Being Number One on MAYOR GEORGE GARDNER's Enemies List Greatly Expands Readership of www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
ST. AUGUSTINE MAYOR's Swan Song: MAYOR GEORGE GARDNER Calls Questioning "Harassment," Proves He's No "Reformer" -- Uses Government Funds to Spread "Enemies List"
Our blog readership has greatly expanded, thanks to controversial lame duck St. Augustine Mayor GEORGE GARDNER's anger.
What a week!
Thanks to Mayor GARDNER, the local readership of this blog has increased greatly since Monday night, November 13.
Call it the law of unintended consequences (or just desserts).
On November 13 (Monday night) I shared with St. Augustine City Commissioners the thought that we need a "St. Augustine National Historical Park," based upon the success of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. (See letter in yesterday's St. Augustine Record, reprinted below).
Rather than respond on the merits, lame duck Mayor GEORGE GARDNER took it upon himself to read his scripted last words in Commissioner comments as Mayor, pejoratives and anger directed against me for asking too many questions (none of which he ever answered), e.g., about our City's illegal dumping of the entire contents of the old illegal city dump on Riberia Street into our Old City Reservoir (see below). He said I had "some good ideas," but said I was a pest.
He has now circulated these words as his latest newsletter, using government funds for purposes of obloquy, ridicule and blacklisting.
How would a 20-year-old feel about speaking in a public meeting knowing that Mayor GARDNER stands ready to abuse his public office to stifle dissent?
The First Amendment, in its majesty, empowers the people and the press to be pests and to ask questions. It is not for GARDNER to judge.
As William F. Buckley, Jr. once said, "Why does baloney reject the grinder?"
I wear GARDNER's scorn as a badge of honor.
Thrice GARDNER campaigned as a reformer and reformed nothing. I voted for him in 2002 and 2004. I supported his opponent in 2006 and will be proud to help make Peter Romano St. Augustine's Mayor in 2008. Mr. Romano may be a registered Republican (and Messrs GARDNER and BOLES may be registered Democrats), but as JFK said, "sometimes party loyalty demands too much."
Our St. Augustine City Commission races are nonpartisan and Peter Romano cares about our City, its people, neighborhoods, history, budget and government ethics. I was proud to support his campaign and I will do it again.
GARDNER's personal pique at my
supporting Mr. Romano (who almost defeated GARDNER) is matched by his anger at my asking questions. His low threshold for questions reminds me of characters on the classic TV detective show, Columbo (Peter Falk). Inevitably the wealthy murderer would grow increasingly irritated at Lt. Columbo's asking just one more question. The murderer would yell and accuse Columbo of "harassment," sometimes calling in political chips with LAPD or other city officials. The denouement was not far away -- the murderer was soon caught.
Finis.
Those who are caught seldom react with amity to those who catch them. As my mother says, "it's not the hangman but the murderer who brings dishonor on the house."
As GARDNER brayed, yes, I've been accused of "harassment" before, by public officials who lack respect for the First Amendment, including the late Tennessee Sheriff DENNIS O. TROTTER and School Superintendent PAUL EUGENE BOSTIC, Sr. (More below). I wore their scorn as a badge of honor, too.
Not unlike Cato the Censor, Mayor GEORGE GARDNER thinks it's his job to decide what's proper and improper dissent, "positive" and negative history (in the context of the 1566 murder and the Bridge of Lions Rainbow flags), and good and bad citizenship.
Busy, busy, busy.
Based on his history, St. Augustine Mayor GEORGE GARDNER has emotional problems about First Amendment protected activity.
His response to the federal court order finding he violated the First Amendment by rejecting Rainbow flags was to ban all but government flag-flying on the Bridge of Lions. The vote was 3-1 (Commissioner BOLES dissenting), with GARDNER joined by DONALD CRICHLOW and ERROL JONES in banning all but government flag-flying (see below).
GARDNER's retaliatory response to questions about illegal dumping was to announce a ukase, without a vote, but supported by all Commissioners (showing conscious parallelism and possible Sunshine violations), that persons could not speak at both the beginning and end of the meeting in public amounts -- that we had to choose, disingenuously claiming that this had always been the case, when persons spoke at both the beginning and end of meetings at least ten times during 2005-2006.
As GARDNER spewed angry rhetoric in my direction Monday night (November 13), I worried about Mayor GEORGE GARDNER's health.
GARDNER choked out his words, like a man who held grudges for my supporting his opponent, Peter Romano, who came within a very few votes of unseating GARDNER.
GARDNER reminds me of the provincial monarch in the movie Amadeus, who complained that a Mozart opera had "too many notes." GARDNER knows no more about investigative reporting than he does about manners or music (playing recorded music at the Lincolnville Festival, drowning out live jazz)..
