Restoring Trust in Government, Restoring Winter Wonderland

County Administrator Michael Wanchick has a lot of explaining to do.

Having just won a $21,000 raise to which he was contractually entitled (without putting it on the agenda before the day of the meeting) and having won approval of a legislative agenda (without putting it on the agenda on the meeting), he's abolished the popular Winter Wonderland (without putting it on the agenda, ever).

That's right. County Commissioners did not vote to close Winter Wonderland.
Wanchick made the decision.

That's the same way Wanchick closed the Galimore Center Pool -- by calling controversial then City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRISS and asking him if it was okay. HARRIS and WANCHICK never cheked with anyone. City Manager John Patrick Regan, P.E., and CIty Commissioners reopened a revivived Galimore Center Pool earlier this year, with support from the Jacksonville Jaguars to make it free of admission prices.

Government is supposed to work for us. The stated reason for closing Winter WOnderland is that county employees are tired of working at Christmas. We're tired of government employees with backward-bending labor supply curves.

St. Johns County needs to hire seasonal and temporary employees and keep Winter Winterland going, a suggestion I made earlier this week and which Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson has written is "logical and rational." That's how our Mosquito Control Commission does it, hiring seasonal and temporary workers during summers.

County Administrator Michael Wanchick needs to learn from our City of St. Augustine and City Manager Regan. Wanchick needs to learn about customer service, listening to your customers and constituents, and stop making bad decisions in secrecy.

For while our City of St. Augustine has miraculously ahieved great things in the last three years under Mr. Regan, our County Government's recrudescence of flummery, dupery, and hick hackery embarasses every single one of our 200,000 St. Johns County residents. Sunshine violations, Open Records violations and ugliness to citizens have been all too frequent at the County level, particularly involving the Tourist Development Council and the controversial St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau, Inc., recipient of millions of dollars of no-bid governmental largesse every single year.

It's our money.

It is up to us. It is up to us -- it is our time, our place and our government. St. Johns County residents, keep asking questions. Demand answers. We're all in this together.