The message of Thornton Wilder's play, "Our Town" was that most people don't even know they're alive until they're dead.
That is why most of us put up with environmental depredations, exploitation and corruption from our governments and our employers and our corporations.
Most people are too busy surviving from paycheck to paycheck to have the time to know or to care very much about what greed is doing to our planet. Life rushes by. Then we die.
In 1992, I purchased a copy of Al Gore's book, "Earth in the Balance," from a store called Dream Street here in St. Augustine, while we were on vacation. It is an amazing book that I started reading here in St. Augustine, at a crucial stage. Our Florida vacation was right after a three-week trial of an environmental and nuclear whistleblower case against the world's largest arms merchant (then called Martin Marietta, now Lockheed Martin). Punitive damages were awarded by District Chief Administrative Law Judge Theodor von Brand for this sadistic employer's retaliating by putting a cancer survivor with a suppressed immune system next to radioactive waste barrels and in toxic rooms, telling him to sit there when he was not out doing menial chores -- retaliation for appearing on CBS Evening news about cancer risks, raising concerns about environmental sample preparation and a pregnant secretary ordered to carry radioactive samples on the seat of a pickup truck at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, owned by the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations. (On appeal, political influence may have taken away the victory, but not the truth of the nuclear weapons industry and how it uses fear and smear to suppress truth-telling by employees).
Al Gore's book, "Earth in the Balance," and that Oak Ridge National Laboratory case changed me forever.
No longer did I do what most people do most of the time -- muddle through, cower to power and constantly worry about money, power, success and pleasing some uninformed lugubrious goober who doesn't know peaturkey about a durn thing.
After defeating Bush's beastly Senators and Congressman, we must be thankful.
Our nation, as one client said of his own situation at ORNL, has "nowhere to go but up."
Moving to St. Augustine, Florida at the end of the 20th century, we saw a beautiful, bucolic, natural paradise and were glad to be a part of it.
Brian was the first to notice and report -- "it's crooked around here." He was absolutely right.
Then we saw government officials working to ruin it at the behest of organizations that call themselves "developers." That's like calling arms merchants "government contractors" -- it's a smokescreen, a euphemism and damning with faint praise.
"Developers" that clear-cut every living thing must be stopped. These land-raping scalawags have bad taste in landscaping, bad taste in architecture, and seek to make up for it by clearcutting God's grandeur and to cover it all up by cultivating "friendships" with weak-kneed politicians. Look at the new, ugly buildings, including stripmalls, storage units, a garish three-story building, the monstrous 825 Anastasia Boulevard condos (marring the view from our city's wonderful Gypsy Cab restaurant).
We saw how County Commissioners and City Commissioners responded to neighborhood concerns, with disdain and eyerolling. We saw residents disrespected as one neighborhood after another fell prey to these "developers," Organization Men who want to clear-cut everything, know the price of everything and know the value of nothing.
Then we saw how public officials responded to illness caused by ASHLAND's polluting APAC asphalt plant on SR207 -- doling out county contracts despite FDEP fines and ASHLAND's status as a convicted felon violator of the Clean Air Act, while refusing to treat it is a public nuisance, with an Assistant County Attorney and DEP inspector claiming in two-part harmony that it was "just old people" and cold weather that was the problem. It turns out that the plant had a cracked kiln at a plant that should never have been located next to homes, schools, senior citizens housing and a nursing home) but was allowed to do so by county and state regulators guilty of desuetude -- nonenforcement of environmental laws. The plant must be moved -- there is no justification for putting an industrial plant next to existing homes and schools, where it poses a risk of explosions (not to mention ASHLAND's own fire-setting, which took place last year when managers ordered an employee to use a blowtorch to clean asphalt from a conveyor belt). A look at the 25 homes destroyed by a Massachusetts industrial explosion yesterday should persuade St. Johns County Commissioners to file a public nuisance lawsuit and make ASHLAND move the plant, as it said it was going to do last year.
