Wednesday, November 20, 2024

It's November 19, 2024: What's next? (my November 19, 2024 blog post)

"What kind of place is this? Where you almost mean what you say? Where laws almost work? How can you live like that?" -- The former slave Cinque, in Steven Spielberg's film, Amistad (1997).

It's morning in St. Johns County, America.   We are happy that on Tuesday, November 19, 2024, three reform Commissioners became a 60% majority on our St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners.  Clay Murphy and Ann Taylor will join reformer Krista Keating Joseph, a Gold Star Mother.  Three cheers!

As President Theodore Roosevelt would say, we're "delighted!"  

President John F. Kennedy's mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was a Gold Star Mother; her favorite Bible verse was "to whom much is given, much is expected."   We have high expectations of our County Commissioners, including Commissioner Krista Keating Joseph, also a Gold Star Mother.  

As JFK said, "Here on Earth, God's work must truly be our own." 

We in St. Johns County are blessed to live here. I've lived here for 25 years.  We have been given so much -- nature, beauty, wealth, natural resources, and a democratic republic to secure the blessings of liberty, "a republic, if you can keep it," as Ben Franklin said at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.  

Our historic County is (as Alexander Hamilton said of New Jersey) not unlike a "cask tapped at both ends."  Demanding special favors, generous, pestiferous demanding, wealthy, real estate speculators pester, fund and unduly influence Commissioners, like maggots on a garbage can in Miami in August.  

The "Tragedy of the Commons" is our prologue, as clogged roads, overcrowded schools and other problems flow from Commissioners' desuetude, dawdling, delay and indecision, on vital matters ranging from Comprehensive Plan to impact fees to lobbying disclosure.  

Sir Winston Spencer Churchill told the House of Commons November 12, 1936,  "They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent” Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now.”

Former SJC Assistant County Administrator Jerry Thomas Cameron told new County Commissioner, "just because you got elected, doesn't mean you gained 20 IQ points!" 

Past SJC Commission mistakes have created and sought to justify and to conceal coverup the crisis of overdevelopment, but as JFK said, "any problem created by man can be solved by man." 

St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners lacks a welcoming spirit.  

Oligarchs rule and citizens are treated as third-class citizens with a sixth-rate government.   

Former Vice President Al Gore, Jr. compared our Nation's mishandling of environmental problems to a dysfunctional family, that won't talk about its problems. Past Commissioners have chilled, stigmatized and coerced citizens and our staff, attempting to silence efforts to protect our history and nature.  How many historic sites have been destroyed? How many forests have been clear-cut? How much wildlife has been destroyed? 

Enough.

We expect all of our Commissioners will now walk and talk humbly, listen to the people, or else know they will face the consequences, like previous Commissioners, some perceived as developer-directed or "too big for their britches," spending huge sums on campaigns to euchre and hornswoggle the victims of overdevelopment and get-rich schemers.

What's next?  

Would Commissioners please be so kind as to discuss and vote to:

1.  Respect our Sunshine and Open Records laws, public participation and transparency.  As James Madison wrote W.T. Barry August 4, 1822, "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowlege will for ever govern ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own Governours, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." Our Florida Sunshine and Open Records laws were adopted as Article I, Section 24 of our Florida Constitution in 1992, by vote of 3.8 million Florida voters (83%).  Sadly, some local governments opposed it, and some still seek to undermine it.  Sadly, some SJC BoCC and staff have violated these rights, enforcing a de facto oath of omertà, concealing documents from Commissioners, Board members and citizens.  "Secrecy is for losers," as the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said it best.  See Senator Moynihan's book, SECRECY: the American Experience (1999). Our County wastes our money, operates in too much secrecy, with too many secret meetings with developers.  It  shows Faustian fetid feculent fealty to dodgy developers.  An Iron Heel descended on our County in 1998, when developers took over our local governments and gerrymandered Commission elections, eliminating single member districts.  Enough. 

Our elected and appointed officials work for us. From this day forward, they must answer all of our questions, with no condescension. No more arrogant Commissioner and staff refusals to answer oral and written questions at our annual TRIM budget hearings.  Our local officials must adopt a rule to require answers citizens' public questions during "question time" (not unlike the British Parliament) by adopting the "Mayor Gary Snodgrass rule" from the City of St. Augustine Beach, requiring public commenters' questions to be answered at or after meetings, instead of rudely ignored.   

