Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR. Starts a Campaign Website

Photo credit: Greg Travous and Hans Holbein the Younger



Eight-year St. Augustine, Florida Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR. has started a new re-election campaign website, inter alia:
1. Taking credit for every good thing accomplished by reform City Manager John Patrick Regan P..E. and Commissioners, including the seawall (fifteen years in the works, shepherded by John Regan)
2. Taking credit for every good thing inspired or accomplished by community activists ---- including the Civil Rights Foot Soldiers Monument, achieved through seven years of fundraising unadorned by any help from the City government, which tried to block it when City Manager WILLIAM BRUCE HARRIS falsely told organizers that only "colonial history" was allowed in the Slave Market Square. and Riberia Street (which HARRISS wanted to do in five not-so-easy pieces, starting in the white area and taking ten years, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection clause
3. Never apologizing for anything he has done that was wrong, illegal or improper.
4. Never explaining anything he has done that is ethically questionable.
5. Not articulating why he deserves an unprecedented fifth term or what he would do better or do differently.
6. Not explaining why he and ex-Mayor LEONARD CLAUDE WEEKS, JR. deserve another five years on their $1332.21/month no-bid lease from the City of St. Augustine for lucrative commercial property at 81 St. George Street (CRACKER CAFE AND SAVANNAH SWEETS).
7. Not explaining why the public is still not empowered to comment during every single agenda item, even after the Sunshine Amendment last year, unlike the practice in St. Augustine Beach Commission, St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners and Anastasia Mosquito Control of St. Johns County).
8. Not explaining why he tells citizens that Commissioners and staff don't have to answer questions.
9. Not explaining why he does not swear in zoning and planning quasi-judicial public hearing witnesses, contrary to the practice in City Boards).
10. Not explaining why he has thrice appointed his business partner, CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR., to City Boards (Chair of Parking and Traffic Commmitte, Chair of Historic Architectural Review Committee and member of Visioning Committee).
11. Implying support of the Roman Catholic Church and Civil Rights groups by two individuals' endorsements.
12. Making use of numbered lists (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Joe).