Monday, August 20, 2007

NAUGHTY POLITICiANS ON PARADE: TIME FOR ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA VOTERS TO SIGN PETITIONS FOR ELECTION TO RECALL ALL FIVE COMMISSIONERS?

When City Commissioners talk down to citizens, refuse to consider our ideas, insult us and show obvious signs of being in the hip pockets of real estate speculators, it's time for them to go.

We see right through them. Asked about illegal dumping, coverup and firing HARRISS at the August 13, 2007 City Commission meeting, the best Commissioners could manage during Commissioner comments was "hi, mom" and other greetings to kinfolk. We're not impressed.

Our City Commissioners have no backbone. Our City Commissioners have backward-bending labor supply curves. Their lazy, don't do their homework, and constantly vote favors for reckless, feckless thugs. Other than that, they're great folks.

The Commissioners' costume tomfoolery is like a piece of dental floss that might be worn by one of the strippers in one of the clubs that might open up under their ordinance 2007-11. It's not enough to cover the subject.

Our City leaders refuse to discuss the suggestion we put any "adult entertainment zone" next to the St. Augustine Police HQ, in the Sebastian Inland Harbor. Wonder why? Perhaps they don't have permission from the owners, herders and controllers. Conventioneers like strippers. But putting the adult entertainment zone where people won't see it makes too much sense. That might offend real estate speculators who have breached their contract and not started building a single building after years of promises. Speculator lawyer GEORGE McCLURE had a "public hearing" on August 13 in which not a single witness was sworn by incurious Mayor JOSEPH LEROY BOLES, JR.

Regarding the St. Augustine adult entertainment zones, caustic Commissioner ERROL JONES actually said we should "spread the misery," by having multiple adult entertainment districts in St. Augustine.

Mayor and Commissioner JOSEPH LEROY BOLES actually said he did not want to be "paralyzed by compassion," calling for a "Final Solution" to the hopelessness problem. Boles ran for Mayor with all the thought of a UF fratboy reaching for a beer, saying the job of Mayor was "ceremonial." He's violating free speech rights every way he can. BOLES brags in newspaper ads aimed at senior citizens, flogging his senior citizen law [ractice, that he's Mayor of St. Augustine (and Chair of the Council on Aging).

Commissioner SUSAN BURK misses many meetings and was kissed at the June 11, 2007 meeting by accused fraudfeasor ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD, her ex-boyfriend.

Commissioner DONALD CRICHLOW is an architect who practices before City boards, something our state ethics commission did nothing about.

Commissioner and ex-Mayor GEORGE R. GARDNER sometimes votes honorably, but failed to recuse himself in May 2005 when his wife SALLY's employer was alleged to have been offered a bottle of liquor to testify at a public hearing in favor of a rezoning.

Color them colorless. Label them limited. Is this the best we can do in St. Augustine as we look forward to our 450th birthday (and 500th anniversary of European conquest)?

At times, all five of these Commissioners don't have the sense to come in out of the rain unless a tree-killing speculator tells them to do so. They have no more idea than a hog about how to save money and supervise City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS, who has never received a performance appraisal in 9.5 years.

Asked about putting the entire contents of the old city dump in the Old City Reservoir 18 months ago, there's not been a credible answer from any of them. There was a coverup by criminal investigators with Florida's Department of Environmental Protection (which should really be called "Don't Expect Protection," according to local activist David Thurdershield Queen). The coverup is unravelling. Cost of our City's illegal dumping: estimated over $1.2 million. FDEP's Inspector General is investigating FDEP's coverup of the pollution investigation.

Meanwhile, there's a City of St. Augustine budget workshop on Thursday, August 23 at either 8 or 9 AM at the City's overpriced Financial Services Building, a former fire station whose retrofitting cost from $600,000 to $1.2 million. That's a lot of money for a mailslot, when City Hall already had one.

It's time for them all to go. They could move elsewhere in Florida and "spread the misery," in the memorable but ill-advised words of Commissioner ERROL JONES. What do you reckon?


St. Augustine City Commissioners DONALD CRICHLOW, ERROL JONES, GEORGE GARDNER (then-Mayor), SUSAN BURK and JOSEPH LEROY BOLES, JR. (now Mayor), who will meet at 5 PM on Monday August 27, 2007 at the Lightner Museum and City Hall, 75 King Street, to discuss the proposed adult entertainment zones for the City of St. Augustine, site of the first Catholic Mass in North America on September 8, 1565. See below.

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