The Wreckord editorial (below), misstates its errant nonsense conclusion that "
We also remind (sic) the residents that it is not (sic) a Realtor's fault (sic) if they feel they relocated to the wrong place. Who makes a big purchase such as a house without checking out the neighborhood on their own, talking to other residents, driving all roads around their potential home?"
To what group of uninformed goobers does the editorial-writer think they're talking?
How dare they misinform homeowners about the state of the law. People misled by Realtors have the right to sue for fraud. People misled by Realtors have the right to file Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC) complaints. One FREC investigator told me several years ago that St. Johns County was the worst of the 15 counties in which he investigates cases, noting that Realtors here are mean-spirited and retaliatory.
Perhaps it was fear of Realtors' retaliation that led the Record to say "it's not a Realtor's fault." Shame on you, St. Augustine Wreckord, for being nothing more than a tool and a fool for tree-killing, wetland-filling, land-scalping, cash-toting "developers." The least you could do is inform consumers where to file complaints. Being run by hypocritical, self-righteous Republicans, you don't want to empower the people, so you feed them fertilizer and keep them in the dark (like mushrooms). THat's why the Wreckord is in a tailspin, with little news these days.l
As to Hydro, it seems like all four County Commissioners voted correctly. The company is a "green" business with hundreds of jobs for locals involved in recycling aluminum. Hydro has worked with neighbors, hearing their concerns and working to reduce the noise. We need jobs outside of tourism to grow our economy.
Reform Commissioner J. Kenneth Bryan was absolutely right in talking about unscrupulous Realtors, of which there are more than a few in St. Johns County.
The Wreckord's supercilious defense of Realtors who may have sold homes near an industrial plant without disclosures shows that the Wreckord has not changed all that much since it was owned by the grandfather of PIERRE THOMPSON, who cut down an eagle-nest tree on Octoer 8 2001, with his company pleading guilty to federal crimes in 2008. Nor has the Wreckord changed that much since it was owned by railroads.
Nor has the Wreckord changed that much since 1964 -- when the Wreckord published the names and addresses of innocent school children who were the first African-Americans in local public schools, gave advance announcement of KKK meetings, defended segregationists and covered up KKK/police riots).
Nor has the Wreckord changed that much since 2000, when it defended abusive commercial landowners who got their way in ejecting artists and entertainers from St. George Street, resulting in the dull, boring, lifeless, tasteless display of t-shirt marketing in the place of what was once a vibrant cityscape, with buskers.
2008 was a year when the Wreckord quoted (without scientific data), a Jeb Bush appointee as claiming there was no damage to our saltwater marsh from our City's pollution. They call this unscientific technique "junk science," "drylabbing" or "warm fuzzies" in the scientific and engineer fields. Here in St. Augustine, without rigorous investigative reporting and low expectations taught in local schools, public officials can say darn near anything and get away with it, never checked or questioned by the Wreckord.
2008 was a year during which the St. Augustine Wreckord was not above firing a cartoonist as a result of its publisher being poltroonish in the face of pressures from the thin-skinned School Superintendent, JOSEPH JOYNER, and power-hungry apparatchiks (including PHILIP McDANIEL, a/k/a "PHIL THE SHILL"), who did not like a cartoon mocking generic school administrators (not even bearing a caption or resemblance anyone from St. Johns County).
2008 was a year during which the Wreckord was guilty, guilty, guilty -- guilty of making up or ignoring facts to support its editorial positions, including its endorsement of ancien regime candidates and its claim that Congressman JOHN LUIGI MICA's head-butting was somehow deserved by the poor cameramaman MICA assaulted (a claim knocked into a cocked hat by Folio Weekly Editor Anne Schindler's column, giving readers key details about the videotaped assault, which the Wreckord's news story got correctly but which its editorial writer intentionally head-butted or ignored).
2009 could be the year that the Wreckord goes bankrupt, belly-up, kaput. That would be a shame -- we need a local newspaper. But we don't need one that mocks the altogether legitimate concerns of Commissioner Bryan about unscrupulous Realtors, doing so with a patronizing, arrogant, know-it-all, unkind, uncouth and unscholarly tone. Wise up, Wreckord -- you're hanging over hell's fire by a thread.
We don't need newspapers that lie and coverup for those who do, whether they be City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS, Realtors, or other pathological liars.
The Hydro crack about not blaming Realtors exemplifies the Wreckord's baby-talking substitute for thoughts --- it has more in common with Pravda and Isvestia than an American newspaper. When one-party REpublican misrule gets a pat on the head (as it did when the Wreckord endorsed Phil Mays), we have the specter of journalists becoming accomplices who merely cower to power, lickspittles before the mediocrities like ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD and other "developers."
It's time for the Newspaper Guild to start a union organizing drive in Florida, starting with the Wreckord. Never again must good and decent journalists be ordered to suppress the news (or write stupid stuff) by Richy Rich & cronies with no experience in journalism (other than computers and ad-selling).
It's time for real journalists everywhere to "just say no" to interference to tell Publisher Philistines to "go back to the ad planet where they belong," and stop molesting news and editorial writers to take dives for their crummy friends.
Sam Rayburn put it best when he told Lyndon Johnson -- "Lyndon, never tell anyone to go to hell unless you can send them there." Given the Wreckord's shaky economic status (documented by Folio Weekly in 2008), Wreckord writers and Wreckord readers are definitely in a position to tell the Wreckord Publisher to go to hell -- we deserve better coverage and no more galactically stupid, babytalking propaganda from City Hall, County Commission and Chamber of Commerce.
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