We saw how North Florida public officials responded to free speech rights -- by violating them as to artists, entertainers, musicians and Gay and Lesbian people. We helped the St. Augustine Pride Committee apply to fly Rainbow flags for the third year last year, turned down by 3-2 vote on May 23, 2005. A federal judge ruled on June 7, 2005 that our City of St. Augustine violated the First Amendment, ordering Rainbow flags to fly June 8-13, 2005.
Earlier this year, we saw how our City of St. Augustine took the contents of the old illegal city dump on Riberia Street, dumping it into the Old City Reservoir -- 20,000 cubic yards, 30 million pounds, enough to fill in six Olympic size swimming pools to a depth of six feet or to cover a football field to a depth of 11.2 feet.
We saw how our City refused to answer questions, though Mayor GEORGE GARDNER promised "answers" at the February 27, 2006 Commission meeting.
Then we saw how our Mayor used his last comments as Mayor to denounce us for asking too many questions (and the St. Augustine Record defended our rights against the tatterdemalion political machine's attack)(see below).
Then we saw how our Florida Department of Environmental Protection proposes to fine our City the grand amount of $46,000 (and change) for major violations -- our City's illegal excavation and dumping of contaminants in water. Unfortunately, under current policies and failure to consider that the conduct in quo went on for years, the DEP proposed fine works out to $2.30 per cubic yard, less than the value of the coquina that was formerly in the "pits" in which people have fished and swam in clean water for years.
Greater fines must be provided for polluting this beautiful state.
Our legislature must increase fines, criminal penalties and enforcement capabilities for environmental crimes.
The suggested fine of $46,000 (and change)(or any higher amount that might be ordered after a hearing) must be paid out of personal funds by CITY MANAGER WILLIAM B. HARRISS, MAYOR GEORGE GARDNER, VICE MAYOR SUSAN BURK, COMMISSIONER ERROL JONES, COMMISSIONER DONALD CRICHLOW and MAYOR-ELECT JOSEPH LEROY BOLES, JR. -- every single one of whom we attempted to contact in writing this article. None have returned our calls.
How is it that the proposed fine was kept under wraps until after the election?
Did someone owe favors to Messrs. BOLES and GARDNER? We're still waiting for a timeline from FDEP.
We're waiting for greater candor from DEP and the City of St. Augustine. Why were voters deprived of the information about the proposed $46,000 fine? Who is responsible for suppressing this information until exactly one week after the elections?
St. Augustine city government's unjust stewards can be recalled from office if they do not resign.
The $2.30 per cubic yard fine may be a token amount, but it actually represents a sea change in attitudes here in North Florida.
While $46,000 (and change) is not nearly enough, it signals FDEP concludes our City is guilty of several "serious" violations, with penalties enhanced for the City of St. Augustine's "lack of good faith," which is to say "bad faith" by bad managers and bad public officials who have contempt for our natural environment.
$46,000 (and change) is a large fine of a governmental agency that has been abusing its powers for 441 years -- longer than any other government in the United States of America.
Due to this 441-year history, St. Augustine makes a perfect laboratory for democracy because its people live in a "small but cosmopolitan town," in the words of St. Augustine Record reporter Peter Guinta's letter in "Editor and Publisher."
Governments in Florida long tolerated and perpetrated environmental pollution.
Governments in Florida devastated our wetlands and have still not stopped.
Florida even named Broward County after one environmental miscreant, Florida Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, who thought it was a cool rule to destroy wetlands.
Never again. Wetland destroyers must be exposed and prosecuted, as in Mississippi, where one "developer" built homes in wetlands, resulting in sewage backups (and was represented by a lawyer who is now EPA Regional Administrator, Jimmy I. Palmer).
DEP's official press spokesperson seems confused about criminal conduct, wanting to help the City of St. Augustine create the false impression it won't be prosecuted. DEP's flak does not speak for federal and state criminal prosecutors and investigators.
The November 14, 2006 draft proposed DEP-City of St. Augustine, Florida consent decree states in haec verba that it does not settle any City's criminal wrongdoing, which may include obstruction of justice (see below) and a pattern of illegal dumping on the same and other sites in the past.
Mayor GEORGE GARDNER's November 6, 2006 8 PM E-mail claiming that EPA and FDEP found "no criminal intent" is, at best facetious -- he wishes it were true.
