SNIDELY WHIPLASH
Occupation: Stereotypical cartoon villain
GEORGE McCLURE
Species: Slobbus Americanus Vulgaris
Occupation: Stereotypical Villain (Northeast Florida Real Estate Speculator Mouthpiece)
The fight to preserve our Nation's Oldest City moved to a new level last night. See below. St. Augustinians and St. Johns Countians are winning the fight against wily GEORGE McCLURE and his clients, foreign-funded developers who have unlimited funds and what H.L. Mencken called "a libido for the ugly."
Last night, every single one of the many witnesses who testified on a monstrous building planned for the corner of Cathedral Place and St. George Street was against it. Not even hiring controversial developer mouthpiece GEORGE McCLURE as its lawyer -- and hiring sitting St. Augustine Commissioner DONALD CRICHLOW as its architect helped an out-of-town developer to have its way with our historic City's downtown.
What a difference four years makes. Where once GeORGE McCLURE was invincible -- and citizens didn't bother to speak when he appeared, knowing he would always get his way -- last night diverse citizens beat McCLURE, again.
GEORGE McCLURE kept cloyingly invoking DONALD CRICHLOW's name, as if it were a shibboleth that would get him past the opposition of respected community leaders.
GEORGE McCLURE is a privileged character -- someone who felt comfortable blathering on for hours about a project that would have been a non-starter but for the Philistine City Manager, WILLIAM B. HARRISS.
GEORGE McCLURE was given unlimited time by his buddy (Mayor JOSEPH LEROY BOLES, JR.).
GEORGE McCLURE used the time to get all gushy about the project, repeatedly using the words "I," "me" and "my" and the royal "we." Mayor BOLES never bothered to swear in McCLURE or any of the public hearing witnesses, but it didn't matter.
In St. Augustine, GEORGE McCLURE met his Waterloo last night in active, informed citizens, including a number of passionately concerned, good and decent people, among them former City Commissioner Raymond Connor (who modestly didn't mention his having served as a Comissioner. Others speaking against McCLURE's effort to trash the Plaza de la Constitucion with ugliness were architect Gerald Dixon, Charles Pellicer, Sandra Goode, Belinda Reconce, Hillary Bosza, William Smith, et al.
Every single one of the public hearing speakers said that the planned building is out of character with the downtown of our Ancient City, founded in 1565. McCLURE's usual disrespectful remarks about dissenting citizens did not carry the day.
Despite McCLURE's unlimited time and self-indulgent use of the words "I," "me" and "my," Commissioners asked good questions and were unconvinced by his plan to turn the historic intersection of St. George Street and Cathedral Place into an unreasonable fascimile of downtown Palatka (or any old South Georgia town).
Controversial corporate lawyer GEORGE McCLURE's influence in St. Augustine and St. Johns County is waning. See article and letter below.
Only our Republican public officials on the City Commission and County Commission are such timid lickspittles for this former ROGERS TOWERS lawyer that they save him from embarrassment by postponing decisions, instead of rejecting his projects.
But the next thing you know, we'll have a vibrant two-party system in St. Johns County again, and actual Democrats who will just say "no" to MCCLURE and his clients.
Last night, has-been lawyer GEORGE McCLURE was so incensed that he stuck his finger in my face outside the meeting, showing as little class or panache as GEORGE McCLURE did when he first tried this tired old provocation with me in May 2005. (The definition of insanity is doing the same old things and expecting different results, GEORGE McCLURE).
Give it up, GEORGE McCLURE -- especially in this saturated real estate market, your stable of developers are no match for today's St. Augustinians, who are no longer bossed and bullied by the likes of you and your pals.
You and your clients can just go to Palatka (or South Georgia) to build your ugly monstrosities.
Our Nation's Oldest City of St. Augustine is for beauty, not for beastly bullies and plug-ugly tactics (attempts to intimidate citizens by lawyers like McCLURE and City officials like HARRISS).
A pox on GEORGE McCLURE and his uglifying clients.
GEORGE McCLURE (and the corporate lawyer "Smirky Turkey Society" of which he is the Dean) may as well disband. We've got your number, GEORGE McCLURE.
We're looking forward to learning more about GEORGE McCLURE's having taped Republican County Commission Chairman THOMAS MANUEL in alleged bribe transactions.
We're especially looking forward to Federal Court cross-examination of McCLURE as to what led him to tape MANUEL, and whether GEORGE MCCLURE has ever provided any money or thing of value to any politicians in exchange for development "favors" of the sort his clients have inflicted on St. Augustine and St. Johns County for too long.
Cynical, sinister, slippery, supercilious, shallow, vacuous spellbinder GEORGE McCLURE is guilty, guilty, guilty of inflicting tree-killing and ugliness on our town and county.
Influence-peddling former ROGERS TOWERS lawyer GEORGE McCLURE has seen his influence decline. Is it the result of his bad karma? Even McCLURe's kids hate him for what he's done to our environment here in St. Johns County.
Examples of unsound, ill-advised GEORGE McCLURE projects abound, like the evisceration of Cooksey's Campground (in St. Augustine Beach) and of Red House Bluff (next to St. Augustine High School), where GEORGE McCLURE helped ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD destroy a 3000-4000 year old indigenous Native American village without proper investigation of possible human burials, as was suggested by the UF Acting Anthropology Chair in January 2006).
It's time for GEORGE McCLURE to come clean and tell the truth before a federal grand jury investigating St. Johns County corruption --- all of it (not just a dinky little piece of it).
What do you reckon?
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