• Honorable Marcia Fudge
    Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
    Honorable Rae Oliver Davis, HUD Inspector General
    Honorable Demetria L. McCain,  HUD Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary  
    Honorable Angela D. Middleton
    Honorable Curtis L.  Barnes
    HUD Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity 
    451 7th Street, S.W.
    Washington, D.C. 20410
    via e-mail   



    Dear Secretary Fudge, Inspector General Davis, Ms. McCain, Ms. Middleton and Mr. Barnes: 


    1. Would you please be so kind as to amend the January 23, 2023 HUD Title VI and Fair Housing Act complaint to charge Respondent St. Johns County and Commissioners with additional overt acts of discrimination concerning employment of the County Attorney? As US DOJ explains:  "Title VI, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq., was enacted as part of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. As President John F. Kennedy said in 1963:

    Simple justice requires that public funds, to which all taxpayers of all races [colors, and national origins] contribute, not be spent in any fashion which encourages, entrenches, subsidizes or results in racial [color or national origin]  discrimination.

    2. The public interest urgently requires prioritizing HUD's pending civil rights investigation. This complaint alleges continuing violations and establishes Respondent SJC's "massive resistance" to civil rights laws against employment discrimination. HUD is already aware of Respondent's refusal of HUD's offer to conciliate concerning HUD's Title VI and Fair Housing Act investigation of my January 23, 2023 complaint, Respondent's County Attorney, David Michael Migut, with two (2) day's notice resigned abruptly without explanation.

    3.  Respondent St. Johns County Commissioners voted February 6 & 20, 2024 4-1  to hire a non-resident criminal defense lawyer and lawyer for local governments, one RICHARD CHRISTIAN KOMANDO, as "Interim County Attorney" and "General Counsel."  (GC is a new title not previously used by by prior SJC County Attorneys.)  

    3. No job applications were sought.  Respondent RICHARD CHRISTIAN KOMANDO got the job because of political connections and friendship with the former St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee Chair, SJC BoCC Vice Chair, Respondent ROY ALYRE ALAIMO, JR.  

    4. No job application was filed.   

    5. No other candidates were considered, including the Assistant County Attorneys, three of the five of whom attended the meeting, insulted by not even being asked to opine about their own future as County employees. 

    6. No resume or c.v. was provided.

    7. The illegal discriminatory February 6, 2024 vote took place without an agenda item or proper public notice.  This violates federal law and the reasonable expectations of probity for a fast-growing County that is not only a federal funds recipient, but one with a long history of discrimination.  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called St. Johns County "the most lawless" place in America.

    8. SJC BoCC Vice Chair ROY ALYRE ALAIMO, JR. stated in his Commissioner Comments at the very end of the February 6, 2024 meeting that RICHARD KOMANDO was a longtime friend of his, with four out of five Commissioners voting to hire KOMANDO, whose contract was approved at the February 20, 2024 meeting.

    9. While the Respondent County Commissioners' proposed hiring of Respondent KOMANDO was on the February 20, 2024 agenda, the contract was not provided in advance and was not written until February 19, 2024, a federal holiday (President's Day), and it was not posted on the County's website.

    10. Respondent ALAIMO and three other Commissioners voted to move the KOMANDO contract earlier in the February 20 agenda, several hours before it would have otherwise been discussed.

    11. Respondent ALAIMO and Commissioners never provided a conflicts check or any documents on the identity of KOMANDO's other clients.

    12. No job vacancy advertisement was ever placed with the Florida Bar Journal, or elsewhere, seeking applicants for the Interim County Attorney and General Counsel job.