FDEP's spokesperson had no grounds to state to the St Augustine Record newspaper that the criminal case was over, as Captain Stewart Roemack told me that the criminal case addressed only "a very narrow sliver" of the City's alleged environmental crimes.
More when we receive and review FDEP criminal investigation file on the "very narrow sliver" that has been investigated to date.
Federal and state agencies are still investigating dumping and coverup:
1. EPA CID telling the FDEP on February 27 that the violations were "de minimis when FDEP found them to be "major";
2. Possible obstruction of justice, discouraging witnesses from testifying, giving City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS an award expressing the Commissioners' "confidence" in him days after the criminal investigators arrived;
3. Our City's longtime dumping history;
4. Our City Commissioners' "willful blindness," continuing dumping two days after criminal investigators arrived and Commissioners were quizzed about the illegal dumping).
Expect Congressional investigators to be all over St. Augustine and St. Johns County to see what corruption creates -- clearcutting, ugliness and illegal dumping.
The proposed consent decree is negotiable and persons opposed can and will be heard through the administrative process. Read the proposal and tell us what you think.
On February 27, 2006, City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS was laughing when I asked questions about his illegal dumping. Did he already have fallguys in mind? Did he know that any criminal case would be fixed by his friends?
The proposed consent decree knocks into a cocked hat the old hat assumptions that the St. Augustine political machine is invulnerable.
As my friend and mentor J.D. Pleasant says, "they'll say and do anything."
The answer of FDEP and the people of St. Augustine and North Florida is, "enough."
Individual citizens can function as "private attorneys general," reporting pollution to the National Response Center, as we did in this case. Call 1-800-424-8802 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every single day of the year. Be sure to get the case number from the Coast Guard petty officer or civilian employee and use it to keep on top of it -- just as we did on pollution by our Nation's Oldest City. Don't take no for an answer.
Never again will anyone take seriously the dismissive, condescending assumption of St. Augustine city officials (and "developers") that they can do anything they want to Our Town and our county.
Those who said "you can't fight City Hall" were wrong.
The Rainbow flags flying on the Bridge of Lions last year, and the $46,000 (and change) proposed FDEP fine proves you can, and win.
There's no turning back. "Good government" must be a reality, not just a punchline for greedy developers' political action committees.
The whole world is watching.
The Old City Reservoir case has now also established that the St. Augustine Record newspaper is becoming a force for good in our community, exposing the illegal dumping and sequelae and standing up to Mayor GARDNER's mean-mouthed retaliation against asking questions about illegal dumping and what he admits is "rampant corruption" in City Hall (the number of which Mayor GEORGE GARDNER ever answered is exactly zero).
In yesterday's St. Augustine Record (November 22, 2006), the major headline was on the dumping fine proposed by DEP (below).
Yesterday, reformer Ben Rich became County Commission Chairman. A retired federal law enforcement officer, Mr. Rich doesn't exactly cower to power, either.
Organizations that pollute and destroy our environment -- including the City of St. Augustine -- are being exposed.
Investigations of Sunshine violations, Open Records violations, environmental violations -- and more -- will be pursued. United citizens working for good government are an unstoppable force, their wonders to behold and be thankful for. See below.
You ain't seen nothin' yet!
Happy Thanksgiving -- we're especially thankful that Europeans did not kill all of the indigenous tribes and haven't destroyed all the trees yet. We're thankful that everyone is watching the Nation's Oldest City now.
We're thankful that the "St. Augustine National Historical Park" and restoring 1928 trolley cars might help restore our city and its environment, with an "emerald necklace of parks." See below.
We expect our City to start honoring 11,000 years of history (not just 441 years) and to show dignity, respect and consideration toward all of our citizens, regardless of race, color, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, income, perceived social or economic status.
Thornton Wilder's play, "Our Town," won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938, inspiring generations with its message about how little most people appreciate the joys of life.
St. Augustine, Florida is a beautiful place that must be treasured and preserved from the greedy, the corrupt and the mismanaged clique in City Hall.
This is our Town.
We're working to save our Town from the polluters and corrupters and the bigots.
No more coverups in Our Town, please.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085
904-471-7023
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