Saving St. Augustine II

Letter: What's in a mayor?
What's in a mayor?
Posted: August 14, 2014 - 12:00am

By ED SLAVIN
St. Augustine
What’s in a mayor?

Editor: Enough flummery. What to look for in a new mayor?

■ Increasing openness, candor and public participation.

■ Improving communications and website.

■ Focusing on traffic, streets, sewer, water, global ocean level rise.

■ Reforming government contracting and obtaining refunds from deficient vendors.

■ Auditing city, FPL and other franchisees’ books.

■ Hiring staff with proper advertising, posting, searches and job descriptions.

■ Litigating to end “sweetheart” leases of city-owned property, (including Flagler College, National Guard and Mayor Joseph Lester Boles, Jr. & ex-Mayor Claude Leonard Weeks Jr. 81 St. George Street, $1,332.21/month, subleased to Florida Cracker Cafe and Savannah Sweets (cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2014/06/golden-fleece-award-to-st-augustine.html).

■ Answering public questions on every agenda item.

■ Providing an ombudsman and one telephone number for city referrals.

■ Protecting employee free speech rights and halting harassment and intimidation of or by city employees.

■ Repealing anti-musician and anti-artist ordinances.

■ Using workshops and committees, encouraging creative brainstorming.

■ Ending illegal meetings at inconvenient times and places.

■ Changing all city meeting times to 7 p.m. (as at St. Augustine Beach), and adjourning by 11 p.m., with no free dinners or long breaks.

■ Rewriting ordinances in plain English.

■ Regulating lobbyists and ethics.

■ “Reinventing the wheel” — reforming zoning, planning and preservation to protect our small town ambience, history, nature and culture.

■ Advancing equality and human rights.

■ Protecting consumers.

■ Preserving and protecting our history and nature forever, through support for a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, finally realizing the vision of Mayor Walter Fraser and Sen. Claude Pepper, who first proposed it in 1939 (staugustgreen.com).

These are no ordinary times, no ordinary elections.

Meet and research the candidates.

This is our town, our time and your future. It is up to us. Help preserve our village.

St. Augustine