No more shady ex parte meetings with zoning applicants. In her splendid 1550 days as Mayor of our City of St. Augustine, Mayor Nancy Shaver refused to meet with zoning applicants (only once varying from her rule in a case of unfairness to the owners of White's Wharf).  SJC Commissioners should do the same. Let developers put their cases on in public, instead of in secret meetings. If a County Commissioner ever again meets ex parte with seekers of government favors, kindly make a video record of any future ex parte meetings with zoning applicants. No more secret ex parte meetings on overdevelopment and government contracts. The subject is always The People's Business.  It's our money, our government and our business. "Open covenants, openly arrived at," is our reasonable expectation of probity, as President Woodrow Wilson said of diplomacy.  Swathed in secrecy, St. Johns County is our home, where Commissioners claimed "200 Years of Excellence" upon our Bicentennial (words drafted by County Administrator Hunter Sinclair Conrad, who never applied for his job, and never disclosed that he was an uinindicted coconspirator (Clerk E) in a federal bribery indictment on the date of his hiring. 

It's our St. Johns County Commission building, it's our business and it's our County.  (It does not belong to foreign corporations, foreign investors and corporate law firms). "A public office is a public trust, " as Thomas Jefferson said it best.  From this day forward, our St. Johns County government must promptly provide all documents as requested, including those on the hostile working environment created, which Commissioners suffered and permitted, under successive County Administrators, while exhibiting fawning obeisance to wealthy zoning applicants and their lawyers.

2. Restore our freedom of speech, decency, dignity and respect to County Commission's public interactions. American Attorney General Robert Francis Kennedy said in 1961, "If our Constitution had followed the style of Saint Paul, the First Amendment might have concluded—'But the greatest of these is speech.' In the darkness of tyranny, this is the key to the sunlight. If it is granted, all doors open. If it is withheld, none."  We must preserve and protect free speech, giving our First Amendment "breathing space."  No more unconstitutional, illegal gag orders for County employees and residents. No more Caudillos are desired or required. The hoary days of dictatorial County Administrators are over, right? https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2023/06/commissioner-sara-arnold-exposes-and.html

St. Johns County Commissioners must start, instanter, to restore our sacred First Amendment rights to free speech, today, starting by restoring non-agenda public comment at the commencement of every single County meeting.  

Stop gaveling people for modest applause, chilling First Amendment protected activity.  

Stop violating citizens' cherished free speech rights, often accompanied by archly abusing procedural rules to interrupt and rule selected citizens "out of order." 

It is an inconvenient truth that it is our SJC BoCC that has too often been "out of order."  Too big for its britches, our SJC BoCC is a peculiar institution, too often unfeeling, unfriendly, secretive and lawbreaking.  

Commission has never revoked or apologized for its patently illegal December 2023 censure of beloved reform Commissioner Krista Keating-Joseph found to violate the First amendment by respected Senior United States District Court Judge Harvey E. Schlessinger of the Middle District of Florida, who issued an injunction against the County. https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2024/07/another-first-amendment-victory-sjc.html https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2024/07/sick-sjc-commission-first-amendment.html

It is the other-directed SJC BoCC that is frequently "out of order" with its unconstitutional, illegal policies discouraging  First Amendment protected public comment rights.  See Moms for Liberty v. Brevard Public SchoolsNo. 23-10656 (11th Cir., October 8, 2024)(overturning similar First Amendment violations prohibiting criticism of public officials).   https://www.ifs.org/news/moms-for-liberty-and-florida-parents-win-first-amendment-victory-against-school-board-censorship/ https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2024/10/09/moms-for-liberty-gets-a-court-win-in-brevard-school-board-case-speakers-florida/75583569007/  https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2023/01/chairman-whitehurst-and-vice-chairman.html

o Require, once again, accurate County Commission minutes, summarizing the subject matter of citizen concerns, with links to video.  This essential information is no longer included in meeting minutes, with fair reporting inexplicably deleted from our public record of meetings.  BoCC must amend BoCC rules to clarify that Commissioners treat citizens with civility and to encourage dialogue and not chill free speech.  

o Certain misguided St. Johns County Commissioners' haughty, hateful hauteur, bad habits and history of inane interruptions, insults, scowling, barking, hate stares, glares, eye-rolling and threats are beneath the dignity of a free people. Such unkind, uncouth, unconscionable and unethical County Commissioner actions are no way to welcome public comments.   The offending Commissioners in quo never apologized.  My friends, does being St. Johns County mean never having to say you're sorry?  How about a resolution apologizing to Commissioner Joseph?  

o There is not even a receptionist to welcome and help direct citizens at the Administration Building. Why? Likewise, no receptionist at Growth Management Building -- just a computer! How rude. Please establish a reading room  for citizens to read our public documents. We need frequent Commission meetings in the evening, to encourage more people to participate.  Let freedom ring.