The simple palpitating truth of the matter is that St. Augustine Mayor GEORGE R. GARDNER, Mayor-Elect JOSEPH LEROY BOLES and Commissioners DONALD CRICHLOW and ERROL JONES have disgraced their public offices.
They take trips to NYC, Spain and other locales, wasting our money.
They won't answer questions.
They get increasingly pugnacious when held accountable.
On November 13 (Monday night) Commissioner SUSAN BURK said that the re-election of GARDNER and the election of BOLES as Mayor meant people were pretty happy, claiming it was a "vote of confidence" in the government.
She's wrong.
She's not happy.
She misses too many meetings to be taken seriously. Her remarks -- and those of other Commissioners -- are too often off-the-cuff, reflecting no preparation and little interest in asking good questions or making good public policy.
Candidates are either kept off the ballot or discouraged from running by a clique that is not above using City resources for blacklisting purposes, as Mayor GARDNER's E-mails and speech proves.
Mayor GARDNER's not happy.
Mayor GARDNER's slim margin of victory was less than the undervotes (the people who voted for neither candidate for Commission Seat 3). A switch of only 205 votes would have elected forensic account Peter Romano of Lincolnville to City Commission -- upsetting all of the developers, government contractors and political patronage hacks who depend upon the City's largesse for their existence.
Here's the official results for Mayor and Commissioner:
COMMISSION -- SEAT 3
George Gardner 2291 54.97%
Peter Romano 1872 45.03%
Undervotes 318
MAYOR of ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA
Joseph Boles 2376 57.13%
Peter Romano 1763 42.87%
Undervotes 326
Hint: People are not happy with a bloated $50,000,000 annual budget for a town of 13,000, or with officialdom's high marginal propensity for White Elephants and Junkets (WEJs).
Hint: We're not happy with a government that wastes money on a $22,000,000 White Elephant Parking Garage that is more than half-empty, or with annual trips to Spain, frequent trips to NYC, trips elsewhere, or with what would appear to be habitual Sunshine violations.
Behaving more like a spoiled child -- or King George III -- than the elected mayor of an American city, GEORGE GARDNER's swan song was not to list any putative accomplishments, but to talk about the author of this blog (Ed Slavin).
Gardner sounded like Richard Nixon on White House tapes -- like those on Nixon's Enemies List, I'm proud to have made the cut.
In my lifetime, I've been honored to meet and greet several of the members of Nixon's Enemies List. My work at the Government Accountability Project on security clearance reform was funded by none other than Stewart R. Mott, the General Motors heir who gave $1 million in campaign contributions to Senator George McGovern's 1972 campaign for President.
Every single one of the members of Nixon's Enemies List was proud to be on it.
Likewise, I am proud to be on GARDNER's Enemies List, apparently the first and only person to have been publicly disclosed as being on it to date.
I have recently reviewed my treasured copy of the Final Report of the Watergate Committee, Gerald Gardner's Watergate Follies book of photo captions, and other Watergate-era books.
MAYOR GEORGE GARDNER bears more than a passing resemblance to the political style of President Richard Nixon (the only President to resign and the only President to receive a Presidential Pardon).
For a good time, be sure to watch Sir Anthony Hopkins' portrayal in the title role in Oliver Stone's "Nixon" -- it's almost as if MAYOR GEORGE GARDNER had studied the film, decided to repeat history, or once traveled "to San Clemente to sit at the feet of the master," as Nashville lawyer John J. Hooker, Jr. once said about former U.S. Senator (and Labor Secretary) William E. Brock III (a/k/a "the candy man from Lookout Mountain," in Senator Jim Sasser's immortal words).
By the way, I was in the Nashville Tennessean newsroom the night that Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton saw the new Governor (Lamar Alexander) sworn in early because Blanton was reported by the FBI to be about to sign 30 more pardons for convicted murderers.
Like Ray Blanton, City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRIS' St. Augustine political machine has the same mantra: "there's politics in everything [they] do," whether it is denial of equal city services to retaliation against City Board members and employees or the expectation that professionals observe an oath of omerta to obtain and keep city jobs, contracts and services. A neighborhood can't even ask for a speed hump, no through trucks sign or oppose an annexation without being oppressed by the likes of HARRISS. From one end of the City to another, the stories are the same: people are treated disrespectfully by government employees who respect only corporations and their influence.
By putting me at the top of his Enemies List, Mayor GEORGE GARDNER shows how threatened he is by dissent.