    13. No women, people of color or LGBTQ people were considered or discussed.  Not one.

    14. Commissioners did not discuss  in the 4-1 majority acknowledged citizens' concerns about word-of-mouth hiring and employment discrimination.  No legal advice was provided.  The faction of four Commissioners voting to hire Respondent KOMANDO as County Attorney and General Counsel were Respondents ISAAC HENRY DEAN, a lawyer with 42 years of Florida government management experience, who oddly stayed silent in the midst of yet another act of invidious discrimination by SJC BoCC; SJC BoCC Vice Chair ROY ALYRE ALAIMO, JR., owner of "ALAIMO STRATEGIES"; SARA ARNOLD, Chair; and CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST, past Chair (whose overt acts contaminated County deliberations on a Public Housing Authority in January 2023) (see my first complaint).

    15. None of the four (4) County Commissioners in quo discussed the pending HUD investigation of St. Johns County under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Title VI, and the Fair Housing Act.

    16. At the February 20, 2024 SJC BoCC meeting, Respondent Commissioner CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST  once again chilled free speech rights, when he made ad hominem remarks about the citizens who testified in favor of open hiring procedures. Commissioners WHITEHURST, ALAIMO and ARNOLD literally laughed at public concerns.   (Laughing was around 5:19:00). https://stjohnscountyfl.new.swagit.com/videos/297810 This is not the first time immature WHITEHURST & Co. scorned public participation, as on the Public Housing Authority.

    17.  Respondent SJC BoCC Vice Chair ROY ALYRE ALAIMO, Jr., made the discriminatory and illegal SJC BoCC motion to hire his own longtime "friend," Respondent de facto County Attorney KOMANDO.  Commissioners chose to flout anti-discrimination laws because they wanted a team player, from their extremist political faction, which opposes anti-discrimination laws. Being a "team player" is not a bona fide occupational qualification in hiring a County Attorney. No "team players" are desired or required here. "Team player" is freighted with the speech-chilling implication that one is willing to "go along to get along," say what management wants to hear, and do what one is told by managers, no matter what the ethics or legality of the situation. In the political corruption case of United States v. Salvatti, 451 F.Supp. 195, 197-98 (E.D. Pa. 1978), one witness testified that "when she complained to the Mayor about Mr. Carroll's pressure, and advised him that the proposed payment to the Sylks would be totally improper and probably illegal, the Mayor chided her for not being a team player." See also Fitzgerald v. Seamans, 384 F.Supp. 688,697n7 (D.D.C. 1974), affirmed, 553 F.2d 220, 224 (D.C. Cir. 1977), reversed, Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982); Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731 (1982) (remarks of President Nixon et al. on need to fire heroic Department of Defense whistleblower A. Ernest Fitzgerald after he testified truthfully before Congress on C-5A transport cost overruns, with Nixon saying Mr. Fitzgerald was "not a team player"); Broderick v. Ruder, 685 F.Supp. 1269 (D.D.C. 1988)(sexual harassment at Securities and Exchange Commission); Tomsic v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co, 85 F.3d 1472, 1474 (10th Cir. 1996); Geddes v. Benefits Review Board, 735 F.2d 1412, 1416, 1420 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (Washington Metropolitan Transportation Authority considered workers' compensation claimant not a "team player"); Davis v. California, 1996 WL 271001 (E.D. Cal.1996); Schloesser v. Kansas Dept. of Health & Environment, 766 F.Supp. 984 (D. Kansas 1991); Stradford v. Rockwell International, 48 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 697, 49 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,828,1988 WL 159939 (S.D.Ohio); Seymour M. Hersh, "Annals of National Security: The Intelligence Gap -- How the digital age left our spies out in the cold," The New Yorker, December 6, 1999 at 58, 62.   

