It's Morning in St. Augustine (and America)

It's Morning in St. Augustine (and America)

It's another beautiful day in a beautiful place, the Nation's Oldest (European-founded) City, St. Augustine, Florida.

We're working hard to change history here today, after 441 years of hierarchical, authoritarian government.

St. Augustine's city government has always been bossy, commencing in 1565 (same year that Ivan the Terrible founded the forerunner of the KGB).

From the time of Spanish and British colonial governments (when the Declaration of Independence was burned in our Slave Market Square), St. Augustine's city government has left much to be desired.

Like a rotten mullet by midnight, St. Augustine's government both shines and stinks. It shines because it raises and spends so much money -- $50 million/year for a small town. It stinks because it wastes so much, with so little results for working and retired people. It stinks because it is perpetrating illegal dumping of 20,000 cubic yards of contaminants in the Old City Reservoir, wetland destruction, developer-coddling, habitual Sunshine violations, secrecy, wasteful spending on White Elephants and Junkets (WEJs), misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance and prejudice and bigotry of all kinds (including an alleged coverup of sexual harassment allegations involving Mayor GEORGE GARDNER and hatefulness directed against requests to fly Rainbow flags on the Bridge of Lions).

Under the strong City Manager provision in our City Charter, one-man misrule still prevails, as during the time of Pedro Menendez, who ordered North America's first anti-Gay hate crime in 1566.

Although our City is 15% African-American, there are zero African-American police officers. Of 59 police officers, all are white. A street was recently renamed after the City's first African-American police officer, who worked for years before he was ever given a uniform or a police cruiser. St. Augustine's police administration is named after a police chief who spoke at KKK rallies and told the Florida legislature in 1965 that our City's problem was "outside agitators" like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was arrested here two weeks before Congress adopted the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Our City Manager blocked for years any civil rights memorial in our Slave Market Square, saying it was reserved for colonial history (when Confederate and war memorials also share the square). Then in December 2005, City Commissioners agreed to a civil rights memorial, but said that local residents had to raise money for it (while Commissioners flit to Spain, Germany and NYC on junkets with our money).
This morning, there were people already lined up at my St. Augustine voting precinct before the polls even opened at 7 AM this morning.

I am inspired.

Diverse people are uniting to take back our American governments, from St. Augustine City Hall to the U.S. Capitol Building, from sea to shining sea.

Forensic accountant and Lincolnville neighborhood association Peter Romano is running for both St. Augustine Mayor (against controversial lawyer JOSEPH LEROY BOLES, JR.) and Commissioner (against controversial Mayor GEORGE GARDNER).

During the last two days at key intersections around town, automobile drivers were honking horns and giving thumbs up to campaign workers and Peter Romano (and all but ignoring those working for GEORGE GARDNER).

Endorsed by all twelve (12) living former St. Augustine Mayors, controversial local lawyer JOSEPH LEROY BOLES, JR. has rarely been seen, as if he were above campaigning, or had something else on his mind. http://www.boldeover.net