GEORGE R. GARDNER: The Last Hurrah?

GEORGE R. GARDNER: The Last Hurrah?
In Edwin O’Connor’s novel/movie, "The Last Hurrah," a genial fraud, an old-fashioned machine politician loses election because he did not appreciate the changing nature of his city and its people.
Likewise, St. Augustine Mayor George GARDNER faces a tough re-election battle against Peter Romano. GARDNER’s support is lagging for St. Augustine City Commissioner, precisely because GARDNER (like O’Conner’s Mayor Frank Skeffington), failed to keep his bright promise and stopped listening to (and responding) to the people.
GARDNER asked me on New Year’s Eve (December 31, 2005) if I would call for the firing of City Manager WILLIAM HARRISS, evidently preferring me to call for what he promised his supporters he would do if elected. I declined to do so. I declined to be a bullet in GARDNER’s gun or to throw myself under a bus for him. If HARRISS is to be removed, it should be after an open public hearing, with full due process rights, a precedent to protect the rights of all City employees in the future.
Mayor George GARDNER is a third-generation politician, the grandson of four-term Schenectady, New York Mayor Mayor George R. Lunn and son of eleven-term Schenectady County Clerk Carroll "Pink" GARDNER.
Mayor GARDNER has given me pompous lectures in City Commission meetings, while never responding to 90 questions on illegal dumping. Among the pompous lectures about "politics" were that one should not talk about too many issues, one should not criticize the City Manager or politicians’ appointees, and asking if I had "lint" in my "pockets."
Mayor GARDNER’s support is like the River Platte -- "a mile wide and an inch deep." As people learn the truth about our City and abuses of employees, GARDNER’s support fades.
GARDNER’s shallow surface knowledge of governance is shocking -- on New Year’s Eve he asked me, "what’s an Inspector General." His shallowness is what one would expect from a former newspaper editor who was an editor for tatterdemalion GANNETT and the foreruner of U.S. Today. He does not like the St. Augustine Record but does not inform himself by reading the N.Y. Times. His Babbitt-like boosterism is no substitute for thought or creativity.
Mayor GARDNER’s father and grandfather ran as reformers. I did not know them. However, from watching City government for seven years, I do know that Mr. GARDNER is maladroit, having botched the management of our City from stem to stern, tolerating abuses of power, violating First Amendment rights and presiding over the illegal dumping of the entire contents of the old illegal city dump into our Old City Reservoir.
GARDNER responds to criticism much the same way as Frank Skeffington or George W. Bush -- with anger and hubris. One of Skeffington’s critics said he would do things differently if he had them to do over again. Skeffington respond, "the hell I would.’
Like Commodore Vanderbilt, GARDNER’s approach to concerns about the public interest, on issue after issue, is "let the public be damned." (See below).