GARDNER also misses the point --- citizens in a democracy seeking to hold governmental institutions accountable do not crave the favor of those who are wrongdoers, whether in Tennessee or Florida or Washington, D.C.
My ancestor Ellen Kennedy emigrated from Ireland in 1849 with neighbors at age 6, her entire family having died in the Irish potato famine, the result of British policies using food as a weapon against Irish Catholics. There is now a memorial to the millions of British potato famine victims in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
My father machine-gunned Nazis and won three Bronze Stars with the 82nd Airborne Division in WWII protecting our liberties.
Our Founders pledged "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" fighting for liberty.
Our generation can do no less than stand up to oppressors, including arms merchants and polluters like LOCKHEED MARTIN or public officials like GEORGE GARDNER.
Upon hearing and reading Mayor GARDNER's unseemly screeching, I am reminded of the late Anderson County (Tennessee) Sheriff DENNIS O. TROTTER, twice Tennessee Sheriff of the year, who said I was "the most dangerous reporter" he "ever met," and who said "I'm running this Sheriff's Department, Ed Slavin is not," and who said, "I wouldn't return your [damn] phone calls if you was sitting out there in the mud," and who threatened to have me sued for libel. TROTTER was investigated by the FBI and taken out of the Anderson County (Tennessee) Courthouse in handcuffs on May 21, 1983, charged with federal felonies, pleading guilty and spending four years at La Tuna Texas Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) and later at the Maxwell Air Force Base FCI. After he emerged from prison, TROTTER drove to Memphis, where he agreed to settle my RICO and civil rights lawsuit against him for stirring up the bogus libel lawsuit. Since insurance companies wisely determined that the businesses of Anderson County, Tennessee did not include bribery, racketeering and drug conspiracy, when TROTTER and his cofelons settled with me, they paid their own funds, not insurance funny money.
DENNIS O. TROTTER demanded as a condition of settlement that I never contact him; we made the pact mutual. It's too bad, because I would love to have interviewed him in later years and asked him about what he had learned from his experiences.
Upon hearing GARDNER's ukase, I am reminded of the late Anderson County (Tennessee) School Superintendent PAUL EUGENE BOSTIC, JR., whose contracting abuses and abuses of employees were legendary, and exposed by the Appalachian Observer. Like GARDNER, BOSTIC would make personal attacks on me from his seat at the School Board table, where he sat as if he were the lord of all he surveyed for some 13 years, until a young reporter arrived from Georgetown University, asking questions no one had ever asked before. To his credit, BOSTIC said before his untimely death that he felt that we had done the right thing in exposing abuses in the Anderson County School Department.
I've been accused of "harassment" by nuclear weapons plant managers, including those ethically challenged Union Carbide and Atomic Energy Commission managers who dumped 4.2 million pounds of mercury into East Fork Poplar Creek in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the largest mercury pollution event in world history. Workers were exposed to 30-60 times the then-prevailing standard for mercury in the air, without respirators.
Two lawyers for DOE and its contractor organizations watched in the Tennessee Supreme Court chamber in 2004 and had everything to do with the matters to which GEORGE GARDNER so inartfully refers to in his angry Enemies List communications.
In the year 2000, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson finally apologized to nuclear weapons plant workers for the unsafe working conditions that killed and maimed so many of them, with Congress enacting unjust legislation giving workers $150,000 in cash in bizarre legislation that resembles a bribe more than it does a valid workers' compensation system. See
"Compensating Americans' Toxic Injuries from U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production: The 106th Congress Should Reject DOE's ‘Trojan Horse Bill," (September 21, 2000 written statement to U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims), together with three attachments: Fact Sheet, Section-By-Section Analysis and Text of Proposed Legislation Covering All DOE Victims and Repealing Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) Discretionary Function Loophole for Ultrahazardous Activities, and draft Nuclear Weapons Workers, Atomic Veterans and Residents Compensation and Health Act (NWWAVARCHA) of 2000,
In 1983, I was recommended for Pulitzer Prize by local District Attorney for May 17, 1983 DOE declassification of Oak Ridge, Tennessee mercury pollution, based on FOIA letter sent as Appalachian Observer (weekly newspaper) Editor -- the largest mercury pollution event in world history (DOE's "coverup" was excoriated by TVA Chairman S. David Freeman and covered by SCIENCE and major national news media), with a investigative hearings held on July 11, 1983 by then-Reps. Al Gore, Jr. and Rep. Marilyn Lloyd, where I called for criminal prosecution of those responsible for pollution of our environment and poisoning workers. .
Costs of the cleanup of Oak Ridge pollution exceed $5,000,000,000,000.
The Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations and its contractors and their lawyers never forgave me. Any Evil Empire views those who would end its abuses as harassers. Remember what the Soviets said about President Ronald Reagan?
What I've endured in retaliation for representing whistleblowers is nothing compared to the daily harassment faced by American employees, including those in the City of St. Augustine. See www.desuetudehurtspeople.blogspot.com.
I am thankful to GEORGE GARDNER for finally speaking his mind and showing his true colors.
His anti-Gay animus during the debate on the Rainbow flags was suppressed. Now that GARDNER's animus against the First Amendment and equality have "come out of the closet."
GARDNER's emotional display of
ill will toward criticism was like a confession. Confession is good for the soul.
GARDNER needs to keep talking.
Now GARDNER can give sworn testimony before federal and state fora about illegal dumping, conflict of interest, Sunshine violations, retaliation and harassment of city employees and others.
Those responsible for the misconduct should be required to pay for it, including the cleanup of the Old City Reservoir.
When I filed federal administrative complaints against those St. Augustine officials who tried to silence me and keep me off the ballot, I specifically asked that no tax monies be spent on legal defense or settlement -- that the wrongdoers should pay for it all themselves. Silencing dissenters is not the lawful business of the City of St. Augustine.
GARDNER said he did not know what an Inspector General was, who asked me on December 31, 2005 to call for the firing of CITY MANAGER WILLIAM B. HARRISS, but who lacked the will and skill to do anything about what he now concedes to be "rampant corruption" in City Hall. (See below).
As my friend David Thundershield Queen wrote (see below), GEORGE GARDNER meant well but he was ineffective.
GARDNER's limited vision and lack of support doomed any efforts to reform St. Augustine city government.
The smirk on City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS' face upon receiving a heck-of-a-job award in the midst of a pending criminal investigation of illegal dumping said it all.
GARDNER now disdains public and press questions.
GARDNER is a mediocrity.
GARDNER's entire newspaper experience was with GANNETT, monopolistic purveyor of such mediocrities as my hometown newspaper (the Camden, N.J. Courier-Post), USA Today, and the First Coast News duopoly (combing NBC and ABC affiliates into one monopolistic broadcast, an experiment I've asked that FCC end.
MAYOR GEORGE GARDNER's longwinded swan song Monday night (November 13) shocked viewers who called me.
Instead of listing anything he might have considered to be his accomplishments, GARDNER's swan song about "Ed Slavin" resembled Richard Nixon's White House Enemies List or his 1962 press conference after losing his bid for Governor, attacking the news media and saying "you won't have Richard Nixon to kick around any more because this is my last press conference."
Is GARDNER's accusation of "harassment" projection? This is a man who has allegedly been accused by three women of sexual harassment.
GARDNER's own wife, SALLY GARDNER, personally harassed Peter Romano at the ACCORD civil rights table on November 4 at the Lincolnville Festival, interrupting his discussion of property taxes to say "you don't pay property taxes." (Gardner is a disabled veteran and exempt).
Such gracelessness under fire is becoming a trademark for the GARDNERS.
Meanwhile, GARDNER has never answered my questions about illegal dumping, Sunshine violations, government waste or mismanagement. He's not answered my questions about his failure to disclose his possible conflict of interest in failing to disclose his wife's receipt of income from the man who was offered a bottle of liquor to testify at an April 2005 annexation hearing. See below and May 3, 2005 FOLIO Weekly article cited.
GARDNER's never answered why City Attorney JAMES PATRICK WILSON left or why the Commissioners violated the Sunshine law in the October 13, 2006 meting or why they accepted his resignation and told him to sit at home until January 31, 2006, instead of letting him work until that day as he planned.
What's going on here?
Like Nixon's statement, "I'm not a crook," GARDNER only called attention to himself with his affectation of martyrdom.
GARDNER's attacking a questioner by name was not the first time he has done so. See David Thundershield Queen's letter below.
Like Commissioners ERROL JONES, SUSAN BURK, DONALD CRICHLOW and JOSEPH LEROY BOLES, JR., GARDNER is thin-skinned. He's never had anyone ask so many questions before.
GARDNER planned to lose his cool, reading a prepared statement.
GARDNER never responded to the suggestion of a "St. Augustine National Historical Park," resembling the New Bedford Whaling National Park.
In the final analysis GARDNER's prepared pejoratives showed he has "no class" -- just as JFK said about Nixon after his 1962 press conference, attacking the news media.
Say goodnight, Mayor GARDNER and thanks for increasing the readership of this blog -- permanently -- and for making me feel young again. As FDR once said, "I'm an old campaigner and I love a good fight." We're working for honest government and no intimidation and harassment will stop us from speaking the truth.
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