I was very proud of our St. Augustine Commissioners thirteen days ago, for what they didn't say and do.
They didn't threaten Native-Americans and their supporters with arrest for criticizing Ponce de Leon and Pedro Menendez de Aviles and calling for the levelling of teh Castillo de San Marco.
They didn't have law enforcement people come to the front, standing around, intimidating them.
They didn't interrupt them.
They didn't insult them.
They listened attentively, even graciously.
This is a sea change from 2005 and 2006, and before, when then-Commissioners would interrupt speakers, insult speakers, not look us in the eye, and generally act like anti-literate energumen, unwilling to witness or permit anyone criticizing the maladministration of then City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS (a/k/a "WILL HARASS"). Whether Environmental Racism, illegal dumping, harassment of artists and entertainers on St. George Street, cronyism or Fifteenth Amendment violations, the prior Jim Crow style City Commissions never had a happy day -- they were always lashing out at opposing views, showing contempt for the First Amendment (and many of the others). One former Commissioner allegedly said in responsne to an environmental activist entering the room, "Do we have to listen to that bitch again?"
Yes, you do. Yes they do. This is America, and the Ku Klux Klan no longer bosses around our City Hall, our Commissioners, or our citizens.
There is a new day in St. Augustine, exemplified by "Be the Change that You Want to See in the World," the Ghandi quote City Manager John Patrick Regan, P.E. has on display on his home (after I shared it with our Commissioners in 2011).
Leadership by example works.
We're still waiting for the St. Johns County Commission's hand-picked, corporate-domnated Tourist Development Council to show similar respect.
At its meeting last Monday, October 21, TDC Chairman WILLIAM HUGHES again showed his ignorance by interrupting me. WILLIAM HUGHES intentionally interrupts me when I speak to TDC, and has done so for months. WILLIAM HUGHES is the Manager of The Players Championship golf course at Sawgrass, where you may pay some $500 to play a round of golf.
TDC Chair WILLIAM HUGHES loves to intimidate TDC Executive Director Glenn Hastings, VCB Executive Director Richard Goldman, Cultural Council Executive Director Andrew Witt, and others whom HUGHES thinks are beneath him.
WILLIAM HUGHES'verbal abuse is pathological and illegal. Employees and citizens alike could sue him for civil rights violations. HUGHES' verbal abuse is only showing that WILLIAM HUGHES is a bully, a braggart and a cognitive miser -- he is the kind of lugubrious goober who "knows not that he knows not that he knows not," in the words of my friend Special Agent Robert E Tyndall (Retired).
TDC Chair WILLIAM HUGHES wants to silence antitrust and civil rights concerns, and is willing to use the presence of Sheriff's Deputies to do it (just like former Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission of St. Johns County Chairman BARBARA BOSANKO, who threatned critics of the no-bid helicopter with arrest).
I have requested that St. Johns County Attorney Patrick McCormack instruct TDC Chariman WILIAM HUGHES about his legal duties under the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners' rules, and state law, not to interrupt speakers. If HUGHES persists, I shall call his civil rights violations to the attention of th3 BCC, and to his TPC golfing buddies and employers.
Thankfully, there should be a new TDC Chair in a few months, even though the all-white BCC reappoined HUGHES to a four-year term. Then we can reasonably expect that citizens and staff will be treated with dignity, respect and consideration.
No comments:
Post a Comment