CHESTER STOKES' MADEIRA -- GOVERNMENT-SUBSIDIZED LOWER NINTH WARD HOUSING PROJECT? PONCE GOLF COURSE DECLARED "BROWNFIELD," DEVASTATION TAXING

CHESTER STOKES' MADEIRA -- GOVERNMENT-SUBSIDIZED LOWER NINTH WARD HOUSING PROJECT? PONCE GOLF COURSE DECLARED "BROWNFIELD," DEVASTATION TO USE TAX CREDITS

As expected, Commissioners voted 3-2 to declare a contaminated golf course a "brownfield." (See prior articles below). The discussion might well have been scripted and the Commissioners might well have been Disney World automatons for all the impact that public speakers had on our captive City Commissioners.

To their credit, MAYOR GEORGE GARDNER and Vice Mayor SUSAN BURK Monday night (November 13) voted
(as expected) against controversial developer CHESTER STOKES' plan to declare the former Ponce de Leon Golf Course a brownfield, allowing the developer to use your money to tear up the 1916 Donald Ross designed golf course, so that babies will one day play in soil that may be contaminated with arsenic and organophosphate pesticide poisons.

To his discredit, Mayor GARDNER did not swear in any of the witnesses at the public hearing.

There's no excuse for a public hearing without sworn testimony.

To their discredit, several Commissioners did not comply adequately with the rule on disclosing ex parte contacts. It is not enough for Commissioner DONALD CRICHLOW to say that he had them -- he must say what the nature of the ex parte discussion was -- did it include discussion of whether he might be an architect for residences built on the site? Nor is it enough for Commissioner SUSAN BURK to refuse to state what ex parte discussions she had.

Ponce developer CHESTER STOKES allegedly procured annexation and rezoning through material false statements that he was not going to use public funds to destroy the golf course and the nature that so many people enjoyed.

CHESTER STOKES could be stopped with a civil RICO lawsuit if it turns out that he and his lawyers made materially false representations to Commissioners (e.g., that he would never use government funds for his nature-destroying projects). STOKES is now going to receive substantial tax credits (tax expenditures) to destroy the Ponce, its nature and wildlife.

CHESTER STOKES is a major contributor to the campaign of Commissioner ERROL JONES, who insulted those opposing the destruction of the Ponce de Leon Golf Course.

By way of non sequitur, Commissioner ERROL JONES noted that the Golf Course was once racially segregated (and that his late father could not play there). JONES did not say whether his father had been a golfer. JONES played the race card from the bottom of the deck, sounding mean. His lack of respect for citizen-activists is notable -- it is not enough that JONES tell environmental activists that he disagrees with them -- he has to raise his voice, insult them and play the race card, too.

Talking to Lincolnville residents at the Lincolnville Festival on November 4-5, I heard strong opinions from African-American people that Commissioner ERROL JONES does not represent them and that he favors corporate interests.

Commissioner ERROL JONES implied that prior public accommodations segregation somehow justified his vote that the nature and land should be destroyed and that the golf course should be given taxpayer-subsidized "brownfield" status to convert wildlife habitats into homes built on contaminated land, increasing the population of St. Augustine by 10%.

By that specious logic, JONES would presumably favor demolition of the Castillo San Marco National Monument (built with slave labor) and demolition of every building built in the City of St. Augustine prior to the adoption of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Yet the emotionally overwrought (and intellectually disingenuous) JONES had the temerity to call the Save the Ponce group "emotional."

This is, at best, facetious.

A former FDEP staff testified in favor of the brownfield (a man who is now a consultant for CHESTER STOKES). The former FDEP staffer testified only months after leaving state government employment, contrary to the rule that prevails in federal agencies).

Florida needs ethics laws with teeth restricting the activities of former government employees, to avoid what Ralph Nader has called "the deferred bribe."

Other witnesses testifying in favor of Mr. CHESTER STOKES' tax credit subsidized brownfield bingo- included State Farm insurance salesman HERBIE WILES and lame duck County Commissioner BRUCE MAGUIRE, one Democrat, one Republican, who sat next to each other all night long, making common cause to increase the City's population by 10%, entirely insouciant to the use of tax credits (tax expenditures) to empower evisceration of the Ponce, its wildlife, trees and wetlands.

Mr. WILES is perhaps noted for having been involved in a legal effort to take over the nonprofit corporate charter for the building that owns St. Augustine's American Legion post, a gift from the Hamblen estate. That effort fizzled in court and was exposed by the St. Augustine Record, whose reportage was revealing for the tactics of local businessmen including WILES' partner, PIERRE THOMPSON, who was never charged criminally with the October 2001 cutting-down of an eagle nest tree, with the United States Attorney apparently letting the statute of limitations expire. THOMPSON is grandson of the Record's founder, whose family no longer owns the Record (now owned by Morris Communications).

Can the Ponce still be saved? Will the Record call for use of eminent domain to create parks locally, and call on Congress to create a "St. Augustine National Historical Park?"



Will national environmental groups step in to stop the devastation of wildlife and wetlands?

If the Ponce wildlife and wetlands are to be preserved, the Ponce must be condemned through eminent domain, perhaps by the U.S. Department of the Interior, to become part of an "emerald necklace of parks," as suggested in my letter in Thursday's St. Augustine Record (see below).

The alternative could be another Katrina-style disaster, wrought as a result of lax regulations and desuetude by the City of St. Augustine, Army Corps of Engineers, St. Johns River Water Management District and Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)(which my friend David Thundershield Queen says really stands for "Don't Expect Protection")

Developers enthrall four of these governmental entities, although Congressional oversight may soon make them quake in their boots in the 110th Congress.

As opponents suggested on November 13, quoting City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS, the low-lying area could be destroyed in the first Category 4 hurricane, with homes built on marshland swept inland, wiping out the County Courthouse and other inland properties.

Why would any rational investor or lender want to built in a low-lying area after Katrina? We expect developers to be greedy, but we also expect bankers and investors to be rational.

It's not just irrationally exuberant to build in wetlands -- it destroys natural flood controls and threatens death and financial ruin.

See "The Matrix -- Wetlands of Mass Destruction," by Ed Slavin, on Miami Indymedia (see below)

It could be a breach of fiduciary duty (and possible securities violations) for such persons to invest in CHESTER STOKES' Madeira development, the logical equivalent of building sand castles in New Orleans' Ninth Ward.

What do you think?