Understanding Barney Fife --- St. Augustine is a Fiefdom (or Fifedom) in Which Our Government Shows Contempt for the Law

Last night, Bridge of Lions activist Teresa Segal and I were the only citizens who dared speak out about the need for a national search and openness in selecting a new City Manager, addressing City Commissioners.
We were both met with close-minded and closed-faced Commissioners, whose minds were already made up.
“Nip it in the bud.” Last night, discussing cannon-firing at a local tourist attraction, Commissioner DONALD CRICHLOW quoted the Don Knotts comedic law enforcement character “Barney Fife” from the Andy Griffith Show.
“Nip it in the bud.” That’s what five City Commissioners did on the question of inviting applications for the position of City Manager.
“Nip it in the bud.” That’s what five City Commissioners did on the question of complying with EEO laws.
“Nip it in the bud.” That’s what five City Commissioners did on the question of inviting women and minorities to apply for the position of City Manager.
“Nip it in the bud.” That’s what five City Commissioners did on the question of inviting experienced applicants, including people with experience in non-profit organizations and Corporate America to apply for the position of City Manager.
It was a crass and vulgar display of hopelessly provincial small-town politicians ignoring their duties to comply with federal laws against employment discrimination.
Consider what Commissioners said last night.
Mayor JOSEPH L BOLES, JR., who practices Elder Law, cited telephone calls from Richard Pinto (Chamber of Commerce type who hated the artists and entertainers and musicians on St. George Street, and used City resources to oppress them. BOLES also listed five former Mayors who lobbied him. BOLES said he did not want to teach an outsider about St. Augustine. BOLES said he would “like to do it tonight.”
Commissioner LEEANA FREEMAN, who practices Family Law, said it was “not a tough decision.”
Commissioner NANCY SIKES-KLINE read a typed, prepared statement about hiring “our neighbor.”
Commissioner DONALD CRICHLOW read a handwritten, prepared statement, calling John Regan the “City Manager’s frontman.”
Vice Mayor ERROL JONES stated he would have liked to have allowed at least other City employees to be considered, but he supported Regan, too.
Not one of the Commissioners addressed policy considerations.
Not one of the Commissioners addressed civil rights considerations.
Not one of the Commissioners addressed public relations considerations.
Not one of the Commissioners addressed ethics considerations.
Not one of the Commissioners addressed morale considerations.
Not one of the Commissioners addressed the potential consequences of hiring another white man for a top job without posting or advertising the job.
What they said amounted to, “we like John Regan.”
That’s an ad hominem argument in reverse.
I like John Regan. Most people like John Regan. That’s not the point.
The point is, people in St. Augustine risked their lives to protest Jim Crow segregation. They won. Congress adopted the 1964 Civil Rights Act because of what happened here. And our City Commissioners still have a Jim Crow mentality (despite their speechifying). They still don’t understand that, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, “a public office is a public trust.” They think it is a franchise for them to hire and give business to their friends.
In fact, over on the KKK-style hate websites (Historic City News and Plazabum.com) they were having a field day, with typical plazabum.com obscenity, indecency mockery of me for wanting a national search, saying that the City Commissioners had given me a big “F--- you” to me.
As Bill Clinton said in his Second Inaugural Address, “Nothing great was ever accomplished by being small.”
It’s not about personalities, it’s about policy. It’s about the City that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the most lawless” City in America. See our complaint to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (below).
The Commissioners and their enablers on the KKK-style hate webites still think of St. Augustine as being a fiefdom – or in tribute to Commissioner Crichlow’s quip about Barney Fife, it is a “FIFEdom.”
Last night, they voted yet another no-bid contract, this time for $160,000 to replace a chiller at City Hall. The new chiller is considered “green,” in that it will reduce energy bills by $20,000 per year. That’s a good thing. But no-bid contracts are immoral, illegal and contrary to public policy.
They also discussed the future position of “Chief Green Officer” for the City of St. Augustine. That’s a good thing too – but don’t be hiring your cronies without posting and advertising jobs any longer.
City Manager WILLLIAM B. HARRISS – who has disdained anything “Green” as “controversial,” actually used two words we didn’t know were in his vocabulary – “carbon footprint” – and he spoke of the need to reduce the “carbon footprint” of our Nation’s Oldest City. That’s a good thing too.
Hearing CRICHLOW talk about “Barney Fife” and “nipping it in the bud,” I appreciated where our City Commissioners are coming from.
These are narcissists who want to hire their friends, give business to their friends, give government favors to their friends, and take their cues from their friends.
They don’t have a political philosophy.
Under HARRISS, the City of St. Augustine was run more like a kleptocracy than a democracy. Rich white guys got whatever they wanted. Others were disrespected. What can you say bout a City that put 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir and 611,294 gallons of raw sewage in our San Sebastian River? Does being the City of St. Augustine mean never having to say you're sorry?
Under John Regan, will the City be run more like a democracy and less like a dictatorship of lugubrious goobers, who know not that they know not that they know not?
When Gorbachev came to power, he wrote a book called Perestroika. My father gave it to me for Christmas. As a skeptical graduate of Georgetown’s conservative School of Foreign Service, I thought that Gorbachev would probably be more of the same – just another Communist totalitarian, like those before him. My dad thought that Gorbachev was the real deal. I reckon history proved my dad right.
Having been WILLIAM B. HARRISS’ hey-boy for some twelve (12) years, John Regan must now prove himself. Is he another Gorbachev? Will he reform City Hall?
What do you reckon?