St. Augustine Beach Violates Purchasing Policy

St. Augustine Beach City Commissioners voted unanimously last night to violte their city purchasing policy, which requires competitive bidding. They did so at the behest of Police Chief obert Harddwick, who wants a new $125,000, five year telephone system to replace the archaic NEC system.
Ineptly, Commissioners expressed concerns about public safety.
Nothing about lawbreaking.
How quaint.
The phone system has been decrepit forever.
There was no urgency, only empty rhetoric.
No sealed competitive bids were sought.
Only "quotes."
St. Augustine Beach has no Purchasing Agent.
St. Augustine Beach has a City Manager who falls asleep in meetings.
St. Augustine Beach has a police chief who got the gig on recommendation of Sheriff DAVID BERNARD SHOAR and State's Attorney RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA, tortfeasors who badly botched the investigation of the shooting death of Michelle O'Connell. Chief Hardwick was the chief investigator fot the State's Attorney and was involved in the O'Connell case.
The no-bid WINDSTREAM telephone deal proposed by Chief Hardwick is illegal.
It is unseemly.
An illegal no-bid contract will be presented to Commissioners at their meeting next month.
The illegal contract may only be for three years instead of five.
That does not resolve the violation of the city purchasing policy, which requires bids on all contracts of $10,000 and above.
The illegal no-bid contract will be presented by City Attorney Douglas Nelson Burnett, son of the former Commanding General of the Florida National Guard, whose law firm (and attorney James George Whitehose) also represents a clutch of ethically-impaired developers, including one that wants to stick a 7-Eleven at the intersection of May and San Marco in our historic St. Augustine downtown.
City of St. Augustine Police Chief Hardwick, St. Augustine Beach City Manager Max Royle, St. Augustine Beach City Attorney Douglas Nelson Burnett, St. Augustine Beach Mayor Andrea Samuels, Vice Mayor Richard O'Brien, Commissioners Brud Helhoski, Undine Pawlowski and Sherman Gary Snodgrass --
you all have delusions of adequacy.
Does your conscience bother you?
Just say "no" to illegal, no-bid contracts.
No more.
Enough flummery, dupery and nincompoopery.
Enough waste, fraud and abuse.
Enough misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance.
Bids means bids, not quotes.