-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin
To: kristy
Sent: Tue, Oct 28, 2014 3:49 pm
Subject: Re: Unsafe, Illegal Destruction of 210-Year Old Spanish Colonial Don Pedro Fornell Home by ex-Mayor of St. Augustine; HARB members must file financial disclosure (Including ex-Mayor CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR.)
Dear Kristy and Len:
1. In the immortal words of the late, great Managing Editor Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee of the Washington Post during Watergate, "That's a non-denial denial."
2. Or as one of Shakespeare's characters once said, "the lady doth protest too much."
3. Len Weeks faces more than $10,000 in code enforcement fines and has resigned as Chair of the Historic Architectural Review Board.
4. Len Weeks must resign from two more City boards -- Visioning and Parking and Traffic (Chair).
5. OSHA must investigate and fine Len Weeks.
6. The State of Florida must investigate.
7. As Sir Winston Spencer Churchill said, "We are entering a period of consequences."
Cordially,
Ed Slavin
-----Original Message-----
From: Kristy Weeks
To: easlavin
Sent: Sat, Sep 27, 2014 7:30 pm
Subject: RE: Unsafe, Illegal Destruction of 210-Year Old Spanish Colonial Don Pedro Fornell Home by ex-Mayor of St. Augustine; HARB members must file financial disclosure (Including ex-Mayor CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR.)
Mr. Slavin,
You are an inaccurate man filled with hostility, anger and the desire to hurt others.
If you knew my husband, Len Weeks, in the slightest degree you would realize that he has lived his life for preserving St Augustine.
You need to get a real0 job where you can actually make a positive difference in your community rather than slandering others with inaccurate accusations.
You are no better than Michael Gold with your incorrect information…..you just lack the pathetic disclaimer that nothing you write is true.
Kristy Weeks
From: easlavin@aol.com [mailto:easlavin@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2014 5:02 PM
To: clweeks@aug.com
Subject: Unsafe, Illegal Destruction of 210-Year Old Spanish Colonial Don Pedro Fornell Home by ex-Mayor of St. Augustine; HARB members must file financial disclosure (Including ex-Mayor CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR.)
Dear Mr. Weeks:
1. Risking workers' lives, your reckless actions caused the collapse of a 210-year old Second Spanish Period building at 62 Spanish Street on September 25, 2014.
2. Your architect (Mr. Jerry Dixon) and engineer (Mr. Bill Freeman) both told you to perform the trenching and pour the concrete in five (5) foot segments at 62 Spanish Street, correct?
3. You evidently ignored their advice and excavated around the entire perimeter, causing the building to collapse. Why?
4. You worked without a permit from the City of St. Augustine. Why?
5. Your reckless endangerment of employees, residents and visitors -- and your destruction of a 210-year old building -- is a stench in the nostrils of Our Nation's Oldest City.
6. By copy of this E-mail, I am advising the Secretary of Labor and the OSHA Administrator of the need for a civil, criminal and administrative investigation, which I requested verbally on September 25 & 26 of the OSHA office in Jacksonville, Florida and on September 26 of the Atlanta Office of the DOL Inspector General.
7. Please preserve all business documents, paper and electronic, for examination by investigators from OSHA, FBI, the City of St. Augustine and the City's outside investigating law firm.
8. Please explain your selection of such a large construction crane (Caterpillar 320E, weighing 54,000 pounds) in proximity to the city's ongoing Spanish and Hypolita Street project and other historic structures. Please pay for immediate inspection of all surrounding structures to prevent further building collapses, including delicate historic buildings managed by the University of Florida, the City of St. Augustine, and other property owners..
9. Please provide full security, 24/7, as promised to our City Manager, Mr. John Patrick Regan, P.E., in order to prevent and deter anyone from entering the demolition site until it is cleared of debris. Children were seen entering the site yesterday, and could have been killed in a collapse of the remaining room.
10. A.Your partnership with your business lawyer, who is also the Mayor of St. Augustine, JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, Jr., in a no-bid lease from the City of St. Augustine (subleased without permission from the City as required by paragraph 9 of that lease) is unacceptable
10.B. So is your continuing refusal to file financial disclosure forms as Chairman of the Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB), which has suzerainty over historic buildings such as the one you wantonly destroyed (the Don Pedro Fornell House).
11. Please submit your resignation as Chairman of the Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB).
12. Please submit your resignation as Chairman of the Parking and Traffic Committee (P&T).
13. Please submit your resignation as member of the St. Augustine Visioning Committee.
14. Our City can no longer trust you to serve on any Boards or to believe your advice as a lobbyist on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce (e.g., for ordinances criminalizing First Amendment protected activity by artists and musicians).