    18. Respondent SJC Vice Chair ALAIMO brought up hiring his own "friend" KOMANDO as County Attorney -- a non-resident, non-applicant Republican lawyer -- without placing the item on an agenda, and without prior Sunshine law notice, bringing it up during Commissioner Comments at the end of the February 6, 2024 meeting meeting.  Respondents' discriminatory "Stealth" hiring decision was contrary to the genius of a free people.  As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "Secrecy is for losers, for people who don't appreciate the value of the information."  Never elected to anything, appointed by his ex-boss Governor DeSANTIS, Commissioner ROY ALYRE ALAIMO, JR. flaunted his authoritarianism, proposing to hire his "friend" without proper Sunshine notice.  Respondent's' shocking February 6, 2024 vote set the stage for the February 20, 2024 vote, presenting a fait accompli. Nothing the public said on February 20, 2024 would change their closed minds, but Commissioners used the February 20, 2024 as an opportunity to revel in their one-party control, with three County Commissioners laughing at citizen concerns, for some 45 seconds after Ms. Nicole Crosby spoke.  Laughing was around 5:19:00.). https://stjohnscountyfl.new.swagit.com/videos/297810


    19. The RICHARD CHRISTIAN KOMANDO County Attorney and General Counsel hiring item came back for Commissioners to discuss February 20, 2024, without any conflicts check by SJC BoCC.  No client list was ever provided by Respondent RICHARD KOMANDO to Commissioners.  The County Attorney's office remained silent in the face of this flummery.  "The privileged communication may be a shield in defense as to crimes already committed, but it cannot be used as a sword or weapon of offense to enable persons to carry out contemplated crimes against society. The law does not make a law office a nest of vipers in which to hatch out frauds and perjuries." Gebhardt v. United Railways Co., 220 S.W. 677 (Mo. 1920). 

    20. The RICHARD CHRISTIAN KOMANDO hiring item was noticed on the published agenda as item 12 on the February 20, 2024 meeting.

    21. Without giving a reason,  Respondent Commissioner ALAIMO asked Commissioners at the beginning of the February 20 meeting to rearrange the agenda:  they voted unanimously to move item 12 to item 3A.  This meant people relying on the published agenda could not testify for or against the hiring of ALAIMO's friend.  (Overdevelopment has clogged St. Johns County roads, to where it may now take an hour to drive to the County Administration Building/) 

    22. This gaming the system has violated the rules and norms of SJC BoCC, and showed Respondent's intent to avoid public and press scrutiny and deprive the working public of an opportunity to be heard.  

    23. This is not the first time that SJC BoCC has made last-minute schedule changes to suit the demands of, and to benefit overdevelopment and developers, including developer-Senator TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON.

    24.  Part of a small circle of self-serving political friends and political allies, Respondents ALAIMO and KOMANDO are both extremist Republican appointees of Florida Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS.  

    25. Respondent RICHARD KOMANDO chairs the St. Johns River State College Board of Trustees, and was appoointed to the political patronage position by Florida Gov. RONALD DION DeSANTIS IN 2021.

    26. Respondent KOMANDO's law firm  is "BRADLEY, GALLAGHER & KOMANDO" (BGK).  BGK'S managing partner is none other than ROBERT BRADLEY, is a former Republican State Senator, whose wife and fellow BRADLEY law firm employee, JENNIFER BRADLEY is currently a Republican State Senator.  NONE of these associations were shared with Commissioners who approved hiring Respondent Vice Chair ROY ALYRE ALAIMO, JR.

    27. ROBERT BRADLEY is a DeSANTIS appointee and chairs the St. Johns River Water Management District, of which St. Johns  County Commissioner I. Henry Dean was longtime Executive Director.  ROB BRADLEY  represents both corporations and businesses, and his website states he "leads a team that serves as general counsel to the Town of Orange Park, the City of Keystone Heights, The Crossings Community Development District (Eagle Harbor), the City of Atlantic Beach and Baker County."  

    28. Curiously, former Senator ROB BRADLEY's law firm page states he is still a Senator, four (4) years after he left office, a possible "badge of fraud" and a possible "unfair and deceptive trade practice," stating inter alia"Rob Bradley is Board Certified by the Florida Bar as an Expert in City, County and Local Government Law. He is also a Florida Senator representing District 5, which includes all of Clay, Bradford, Union, Baker, Columbia, Suwanee, Lafayette, Gilchrist, Dixie, Levy [C]ounty, and part of Marion [C]ounty."   