3. Require lobbying registration, full disclosure, and a ban on percentage of success "contingency fees" for lobbyists.  Commissioners have never responded to the clarion call for lobbyist disclosure, and it shows.  Ban contingency fees for lobbyists. No percentage fees are allowed for lobbyists in Washington, D.C. or Tallahassee. No percentage fees are allowed in criminal defense or divorce cases. In 2016, the County Attorney recruited lobbyists to oppose a Commission lobbying registration ordinance, which one Commissioner damned as "burdensome" (a $25 annual registration fee!) Require all registered lobbyists to file financial disclosures and wear County photo IDs).

4. Reform our budget process as we know it, beefing up SJC internal controls and procedural safeguards, with a forensic audit of weaknesses in County internal controls.  Our County budget process is deeply flawed, with few questions from Commissioners and no answers to citizen questions.  SJC never answered my 104 questions on FY 2024 budget at our mandatory 2023 Truth in Millage Act (TRIM) hearings.  In response to my requests, in the wake of $786,785 embezzlement, over five (5) years, our mismanaged County has still never provided a list of its internal controls. Why?  It's our government and our time and our money.  With a Commission-appointed budget officer, let's improve County government internal controls and provide a public list of them, as I requested.  How embarrassing that we lost $786,785 to embezzlement over more than five (5) years under former Sheriff DAVID SHOAR shows that our public fisc must be better protected from insider threats. The County's malfeasant auditors were poorly supervised, and the County settled its lawsuits against them only because of its own malfeasance, which included failure to include an attorney fee provision in one of their engagement letters. 

Our County must:

o Require detailed budget justifications for every line item.  F.S. 129.021.  

o Vote on budget line items when Commissioners consider our budget.

o "Turn every page," as Pulitzer Prize winning Robert Caro said about historic research. 

o Ask questions, demand answers and expect democracy.

o Designate a county budget officer.  That is BoCC's prerogative, not the job of the County Administrator or her deputy (her former boss, Jesse Dunn, Director of the Office of Management and Budget). F.S. 129.025.

o Adopt a resolution requiring Constitutional officers' budget proposals to be presented by May 1 of each year, allowing time to discuss them in Administrator budget hearings.  F.S. 129.03(2).  Passage of the resolution would mean for the first time that we can discuss in detail and ask questions about tentative Sheriff, Supervisor of Elections, Clerk of Courts and Comptroller, Tax Collector and Property Appraisers budgets at our annual May budget hearings. 

o Consider Zero Based Budgeting, as President Jimmy Carter supported. Don't assume every department or office gets an increase. Some need to be cut. My late mentor, United States Department of Labor Chief Administrative Law Judge Nahum Litt, said, any government budget could be cut by 10%.  Every government needs to examine every expenditure with a gimlet eye, and stop extravagant spending on what President Abraham Lincoln would have called "flubdubs." For every spending request and every piece of legislation ask, "Is it based on need, or greed?" (As Senator Gary Hart asked his staff to evaluate every single legislative proposal as a freshman Senator in 1975).  Like a good steak, our budget is well-marbled with fat. We need to enlist all of our citizens to examine our budget with a gimlet eye. It is up to all of us.

5. Expose, eliminate and extirpate organizational and individual conflicts of interest. Enact a tough St. Johns County Ethics Ordinance and County Ethics Commission second to none. Conflicts of interests are to be scrupulously guarded against. See, e.g., United States v. Mississippi Valley Generating Co., 364 U.S. 520, 548 (1961)("the 'Dixon-Yates' case," involving TVA rivals' conflicts of interest in a proposed Memphis coal-fired powerplant), citing Matthew 6:24 -- "no [person] can serve two masters," holding that laws and rules preventing conflicts of interest are aimed "not only at dishonor but at conduct that tempts dishonor."   All conflict of interest laws are based upon Matthew 6:24 ("A man cannot serve two masters"), which the unanimous Supreme Court decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren deemed to be both a "moral "moral principle" and a "maxim which is especially pertinent if one of the masters happens to be economic self-interest."  

