COMPLAINT AND PETITION FOR RULEMAKING TO ST. JOHNS RIVER WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT RE: ST. AUGUSTINE'S "FREE" WATER FOR 43 CITY EMPLOYEES

COMPLAINT AND PETITION FOR RULEMAKING TO ST. JOHNS RIVER WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT RE: ST. AUGUSTINE'S FREE WATER FOR 43 CITY EMPLOYEES

To the Chair and Board members of the St. Johns River Water Management District:
This is a request for investigation and rulemaking regarding water-wasting practices by the government of our City of St. Augustine, Florida.
Forty-three (43) lucky St. Augustine residents are provided with "free" water in unlimited quantities by our unenlightened government of the City of St. Augustine.
I request that the St. Johns Water Management District kindly investigate to determine if any SJRWMD permission or advice was ever requested or required. I further petition that SJRWMD adopt a permanent rule forbidding any water utility anywhere from providing any more "free" water for anyone, including employees.
The 43 lucky St. Augustine city employees, including top city managers, have no incentive to conserve water. Our uninformed, anti- environmental City Commissioners and Mayor, JOSEPH LEROY BOLES, JR. have repeatedly been questioned about this bizarre employee benefit. Mayor BOLES refuses to discuss the benefit maturely, insultingly saying on September 6, 2007 at the TRIM budget hearing that he would not end the benefit, saying in a one-word response to Ms. B.J. Kalaidi, "No!" When I followed up on his one- word answer, Mayor BOLES explained condescendingly that the water is "free" and providing it to the 43 of 350 employees who live inside our City is simply a way of giving employee benefits without cost.
Of course, water is not a "free good."
SJRWD exists to conserve, protect and defend our water resources.
You will kindly recall that our Nation's Oldest (European-founded) City of St. Augustine dumped the contents of our old city dump into our Old City Reservoir, violating SJRWMD's specific orders not to dump and never providing information requested by SJRWMD before dumping without a permit. Our City Manager, WILLIAM B. HARRISS, ordered the dumping and is still employed by our City. HARRISS has no respect for our environment or environmental law. His arrogating "free" water to 43 of our City's 350 employees is but the latest in a long train of anti-environmental abuses under HARRISS' nine-year reign of error, terrorizing our the environment, including our City Commission's 4-1 vote on January 9, 2006, allowing condominiums and a strip mall to be built at Red House Bluff (site of a 3000-4000 year old indigenous village), granting approval to accused fraudfeasor land speculator ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD. GRAUBARD is the ex- boyfriend of St. Augustine City Commissioner SUSAN BURK, who voted for GRAUBARD's development and whom GRAUBARD kissed inside our City Commission meeting room during a recess at the June 11, 2007 City Commission meeting.
Our Nation's Oldest City's superciliously granting the "right" to "free" water to 43 of our City's 350 employees should be banned by SJRWMD.
From this day forward, no water utility in SJRWMD's jurisdiction should ever again be allowed to pretend that water is a "free" good by treating water as an employee benefit.
Please take immediate action and advise me so that I can advise the readers of www.cleanupcityofstau gustine.blogspot.com.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, FL 32085-3084
904-471-7023
904-471-9918 (fax)