Corruption Has Its Consequences in the Nation's ODDEST City?

Our Nation's Oldest City government is badly mismanaged.



When WILLIAM B. HARRIS, our City Manager's nephew, was in charge of grant-seeking. our City missed the boat on applying for a $1,000,000 grant to fix the Lightner Museum roof (also the building where City Hall is located).



The Lightner Museum is a national treasure, sometimes called the "Smithsonian of the South."



Those who run our dictatorial City government have only their own waste, fraud and abuse to explain.

In many respects, the mismanaged government of our Nation's Oldest City makes us a laughingstock, the Nation's Oddest City: A most-empty, ugly $22 million parking garage White Elephant (with no video cameras); destruction of wetlands, trees and wildlife; domination of City government by unthinking "developers" who are destroying Our Nation's Oldest City; habitual Sunshine violations (including $8100 junket to NYC); Open Records violations; crony purchasing practices, including buying gasoline based on phone quotes and buying with 400 blanket purchase orders; allowing City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS to spend up to $500,000 on his own say-so; a $1 million boondoggle converting a firehouse into a utility bill-paying building; discriminating against Gays and Lesbians on Bridge of Lions Pride Flags (resulting in a federal court victory for the First Amendment); ten years of effort in kicking the artists and entertainers off St. George Street; and taking the entire contents of the old illegal city dump into our Old City Reservoir (projected cleanup cost of over $1 million).

Thus far, three men have left City government as scapegoats for HARRISS' dumping the entire contents of the old city dump into the Old City Reservoir. HARRISS & Co. are still not being held accountable, either by City Commissioners or controversial State's Attorney John Tanner.

On April 13, City Manager for-life WILLIAM B. HARRISS celebrated the 9th anniversary of his coronation. HARRISS has never had a performance appraisal. In the midst of a pending criminal investigation last year, amid supercilious and shallow comments, our tatterdemalion City Commissioners actually gave HARRISS public praise, blasted his critics, publicly giving him a plaque, thereby discouraging City employees from blowing the whistle.

Obstruction of justice?

June 17, 2007 is the 35th anniversary of the Watergate breakin. Will HARRISS and his henchmen celebrate by laughing about their Lightner Museum Waterfall and the aspersions someone gave about buying from low bidders? (see below). The real problem is apparently that our City delayed so long in fixing the roof -- not the contractor who reportedly arrived on the job last week.

Notice the hierarchical, authoritian nature of those for who never accept responsibility for their actions. Our City blames subordinates for decisions by oligarchs, with now apparently blaming a contractor for its own failure to apply for a $1 million roof-fixing grant on time.

June 14, 2007 is our next City Commission meeting, at 5 PM in the Lightner Museum's Alcazar Room (1st Floor). Will HARRISS resign?
Will he be asked to explain his actions under oath? Will the camera even turn to him?

Ms. Cathy DuPont, the Neighborhood Council coordinator who runs the camera, never shows HARRISS' face, even when he smirks and laughs at public participation. HARRISS is an off-camera voice.

So will HARRISS resign, whether on or off camera? Or will St. Augustine City Commissioners, accustomed to getting favors, give him another atta-boy award for the Lightner Museum debacle, smirking lord of all he surveys?

What do y'all reckon?