We need tougher local laws, fairer public hearings and more effective enforcement to extirpate corruption, discrimination and secrecy. Initiate an anti-bribery campaign, with Public Service announcements, signs and advertising.   https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2021/10/st-johns-countys-peculiar-ways-and.htmlhttps://www.staugustine.com/story/news/local/2010/02/07/manuel-tapes/16130482007/

6.  Reform our Tree Protection ordinance to end deforestation and clearcutting.  Commissioner Krista Keating-Joseph proposed it, but developers and their corporate-funded catty cat's paws opposed it, ending efforts to provide a fair hearing.  Only Commissioner Isaac Henry Dean spoke in support of half of it.  But three developer-aligned Commissioners caterwauled along with developers and their commercial allies.   

7. Create, recruit, hire and inspire a a strong qualified county-wide environmental and land use planning organization and staff to comply with all applicable laws and to help us preserve and protect what we know and love here, including our precious cultural and environmental heritage here in what we locals like to call "God's country."  

8. Create a County Environmental Board with legal powers to halt or limit devious developers' wetland-filling, wildlife-killing, deforestation, and  clear-cutting. 

9. Preserve, protect and defend our SJC public employee and contractor legal rights to report problems and remedy wrongdoing.  Encourage and protect whistleblowers, to end corruption as we know it.  Always hold accountable anyone who would presume to retaliate against a whistleblower.  Inform employees and contractors of their rights.  Adopt a County whistleblower protection policy, ordinance and resolution. Comply with collective bargaining agreements. Treat employees fairly, paying living wages.  End favoritism, sexual harassment, secrecy and retaliation against ethical employee whistleblowers.

10Require "Truth in Development."  Full disclosure of scientific data and transparency in development, starting with disclosing the names of every single beneficial owner and investor in every single development project.  Apply fair discovery rules and Rules of Evidence for administrative proceedings, including testimony sworn under oath and establishing citizens' rights to question developer witnesses. Don't allow dilatory developer "sandbagging" of citizens by withholding "expert" testimony until after citizens speak.  Stop ignoring objections to hearings without oaths or valid expertise.  Administrative hearings must not longer be a kabuki dance, with sandbagging and developer cat's paws denying justice and fair hearings. Lobbyists must register. No excuses. 

11. Enact a one-year moratorium on residential development hearings and decisions, to allow sufficient time under Florida law so that "We, the People," and our elected County Commissioners can work to understand the nature of our overdevelopment problem lawfully, legally, and protecting everyone's rights to property and to honest government.  Then we can adopt revised laws to protect residents and property owners and adopt rational rules. 

12.  Reform our St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners.  Provide for legislative assistants for each Commissioner, unwisely ended circa 2010. Provide for five single-member County Commission districts, like the School Board has, in order to reduce the influence of developers' Big Money and empower of citizen legislators.  Add two at-large Commission seats, as we had until 1998, with only two of seven Commissioners running county-wide and the rest elected from single-member districts. Adopt a working committee system, with committees to vet budgets and development proposals proposals are sent to the full Commission.

13. Create a proper, lawful St. Johns County Charter Review Commission to evaluate and propose possible better form of government, with greater efficiency, economy, transparency and checks and balances. Improve employee and citizen rights protections and a charter for limited government in the Sunshine. Put the Charter Review Commission's proposals on the ballot.  In 2008, then County Administrator Michael David Wanchisk proposed a deeply flawed, half-baked "starter-charter," which "We, the People" defeated twice that year on its demerits.  No lawful advisory committee suggested the Charter text.  Why? Oligarchs' unsophisticated proposal would have required 20% of all County voters sign petitions to amend it.  They ignored our reasoned and documented requests for a "charter of freedom," rather than a charter that would have empowered takeovers of local city and town governments (St. Augustine, St. Augustine Beach and Town of Hastings) and of independent special taxing districts (Airport Authority, Mosquito Control District).  We, the People, rightly defeated the bad proposed Charter twice in 2008. Charter governments in some 20 other Florida counties limit the powers of government, something Oligarchs did not want -- the reason why Charter government discussion was never revived under successive ill-advised Commissioners and Administrators, 2009-date. 

