Ex Mayor George Gardner Does It Again

Third generation politician, ex-GANNETT ("Chain Gang Journalism") Editor, ex-Mayor GEORGE GARDNER's latest newsletter on St. Augustine exhibits Babbitt-like bigotry against First Amendment Protected Activity by PBS and The New York Times.

This is not the first time GARDNER has attacked First Amendment rights.

In 2005, GARDNER was one of three Commissioners who vote aganst Rainbow flags on the Bridge of Lions, found to be a First Amendment violation by United States District Chief Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr., who ordered the flags to be flown from June 8-13, 2005 for Gay Pride here (every other organization that ever asked was allowed to fly their flags, including the Broward Yacht Company and Flagler College).

In 2006, in his valdedictory speech as Mayor, GEORGE GARDNER attacked me for First Amendment protected activity, and was rihgtly exoriated by the St. Augustine Record on November 19, 2006 -- seven years ago today.

When GARDNER ceased to be Mayor, City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS put him on the payroll to write his newsletter, which he was already writing, making it in effect a City house organ.

In 2011, City Manager John Regan rightly cancelled GEORGE GARDNER's no-bid contract, one of many no-bid contracts that have been issued by local governments without local news coverage. (The notable exception was the no-bid helicopter contract, which "We the People" defeated and reversed, winning a full refund of our deposit).

In 2012, GEORGE GARDNER joined sixteen other local residents, including community activists, City Manager John Regan and me, riding together to Tallahassee February 14, 2012 to defeat FSDB's eminent dommain bill's threat to two historic neighborhoods, Nelmar Terrace and Fullerwood. Before the Florida State Senate K-12 Education Committee, GEORGE GARDNER was eloquent and helpful, for which we all granted him a plenary indulgence for all his past sins (see above).

Now, in 2013, GARDNER has inexplicably picked a fight with PBS and the New York TImes, archly entitling a short take "Not national publicity we want" (on the forthcoming Frontline story, "A Death in St. Augustine"). The show has not aired yet. It airs a week frm tonight. Questions and comments:
1. Who is "we?" (That snarky smirky mouse in King George's pocket?)
2. What is "want?"
3. The "want" here locally is the "want" of investigative journalism, ever since The Collective Press folded and ever since Folio Weekly editor Anne Schndler and went to First Coast News, no local print publication is investigating anything here in St. Augustine, Florida.
4. The "need" here is for the truth about those who occupy public offices, which Jefferson called "a public trust."
5. The lack of trust exhibited by GARDNER in the people is appalling -- he publicly denounced me for asking too many questions about illegal dumping in St. Augustine at the November 13, 2006 St. Augustine Ciy Commission meeting, leading the Record to defend me from GARDNER's defamation in a November 19, 2006 editorial, "Always important to stick to your guns."
6. Trust us. We deserve the truth. It's our money. It's our government.
7. Then-Mayor GEORGE GARDNER told me on February 24, 2006 that City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS had only dumped "clean fill" in our Old City Reservoir. It turned out to be 40,000 cubic yards of illegally dumped contaminted solid waste, dumped in defiance of St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) permit rules.
8. GEORGE GARDNER is a third-generation politician a "cognitive miser," one who "knows not that he knows not that he knows not." His insipid remarks about "A Death in St. Augustine" show that he does not want the truth about local institutions to be told. Pitiful.
9. After GLBT people here won a landmark U.S. District Court First Amendment victory, partly based on exposing the 1566 murder of a Gay man on orders of the First Governor of Florida, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, GARDNER opined that he only wanted to hear and have told "positive history" about St. Augustine.
10. You won't find any courses in "positive history" at any university. It figures that a blue-blood third generation politician from upstate New York -- and ex-GANNETT editor and ex-Mayor -- would have the chutzpa to emit such pompous public pronouncements and ukases. What do you reckon?