So SUSAN BURK is leaving St. Augustine City Commission. Good riddance.

As we recently reported, BURK missed at least 25 St. Augustine City Commission meetings in five years – the worst attendance record by far – she’s guilty of missing about 20% of meetings and leaving other meetings early (like the one on November 13, 2007 that approved sending illegally dumped solid waste back to the Lincolnville community).

While wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal and engineering fees for AKERMAN SENTERFITT and GEOSYNTEC on the now-dead plan to bring illegally dumped solid waste back to Lincolnville, SUSAN BURK also blew our money on junkets to Spain, NYC, Germany and Colombia and never asked tough questions about mismanagement, waste, fraud, abuse, misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance. She’d even smirk when I used those terms.

Last year, BURK and City General Services Director JAMES PIGGOTT flew to Cartagena, Colombia for a sister cities junket. In 2003, BURK and Comptroller MARK LITZINGER flew to Germany to look at mechanical parking garages. In 2005, BURK and all City Commissioners blew $8100 on a three-day junket to NYC with wives and significant others (BURK inexplicably spent four days in NYC). Commissioners claimed to the St. Augustine Record that they were conducting “business,” which means that the violated the Sunshine law, as no prior notice was given of their meetings with Standard & Poors and three bond rating companies, which wined and dined them in fancy restaurants every night. Controversial Florida 7^th Circuit States’ Attorney John Tanner refused to prosecute the Sunshine violations, with a minion claiming it was an “inspection trip.”

BURK made the motion to accept City Attorney James Patrick Wilson’s resignation in an October 13, 2006 special meeting held without prior Sunshine notice, then moved to pay him to sit at home until January 31, 2007, even though he had resigned effective that date.

It was BURK who made the motion on October 13, 2006 to hire RONALD BROWN as temporary City Attorney, then moved in December 2006 to hire BROWN permanently, without a proper EEO search, also without proper Sunshine notice (the meeting was called only for discussion of tax relief for low-income elderly residents). State’s Attorney refused to prosecute that Sunshine violation, claiming it was an “emergency meeting,” even though the City only claimed it was a “special meeting,” and there was no emergency.

BURK has turned into a lickspittle for those who would destroy our Nation’s Oldest City and turn it into an unreasonable facsimile of South Florida, complete with tree-killing, wetland-destruction and ticky-tacky ugliness.

I actually voted for SUSAN BURK for Mayor in 2002. GEORGE GARDNER was elected Mayor by ten votes.

I am deeply disappointed in SUSAN BURK. In her first years in office, BURK was a populist hero, fighting the oppression of artists and entertainers on St. George Street. I was impressed with her sensitivity on First Amendment issues, including the artists and entertainers and the Rainbow flags on our Bridge of Lions.

But over the years BURK sold out. BURK has degenerated into a doormat for HARRISS and speculators like ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD, once her boyfriend.

Like most St. Augustinians, I was snookered into believing BURK, GARDNER and other Commissioners were reformers. In fact, I naively believed that every single one of the current Commissioners was a reformer, as each portrayed themselves in running for office.

Now I know there’s a big, bad political machine run by a wicked Republican man named WILLIAM B. HARRISS, our City Manager, whose idea of a good time is discriminating against African-Americans and Gays, violating the First Amendment and putting 35,000 cubic yards of solid waste into our Old City Reservoir.

Whether its speeding trucks on Leonardi Street or illegal dumping, BURK rolls her eyes and smirks whenever citizens share their concerns.

She’s a secure vote for HARRISS.

Now HARRISS’ machine has two candidates running for BURK’s seat – Dan Sullivan (Chair of the Parking Committee responsible for the White Elephant Parking Garage) and Leeana Freeman, (BURK’s law partner, whose already making anxious promises of conscious parallelism and congruency on everything BURK did)(see below).

Now HARRISS’ political machine has thoughtfully devised a race between two machine candidates for BURK’s seat. How devilishly clever.

You get to vote for tweedle-dee or tweedle-dum.

Tweedle-dum Sullivan brought you the $22 million White Elephant Parking Garage. Tweedle-dum Sullivan promises business as usual.

Tweedle-dee Freeeman was Chairman of the Planning and Zoning Board (like Commissioners GARDNER, CRICHLOW and Mayor BOLES). Last year, when people spoke out against the Fish Island Marina, Tweedle-dee Freeman actually defended the noxious practice of allowing speculators to have the last word – it’s “rebuttal,” she said, “like in court.” Of course, “in court,” there is also “surrebuttal,” which Freeman arrogantly refused to recognize. Like BURK, Freeman’s court experience is largely limited to divorce cases.

Like Tweedle-dummer Sullivan, Tweedle-dee Leeana Freeman actually promises Business as Usual. She doesn’t want to change a thing.

So who will save our City from more Philistinism from its gold-plated $50,000,000 City Hall budget, greedy speculators and more environmental crimes and more environmental racism?

Definitely not Tweedle-dum Sullivan and Tweedle-dee Freeman.

So who will save our City?

Stay tuned.