14. Require County jobs be posted and advertised and require people apply for jobs and conform to merit protection principles. Without either attorney ever applying, SJC BoCC spent our money to hire a County Administrator (Hunter Sinclair Conrad, 2019-2023) and the current County Attorney (Richard Komando) who never so much as applied for their jobs,  no background investigation, posting or advertising.   (Mr. Conrad did not disclose and Commissioners did not discuss that he was when hired an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal bribery case when SJC BoCC picked Conrad on November 19, 2019, upon the unexpected public firing of County Administrator Michael David Wanchick (2007-2019).   Mr. Conrad submitted his resignation before being fired.  https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/st-johns-county/st-johns-county-administrator-submits-resignation-letter-after-workplace-culture-concerns/ZHVQLSFOEJGCRGKY2ZFODKGWVY/ Enough flummery, dupery and nincompoopery. It's our County. It's our money.  It's our government. From this day forward, all County legal jobs must be advertised in Florida Bar Journal: no excuses. County attorney applicants must submit their published and unpublished writing samples, college and law school transcripts, references, with public interviews and thorough background investigations. 

15. Preserve, protect and defend our history and nature. Now. Restore and revive Cultural Resources Department and protect its integrity and independence.  Reinstate wrongfully eliminated Cultural Resources director, Trey Alexander Asner.  https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/sjc-coordinator-historical-preservation-forced-out-position-scrubbed-according-claims/HWAV5WJ4QRCCLIQK6VIVABSASQ/

16. Create an Office of Ombudsman, Chief Economist and Chief Scientist. to assist citizens and taxpayers.  Employ a Chief Economist and Chief Scientist to assist Commissioners in evaluating impact fees and environmental impacts. Developers present high-priced experts while the under qualified SJC BoCC staff live in fear of retaliation.  Staff contributes little to discussions of the impacts of overdevelopment. Developers are like hucksters, telling Commissioners anything (publicly or privately) to complete the sale.  Our County staff needs to provide independent expertise, instead of being like cheerleaders, pom-poms flying, arachnid apparatchik accomplices to an orgy of overdevelopment. 

17. Focus on protecting public health from known environmental health hazards.  There is no state OSHA legal protection for public employee safety in Florida since Jeb Bush helped abolish Florida OSHA in 2000; private sector employers are covered by federal OSHA, but Florida chose to delete protection for state and local government employees.  Florida should invite federal OSHA coverage for government employees. 

18. Enhance the powers of our SJC Clerk of Courts Inspector General, with job protections and enhanced budget, with authority to investigate any local government agency, subject to a County Charter approved by the voters.

19. Reform government purchasing as we know it. Reform government contracting procedures.  Report all instances of possible bid-rigging. Guard against government employees self-dealing (as with former Utilities supervisor fired for selling SCADA products to the County for years without criminal prosecution).

20. Stop giving tax holidays to corporations as "incentives," selling our soul to secretive unknown owners and investors for unknown reasons, including recently formed shell companies.  Fully disclose all meetings with those who would seek tax holidays.  

21. Restore and revive SJC's Intergovernmental relations committee: encourage local governments to work together to preserve and protect this magical place.  Let's encourage all of the governments in St. Johns County to communicate better to solve problems like overdevelopment, sharing research and background investigations on developers.

22. Support statewide legislation to revise impact fees as we know them.  Stop subsidizing metastatic growth -- unchecked growth for growth's sake is the ideology of a cancer cell.  Our County's Quisling approach to developer influence is a disgrace. 

23. Helps solve the affordable housing crisis.  Consider joining federal antitrust and unfair trade practice litigation accessing root causes of skyrocketing housing costs, e.g., challenging landlords shared use of algorithms to raise prices of rental units. Allow accessory dwelling units ("mother-in-law" or garage apartments.   Discuss affordable housing opportunities, including those available under F.S. 125.01055.  Let's create a Public Housing Authority to help people get access to HUD Section 8 Housing Vouchers here, instead of only after burdensome out-of-county travel. 

24.  Revise, reform and expand Neighborhood Bill of Rights, to protect homeowners' and renters' reasonable investment-backed expectations under the Bert J. Harris, Jr. Private Property Protection Act. 