    29. Respondents' naked political patronage hiring of their  longtime Republican "friend" as SJC Interim County Attorney and General Counsel violates Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and violates the County's fiduciary duty to HUD and to federal and Florida taxpayers.   See, e.g., See O'Hare Truck Service v. City of Northlake, 518 U.S. 712 (1996); Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, 497 U.S. 1050 (1990).  

    30. Federal antitrust laws since 1890 have barred "every contact, combination and conspiracy in restraint of trade."  15 U.S.C. 1, et seq,  Query: am I correct in inferring that  there is no Sherman Act or Clayton Act antitrust immunity in federal or Florida law for Respondents' rogue anti-competitive conduct in inking a $15,000+/month no-bid contact for legal services, plus $250/hour for special services, for which no one but KOMANDO was considered.  See Community Communications Co. v. City of Boulder, 455 U.S. 40, 43-57 (1982); Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U.S. 773 (1975).

    31. Respondent's hiring of KOMANDO is freighted with possible violations of Florida law, including our Sunshine and Open Records laws, which 83% of Florida voters supported in 1992 by enacting Article I, Section 24 of our Florida Constitution (3.8 million) votes.  It also raises issues under our Florida Constitution prohibition of dual officeholding.  See Article II, section 5(a), Florida Constitution: Attorney General Opinions 69-2 (chief of police); 70-13 (city attorney).

    32. Thomas Jefferson helped write the Tennessee Constitution, which since 1796 has stated that "government being instituted for the common benefit, the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind." 

    33. ALAIMO has a reputation for dominating SJC REC meetings; twice he was the subject of a vote of "no confidence" by his own REC members.

    34. This is not the first time that Respondent SJC has discriminated in hiring a top official, using word of mouth without a background check.  On November 19, 2019, SJC hired HUNTER SINCLAIR CONRAD as County Administrator after firing Administrator MICHAEL DAVID WANCHICK.  No job application.  No background investigation. CONRAD encumbered the position until he quit before he was fired on June 29, 2023.  The incurious Commissioners hired CONRAD temporarily, then permanently, then renewed his contact with a pay raise, each time unanimously.  In a 2019 federal grand jury indictment in Chicago, CONRAD was an unindicted co-conspirator, accused of taking $8000 in campaign contributions intended as a bribe by DONALD DONAGHER JR. and PENN CREDIT CORP., government contractors for collections of unpaid fines and fees.  CONRAD twice told me during annual budget workshops, "I don't have to answer your questions. I work for the Board of County Commissioners."

    35. Entrenched one-party rule has resulted in Respondent St. Johns County Commissioners blocking  any progress on resolving civil rights issues raised in my January 23, 2023 complaint.  Refusing HUD's offer of conciliation, they have manifested what the NLRB calls "Boulwareism," a bad faith haughty refusal to conciliate.*  Not one of the five Commissioners responded to my February 21, 2024 text messages requesting a call back.

    36. Hiring KOMANDO was an overt of political patronage and illegal discrimination in violation of federal law.  Please commence a suspension and debarment investigation under Title VI.  Please refer your findings to the Department of Justice Civil Rights and Criminal Divisions.

    Let justice be done, at last.

    Thank you.

    With kindest regards, I am,
    Sincerely yours,
    Ed Slavin
    www.edslavin.com
    http://www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
    (904) 377-4998


    * The legal term "Boulwareism" is named after General Electric's arrogant anti-labor Vice President for Labor Relations, who refused to engage in collective bargaining in good faith -- the name of Lemuel Ricketts Boulware is now forever enshrined in contract and labor law.  See General Electric Co., 150 NLRB 192, 194-95, 57 LRRM 1491 (1964),  enforced , 418 F.2d 736, 756-57 (2d Cir. 1969),  cert. denied,  397 U.S. 965, 90 S.Ct. 995, 25 L.Ed.2d 257 (1970).  



