lawyer to apply on his behalf for a vacant seat on Commission?



2. Why did you then file on Mr. Bradfield's behalf with the City of St. Augustine Beach a firm resume for Design Build Logistics, LLC, his company, which lost its Florida corporate charter in 2010 for his failure to provide renewal paperwork?

3   Why was that filing unadorned by any mandatory required explanation of his interest in the job of City Commissioner?   

4. Why should we consider this filing responsive?  Mr. Bradfield had a duty to comply with the City of St. Augustine's rules. 

5.  Is Mr. Bradfield's Design Build Logistics LLC operating illegally without a charter?
6. Did any City Commissioners ask Mr. Bradfield to apply for the vacant Commission seat?  Did you?
7. Why was there no timely filing of a letter of interest explaining his interest in the job? 
8. Why did you file a firm resume for his former LLC, which ceased to exist seven years ago?
9. Please send me any evidence of your current, past and planned legal representation of David Bradfield.
10. Please send me copies of any legal ethics opinions on the efficacy of the PZB chair representing the former PZB chair in an effort to have him appointed to the City Commission without complying with its bare minimum procedural requirements.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
NO RESPONSE.

JANE WEST and DAVID BRADFIELD did not respond.

But JANE WEST reported the foregoing e-mail to the St. Augustine Police!

Like too many hick hack politicians and too many local business operators, environmental litigator JANE WEST is thin-skinned and can't stand criticism.

The St. Augustine Record's advice to local government officials about me in 2006 resonates:

to our public officials, we suggest you get thicker skins.

To those of you who stood up to applaud the mayor after he lambasted Slavin, shame on you for trying to stifle free speech. All of us should defend people¹s right to express their views, even when they are unpopular.


Thin-skinned JANE WEST reminds me of the unethical chintzy St. Augustine restauranteur who told unhappy customers, "I'm calling the cops" (he actually did)!

In America, business owners call the police to chill, coerce and intimidate First Amendment protected activity.

PZB Chair JANE WEST is in pari delicto with the indelicate routine habit and practice of local yokel redneck peckerwoods who think calling the cops is their innate right as capitalists (like LEN WEEKS' abuses of artist rights on St. George Street, 1993-date).

Such unnecessary police calls are unethical, unseemly and ungracious.  If JANE WEST can't stand the heat, let her leave the PZB and stop wasting police time.

Why this matters: My communications with JANE WEST are First Amendment protected activity.  Her reporting them to the police raises questions about her ethics and mental stability, and disrespect for our U.S. Constitution.

When she did a good job defending PZB's position on the controversial EMBASSY SUITES waterslide nuisance June 4, 2018, I spoke to her and reached out to shake her hand.  JANE WEST snootily shook her head, her hands at her sides.  I responded, "You're not going to shake my hand?"

She replied, "I practically have a restraining order against you."

I replied, "You're crazy."

She walked away.

Is JANE WEST unprofessional, uncouth, unkind and unconstitutional, or what?

Does PZB Chair JANE WEST have emotional problems with my First Amendment protected activity?

Does she lack trustworthiness?

Her conduct of quasi-judicial hearings leaves much to be desired, e.g., failing to disclose, or request her colleagues disclose,  ex parte contacts.

She is mean-spirited.

She leaves early or misses joint meetings with the City Commission.

She arrived late at the last PZB meeting, giggled about it, interrupting mw with a gavel thwack, barking at me, halting my effort through the Vice Chair to get a staff answer to my unanswered question about Embassy Suites "Phase II," which I had asked in public comment (which she missed due to her intentional tardiness, claiming she had come "from the county.").

Watch video of the entire meeting here, including my unrebutted response to her rudeness in discussing procedural rules later in the agenda.

WEST's tacky tawdry tedious termagant tattletale tactics are both petty and vindictive.

After WEST refused to shake my hand, it was late.  But I later briefly informed St. Augustine Beach Commissioners about her rude behavior at the last PZB meeting.   (I forgot to mention her taking two months off, going to Colorado again).  It was late; next time, should I go into detail, or let sleeping dogs lie?

I later filed a records request, reading of her two (2) police calls yesterday.

WEST never told me of her 2017 police reports at the time.  She and DAVID BRADFIELD simply ignored my e-mail about his failing to comply with the basic reqirement to submit a letter explaining his interest.

What secrecy.  What chutzpah.   As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "Secrecy is for losers."

I am appalled.

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."
-- Wm. Shakespeare (King Lear)







*Footnote:
Quoting JAMES BYRNES' actions, I published a peer-reviewed 1992 ABA Judge's Journal article on the Indian Probate Judges' case, also featured in an American Bar Association Journal cover story. See Edward A. Slavin, Jr., "ALJ Independence Undermined - What the Interior Department Is Doing and Why" 31 Judges J. 26 (1992)

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