25. Support enactment of a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, first proposed by then St. Augustine Mayor Walter Fraser in 1939, and endorsed by the County's Congressman and both Senators from Florida in that year.  Read my October 13, 2023 statement before the St. Johns County Legislative Delegation, here: https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2023/10/support-st-augustine-national.html

26.  Improve response to citizen requests.  

Enthroned, seduced and distracted by Big money campaign contributions and lack of individual staff for Commissioners, people writing Commissioners don't get so much as an answer, breaching the standard of care and reasonable expectations of probity.  

Citizens call and e-mail Commissioners, too often without response.  

In person or in correspondence, citizens raise concerns about County operations damaging their property or violating their rights (or both).  Our County officials are doing little to remedy problems. Citizens respectfully ask for consideration of proclamations, too often without response (including proposed proclamations for Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday, Worker Memorial Day, Gay Pride and School Choice).  Citizens deserve better than this.  County Commissioners need their own staff to help them supervise the County Administrator, as Florida law contemplates.  

                                                CONCLUSION

 This is an exciting week for St. Johns County, where I've lived for 25 years. 

As they roll up their sleeves on the first day of their four-year terms, our two new County Commissioners (and three incumbents) would all do well to remember what President Jimmy Carter said in his Inaugural Address in 1977:

Let us learn together and laugh together and work together and pray together, confident that in the end we will triumph together in the right.

The American dream endures. We must once again have full faith in our country--and in one another. I believe America can be better. We can be even stronger than before.

Let our recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of our Nation, for we know that if we despise our own government, we have no future. We recall in special times when we have stood briefly, but magnificently, united. In those times no prize was beyond our grasp.

But we cannot dwell upon remembered glory. We cannot afford to drift. We reject the prospect of failure or mediocrity or an inferior quality of life for any person. Our Government must at the same time be both competent and compassionate.

We have already found a high degree of personal liberty, and we are now struggling to enhance equality of opportunity. Our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our national beauty preserved; the powerful must not persecute the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced.

We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great Nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems. We cannot afford to do everything, nor can we afford to lack boldness as we meet the future. So, together, in a spirit of individual sacrifice for the common good, we must simply do our best.

What's next?  You tell me.  It is up to us.

Thank you.

Respectfully submitted, 
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
easlavin@aol.com
(904) 377-4998

Photo credit: Peter Willott, St. Augustine Record 

 


My November 20, 2024 Request for Assistance to Rep. John Rutherford re: HUD investigation of St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners

"Would you please be so kind as to inquire, pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, about the status of my January 23, 2023 and February 29, 2024 HUD Fair Housing Act and Civil Rights Act Title VI complaints concerning our St. Johns County Board of Commissioners?  Without explanation, justification or excuse, SJC BoCC refused HUD's offer of conciliation. Two of five SJC County Commissioners were defeated for re-election. Two new County Commissioners were sworn in on November 19, 2024.  It's time for SJC to  respond to HUD's offer of conciliation in good faith.  SJC BoCC rejected a Public Housing Agency while giving discriminatory reasons about not wanting to help "the kind of people" receiving HUD Section 8 vouchers to find housing opportunities here, necessitating people traveling to Jacksonville to get them. Outside of the ordinary course of business, SJC hired [by 4-1 vote] as our County Attorney, one Richard Komando, who did not apply for the job, with no background investigation, no c.v.. no resume no references and no interview, on the only admitted and stated basis that he was the "friend" of one of our County Commissioners!  That Commissioner was defeated for re-election and is no longer on BoCC.  I look forward to HUD conciliating these complaints in the public interest, without further interference, obstruction, delay or desuetude by SJC BoCC.  Let justice be done."

Col. Henri F. "Rik" Erkelens, R.I.P.


Col. Rik Erkelens was the First Inspector General for the State of Connecticut, and was one of the inspired, intelligent speakers at local government meetings who inspires the best in all of us.  Partisan malarkey resulted in the Inspector General's office bing abolished (later revived).  As The New York Times reported in 1987: "Mr. Erkelens, who has a staff of five people, angered some legislators by initially requesting money for wiretaping devices, undercover disguises and guns. He said the equipment was needed to protect his staff and to investigate what he once called ''white-collar crime, high-level, big-money crime.'' Mr. Erkelens did not pursue his request, and the legislature did not authorize the money.  In advocating abolishing the office, the Deputy Speaker of the House, David Lavine, Democrat of Durham, said last month that Mr. Erkelens had sought to give the office ''a distinct uniformed-and-booted look.'' Mr. Lavine said, ''The paramilitary (sic) aspect offended any number of us.''  

