Before 120 people interested in tourism, Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR. talked down to the audience. He seemed somewhat sexist in misogynist in his prevaricating putdown of Nancy Shaver.
Nancy Shaver said the City lacked a coherent capital plan. BOLES claimed it had one, when what it has is not worthy of the name.
He flunks the truth-meter.
Sitting between two well-qualified candidates, Ken Bryan and Nancy Shaver for Mayor, BOLES seemed to get smaller and smaller and grayer and grayer as the evening wound down.
His exasperation and anger at people speaking truth to power is consistent with his approach since his election to commission in 2004.
We have been watching BOLES carefully since his coronation as Mayor in 2006 (with support from all living former mayors of St. Augustine, all thirteen of them, he pulled the rug out from under reform mayor George Gardner, presenting him with a fait accompli).
Mayor BOLES has promoted healing, but not enough.
Mayor BOLES has not earned another term.
Mayor BOLES is part of the kleptocracy that has used our Nation's Oldest City as its personal piggy bank.
Mayor BOLES refuses to answer questions about the $2-3 million he and former Mayor CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS have made from a lease from the City of St. Augustine at 81 St. George Street (Florida Cracker Cafe and Savannah Sweets).
Over the course of eight years, Mayor BOLES has threatened and insulted public comment speakers, blocked an apology to civil right protestors, blocked consideration of a municipal electric utility, supported a 30 year franchise for FPL, denied public comment in quasi-judicia hearings (including cab rate extensions and developer projects), supported expansion of Flagler College in the historic area, and generally run City Commission as feudal lord of all he surveys.
Mayor BOLES has served on the do-nothing Federal St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission, whose meetings are still secret, in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. On July 11, 2011, the Commission held its initial meeting in public at Flagler College, where I received applause for supporting the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore www.staugustgreen.com The Commission has all but disappeared, and Mayor BOLES has not held it accountable.
Mayor BOLES not held the Tourist Development Council and the Visitor and Convention Bureau Accountable for their mediocrity, wasting money on ads in Readers' Digest and Better Homes and Garden, rather than in hipper publications that ail bring in historic and environmental tourists, who spend twice as long and twice as much money.
Now, BOLES may come in last in the primary, as St. Augustine residents ponder democracy, ending years of Caudillos and other-directed mayors whose "agenda" was pro-segregation, anti-music, anti-artist, anti-fun resembling the dull city council in the movie "Footloose."
What do you reckon?
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