15. Please refrain from further destruction of historic structures in St. Augustine, Florida from this day forward.
16. As Robert Kennedy said, "It is not enough to allow dissent, we must demand it for there is much to dissent from…. We dissent from the willful, heedless destruction of our natural beauty and pleasures."
17. The Don Pedro Fornell house was part of our community for 210 years. Your destruction of it is a crime against history. This is unacceptable, and we shall never let it happen again. To redeem yourself, and promote healing, I would appreciate your support -- and the Chamber of Commerce's support -- for a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore Act, first proposed by Mayor Walter Fraser, Senator Claude Pepper, et al. in June 1939, more than 75 years ago. www.staugustgreen.com. This will help preserve our history and nature forever, for your grandchildren, and their grandchildren. I look forward to hearing from you later today.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Slavin
To: clweeks
Cc: clweeks
Sent: Thu, Jul 24, 2014 12:38 pm
Subject: Re: HARB members must file financial disclosure. Now.
Please respond.
On Jul 23, 2014, at 2:12 PM, easlavin@aol.com wrote:
Dear Chairman Weeks:
1. Please respond.
2. I am prepared to file ethics complaints, starting with you, if there is not full compliance from each HARB member.
3. It is a two page form.
4. We have the right to see your form before your five-year lucrative lease from the City of St. Augustine for 81 St. George Street is renewed on July 25, 2014.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
904-377-4998
-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin
To: clweeks
Subject: HARB members must file financial disclosure. Now.
Dear Chairman Weeks, Mayor Boles, Vice Mayor Sikes-Kline, City Commissioners and HARB members:
1. Upon consulting with our St. Johns County Election Supervisor, St. Augustine City Clerk and Florida Commission on Ethics, it appears that:
(a) Our City of St. Augustine, Florida Historical Architectural Review Board (HARB) members are not filing financial disclosures;
(b) It appears HARB members are required to file financial disclosures pursuant to F.S. 112.3145, as HARB is "A planning or zoning board, board of adjustment, board of appeals, community redevelopment agency board, or other board having the power to recommend, create, or modify land planning or zoning within the political subdivision, except for citizen advisory committees, technical coordinating committees, and such other groups who only have the power to make recommendations to planning or zoning boards." F.S. 112.3145(2)(d). Who among us would disagree?
2. Thus, I request that HARB members file financial disclosures instanter, nunc pro tunc, before close of business on July 23, 2014.
3. Disclosures were required to be filed on July 1, 2014.
4. Time is of the essence -- Chairman Weeks' no-bid lease for 81 St. George Street is set for five year renewal on July 25, 2014. See prior correspondence. Questions have been asked about his income stream from the City of St. Augustine, in partnership with Mayor Boles (some $2-3 million over 25 years on a property now being rented to the owners of Florida Cracker Cafe and Savannah Sweets) . Chairman' Weeks failure to file required disclosures as HARB Chair, and involvement in at least one proposed demolition (requiring his recusal), embarrass our City and its residents and contribute to a perception that corrupt exists.
5. Our City's longtime failure to include HARB and HARB members' addresses on the list of officials requiring disclosure requires an explanation before the next Commission meeting. Please do not make such omissions in the future.
6. The urgency of protecting the historic architecture of our Nation's Oldest City, including pending matters -- e.g., the proposed illegal demolition of Echo House by St. Paul. A.M.E. Church -- urgently require that HARB members be above reproach and make full disclosures. Now.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
904-377-4998
Three contractors were touring Saint Augustine City Hall on the same day. One was from Palatka, another from Vilano Beach, and the third, named Lord Claude Lenny, was a local from Saint Augustine. At the end of the tour, Mayor Joe bumped into them, struck up a conversation, and asked them what they did for a living. When they each replied that they were contractors, Mayor Joe said said, "Hey we need one of our recently collapsed historic buildings rebuilt. Why don't you guys take a look at it and give me your bids."
ReplyDeleteFirst, the Vilano Beach contractor took out his tape measure and pencil, did some measuring and said, "I figure the job will run about $90,000 -- $40,000 for materials, $40,000 for my crew, and $10,000 profit for me."
Next was the Palatka contractor. He also took out his tape measure and pencil, did some quick calculations and said, "Looks like I can do this job for $70,000 -- $30,000 for materials, $30,000 for my crew, and $10,000 profit for me."
Finally, Mayor Joe asks the final local contractor Lord Claude Lenny for his bid. Without batting an eye, Lord Claude Lenny says, "$500,000."
Mayor Joe, incredulous, looks at him and says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"
"Easy," says Lord Claude Lenny from Saint Augustine, "$250,000 for me, $250,000 for you, and we hire the guy from Palatka."