In my view, the antagonistic then-legislator David Lavine sounded a bit unhinged. Inspector General criminal investigators investigating bid-rigging and other crimes deserve protection, and modern means of gathering evidence, in compliance with the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. 

As counsel for the late courageous EPA Inspector General Senior Special Agent Robert E. Tyndall -- my friend, former client and mentor -- an ethical criminal investigator and prevailing complainant in a DOL environmental whistleblower case, who who helped expose misconduct of controversial Reagan-appointed EPA Inspector General John C. Martin (1983-1996), I know a lot about Inspectors General.  Thus, I greatly enjoyed talking to Col. Rik Erkelens about the work and function of IGs, and how they are both necessary and proper in a complex government.  From the record, it appears to me that Col. Erkelens was unfairly attacked for working to make Connecticut government more honest and less wasteful. As the late U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy said, "If we do not, on a national scale, attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as effective as their own, they will destroy us."

From St. Augustine Record:

COL. Henri F. “Rik” Erkelens (US Army Retired) embarked on his final deployment on September 8, 2024, surrounded by family. Preceded in death by his wife Marguerite, he is survived by his daughter Allison, sons Rick, Scott, Christopher, Todd, and their families. Born on January 18, 1934, Rik lived his life dedicated to family, community and country. The son of a Dutch immigrant, he earned his Eagle Scout at age 16 and graduated from Norwich University as a Cadet Captain. A highly decorated combat veteran, his military career was distinguished by his humanitarian efforts in Vietnam and his leadership in modernizing tank warfare, including the development of the M-1 Abrams tank. After retirement from the Army, Rik became Connecticut’s first State Inspector General, investigating government corruption. Moving to Florida, he became a community leader in St. Augustine working tirelessly to preserve and promote the city’s military heritage. The cannon memorial in Oglethorpe Park is a testament to his tenacity. Rik was a great lover of history, a skilled sailor and a passionate traveler. He took his family on adventures by sea and land across three continents. Closer to home, he loved Sunday brunch with his kids, his grandkids and his great-grandson, as well as the epic Independence Day barbeques he hosted for family and friends every year. A service for Colonel Erkelens will be held at Trinity Parish Episcopal Church Downtown on Saturday, November 23, 2024 at 11am. A celebration of life will follow at the St. Augustine Yacht Club at 1:00pm. Donations in his memory can be made to the Fisher House Foundation, supporting military families. 

Putin Sees America Hurtling to Disaster, With Trump at the Wheel. (By Mikhail Zygar, NY Times, November 19, 2024)

So ironic that people supporting VLADIMIR PUTIN's pal, President-elect DONALD JOHN TRUMP, would call themselves "patriots." I call them deluded.  May God forgive them.  Pray for them to find enlightenment. From The New York Times: 

GUEST ESSAY

What Putin Really Sees in Trump

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump standing alongside each other, cast in shadow.
Credit...Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Zygar is a Russian journalist and the author of the newsletter The Last Pioneer.

The American election results were received with enthusiasm in Moscow. President Vladimir Putin, offering his congratulations, seemed genuinely pleased. But it’s not because Donald Trump is seen as a pro-Russian politician or even one of their own — those illusions faded long ago. Nor is it the prospect of an advantageous peace deal in Ukraine, ruthlessly brokered by Mr. Trump. The first reported call between the two leaders, which the Kremlin denies took place, suggests that the incoming administration will be no pushover.

Instead, the excitement comes from something else. It’s that to many in the Kremlin, a Trump presidency might bring about the collapse of the American state.

The idea that the United States is entering the final stage of its history has been kicking around Russia for some time. For years, it was confined to fringe voices. But since around 2020, figures from the Kremlin have been making the argument, too. Leading the charge was Nikolai Patrushev, a former director of the Federal Security Service and one of Mr. Putin’s key advisers. Widely regarded as Russia’s leading hard-liner, he was among the first to claim that America was on an inexorable path to implosion.

In a 2023 interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the official publication of the Russian government, Mr. Patrushev detailed what that would look like. The United States would split into North and South, with the South moving “toward Mexico, whose lands were seized by Americans in 1848,” he said. “Make no mistake, sooner or later, the southern neighbors of the United States will reclaim the territories taken from them.”

