(UPDATED, 1 AM, May 17, 2025)
Commission Chair Krista Keating Joseph informed me before the May 6, 2025 morning's meeting that the next Cultural Resources Review Board meeting will be held in the County Auditorium. The meeting will be held on June 30, 2025, after protests of the County staff trying to change the meeting to a time that would not allow several CRRB members to attend.
Some 1000 people were arrested in St. Johns County protesting for civil rights. The County filed for a demolition permit for the old jail where they were illegally incarcerated. On May 5, 2025, I wrote the County Administrator about maladroit management of our precious cultural resources, requesting that meetings of the Cultural Resoures Review Board be held in the County Auditorium:
On Monday, May 5, 2025 at 10:38:40 AM EDT, Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:
Dear Ms. Andrews:
1. Please direct today that all future meetings of our St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners Cultural Resources Review Board be held in our County Auditorium, commencing with the June 9, 2025 1:30 pm meeting on proposed demolition of the 1953 St. Johns County Jail on Lewis Speedway. Please place this matter on the agenda for the May 6, 2025 Board of County Commissioners agenda as a "red folder" item.
2. Despite my respectful requests for several years, prior CRRB meetings have been held in a small conference room in a remote building.
3. Locating CRRB meetings in that remote location intentionally suppresses and discourages public participation in halting demolitions of historic structures and places.
4. Our Growth Management (sic) managers lack a welcoming spirit.
5 This violates our legal, rights under federal and state historic preservation laws, ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, Article I, Section 24 of our Florida Constitution, F.S. 119 and F.S. 286.
6. Future CRRB meetings must be held in the County Auditorium with live GTV video streaming, commencing June 9, 2025.
7. The April 14 CRRB meeting was held amidst a hostile working environment in a crowded conference room in the Growth Management (sic) building.
8 There was no podium, no PA system and no video record.
9. Some Growth Management (sic) staff were disrespectful to people interested in the Magic Beach Motel demolition.
10. They refused to provide a podium for speakers.
11. CRRB Chair, Ms. Leslee Keys, was offensive and aggressive when she demanded that I stand without a podium.
12. I declined her ungracious demand, citing to the ADA.
13. Worse SJC County Administration Building security staff were not told the time and location of the CRRB meeting.
14. People wanting to testify on the Magic Beach Motel demolition permit were sent away without information.
15. I blame Growth Management (sic) Director MICHAEL ROBERSON.
16. Mr. ROBERSON is an unjust steward of our history and environment.
17. Mr. ROBERSON cruelly fired Cultural Resources Coordinator Trey Alexander Asner in retaliation for his speaking out on preservation of Canright House, complaining that Mr. Asner used the word "firebomb" to describe what the KKK did to the property, where Dr. King was scheduled to stay.
18. This is a direct and proximate result of maladroit management installed and kept in place by you as County Administrator.
19. Citizens are kept in the dark about preservation of our precious cultural heritage.
20. SJC lacks decent respect for our rights.
21. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said St. Johns County was "the most lawless place in America."
22. Dr. King and some 1000 other people were illegally arrested here.
23. Some insensitive County staff want to demolish the jail in which these 1000 people were incarcerated.
24. This overbearing, overweening desire to destroy our precious cultural heritage is, at best, illegal and counterproductive and facetious, at a time when St. Augustine will soon host a Black History Museum funded by the State of Florida!
25. Due Process will not be denied or delayed any longer.
26. As Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote in 1830, "I will be heard."
27. Please call me to discuss today.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
www.edslavin.com
(904) 377-4998
1 comment:
Ed.
The powers that are would prefer to pretend that these times never happened.Because such behavior , is still part of today.
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