    On Monday, January 23, 2023, 09:28:46 AM EST, Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:    

     
    Honorable Marcia Fudge
    Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development

    Honorable Rae Oliver Davis, 
    HUD Inspector General

    Honorable Demetria L. McCain, 
    Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary 
    HUD Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
    451 7th Street, S.W.
    Washington, D.C. 20410


    Request for HUD Civil Rights Investigation of St. Johns County, Florida  

    Dear Ms. McCain, Secretary Fudge and Inspector General Davis:

    1. On January 17, 2023, our St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 against starting a Public Housing Authority (PHA) here in Florida's fastest-growing County, one of only three (3) Florida counties without a PHA.  The vote is contaminated by bigoted remarks by the Commission Chair.  Please investigate.    
    2. The Chairman of the St. Johns County Commission, Mr. CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST, stated he did not want to help "the kind of people" who had HUD Section 8 vouchers. See County Commission video at https://stjohnscountyfl.new.swagit.com/videos/205995 (Item 9); see also Travis Gibson, "St. Johns County commissioner votes down public housing authority proposal, says it could change character of county," Commissioners voted 3-2 against moving forward with the creating of a public housing authority, WJXT, News4Jax (January 19, 2023),  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU-S8xPxTA8 , and https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2023/01/19/st-johns-county-commissioner-votes-down-public-housing-authority-says-it-could-change-character-of-county/?fbclid=IwAR09LOOB-lxB6KdVrrO697St8u163d38qM1t1ehjVNDnFM0xNjkJtvXaYrc
    3. Chairman WHITEHURST's revealing remark is a confession.  It evidences prohibited discrimination on the basis of race and national origin. Some 65% of voucher holders are Black or Hispanic, compared to 40% of all renters.  https://themreport.com/news/data/11-23-2022/housing-choice-vouchers
    4. Courts in discrimination cases look at effects and not intent because "clever men can hide their motivation."  United States v. City of Black Jack, Missouri, 508 F.2d 1179 (8th Cir. 1974).  
    5. Here, the Chairman of St. Johns County Commission was not "clever" at all -- he confessed to his motivation. 
    6. St. Johns County was described by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as the "most lawless" place in America, a place where KKK openly and notoriously ran our governments and law enforcement, requiring remedies from federal courts.  
    7. In 2008, the then-Chairman of the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners Ben Rich, Sr., candidly told Folio Weekly that St. Johns County was "one of the last bastions of the KKK."
    8. Chairman WHITEHURST's open, notorious, overtly racist remarks contaminated the vote on January 17, 2023. 
    9. Just like the perjury that "tainted" the evidence and "polluted" the reservoir of justice in Mesarosh v. United States, 352 U.S. 1 (1956), our St. Johns County Commission's deliberations on a Public Housing Authority were totally "tainted," "polluted," and "contaminated" by Chairman WHITEHURST's racist remarks. 
    10. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the unanimous Supreme Court in reversing a decision wrought by perjury, Mesarosh v. United States, 352 U.S. 1, 14 (1956),  perjury "poisoned the water in the reservoir." Americans expect "to see that the waters of justice are not polluted. Pollution having taken place here, the condition should be remedied at the earliest opportunity. " Id.
    11. Please investigate the outrageous, intentional and invidious refusal of St. Johns County Commissioners to proceed with work on a Public Housing Authority in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.  
    12. Please commence a civil, criminal and administrative investigation, and a compliance audit, pursuant to the 1871 Civil Rights Act (Ku Klux Klan Act), the Fair Housing Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Inspector General Act. Please refer this complaint to the HUD Inspector General, Ms. Davis.  

    Thank you for all that you do.

    With kindest regards, I am,
    Sincerely yours,
    Ed Slavin
    www.edslavin.com
    Box 3084
    St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
    (904) 377-4998
      
    c:  Honorable Kristen Clarke, 
    Assistant Attorney General