By then, Mr. Putin himself had laid out a similar view of territorial disintegration. “As a former citizen of the former Soviet Union, I’ll tell you the problem with empires: They believe they are so powerful that they can afford minor mistakes,” he said in 2021. “But the problems accumulate, and a moment comes when they are no longer manageable. The United States is confidently, firmly marching down the same path as the Soviet Union.” This still seems to represent Mr. Putin’s fundamental assessment of the country. He is convinced that America is nearing its end.

For proof, advisers and officials have turned to Hollywood. This year, high-ranking Russian officials eagerly watched the American film “Civil War,” starring Kirsten Dunst. (Curiously, it was released in Russia under the title “The Fall of the Empire,” though the film contains no such imperial theme.) From the Russian elite’s perspective, the movie — which depicts California and Texas seceding, with bloodshed erupting across the nation — reflects how Americans see their near future.

The film generated immense excitement in Russia’s ruling circles. “The disintegration of the country amid deepening tensions between the federal center and states like Texas, Florida and Alabama seems frightening,” Maria Zakharova, the official spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, wrote on Telegram. “But it’s no longer such an impossible prophecy.” Dmitri Medvedev, the former president and now deputy chairman of the security council, took it as proof that civil war in the United States is inevitable. “Hollywood,” he remarked on his Telegram channel, “doesn’t make films about it for no reason.”

How would such conflict come about? The answer, for the Kremlin, is simple: culture war. Again, Mr. Patrushev has given the clearest expression of the theory. “Projects like Black Lives Matter and the rampant promotion of transgender theories are aimed at the spiritual degradation of a population already in a state of apathy,” he said in the same 2023 interview. “Ordinary citizens won’t lift a finger to preserve America’s unity, knowing they mean nothing to their own government. The U.S. authorities, without understanding the consequences, are destroying themselves step by step.”

Russia has been trying to help. As part of a broad assault on so-called woke culture and its supposed threat to traditional family and religious values — which at home has seen the banning of gender transition, the labeling of L.G.B.T.Q. groups as extremist organizations and the restricting of books that mention same-sex love — an army of Russian bots and propagandists promote conspiracy theories, vaccine skepticism, anti-feminism, anti-L.G.B.T. sentiment and anti-immigrant rhetoric on social media. The aim is to deepen the polarization of American society and, eventually, break it apart.

In this worldview, liberal ideology in the United States — encompassing not just progressive values but also the promotion of democracy and human rights abroad — has become like communist ideology in the late Soviet Union. Fewer and fewer people believe in it, more and more find it absurd, and many increasingly lean toward a much more cynical perspective. To the Kremlin, the Democratic Party has become excessively dogmatic, resembling the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in its final decade: an arrogant steward of a bankrupt belief system, stumbling toward a fall.

Into this combustible setting comes Mr. Trump, whose victory appears to vindicate Russia’s assessment of America. To Moscow, he looks like a figure who could dismantle the ideology of liberalism at home and abroad, unraveling the country in the process. In this respect, he resembles — perhaps counterintuitively — Mikhail Gorbachev. Just as Mr. Gorbachev fatally undermined communist ideology, so too may Mr. Trump do the same for liberal ideology. (Indeed, in recent days the term “American Gorbachev” has gained traction in Moscow.)

To officials in the Kremlin, mostly former K.G.B. members for whom the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of modern times, Mr. Gorbachev was a self-absorbed narcissist who loved to talk — a man without a plan, a strategy or any clear understanding of his goals, a politician who undermined core institutions that supported the state and left only chaos in his wake. They much prefer Mr. Trump, naturally. But they see him playing a similar role.

Of course, much of this is wishful thinking. Predictions of America’s imminent collapse have no basis in reality. The Soviet Union fell because it bankrupted itself under the weight of excessive military spending and imperial ambitions. Its economy proved to be unsustainable and ethnic tensions emerged, with some Soviet republics pushing for independence. Mr. Gorbachev, for his part, was a reformer within the ruling party who aimed to refine rather than overthrow the system. The differences with the United States and Mr. Trump should be obvious.

But that won’t stop the Kremlin from seeing what it wants to see: an America hurtling toward disaster, with Mr. Trump at the wheel.

Mikhail Zygar (@zygaro) is a former editor in chief of the independent news channel TV Rain and the author of “War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky and the Path to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine” and The Last Pioneer newsletter.

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