SAD STATE OF "HISTORIC PRESERVATION" IN ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA -- WE HAVE "NOWHERE TO GO BUT UP" --
Three inculpatory, illustrative quotes from "The Break Room," The City's weekly PR interview program on WFCF, Flagler College Radio, this morning:
"I would guess there's not a whole lot to say about that." (Historic Preservation).-- Paul Williamson, Public Affairs Director for City of St. Augustine
(Gasp)
"We've really stepped up our game." -- response by John Patrick Regan, P.E., City Manager
(Gasp)
A few minutes later:
"If there's one thing we do well, it's policing." -- John Patrick Regan, P.E., City Manager
You are sadly mistaken.
Obviously not, John -- we're not "policing" Historic Preservation.
Was LEN WEEKS arrested, or even Mirandized?
Regan is City Manager and thus the chief law enforcement officer: Regan called WEEKS his mentor on Historic Preservation on October 13, 2014.
What?
Weasly WEEKS is mendacious.
There are better mentors on HP in the Strategic Air Command who bomb cities.
We let LEN WEEKS destroy an historic building by working unsafely, without permits, excavating a trench around the entire perimeter of Don Pedro Fornell House.
I'm guilty -- we're all guilty -- for not speaking out about corruption and destruction in Our Nation's Oldest City.
We all did it.
We've let buildings be destroyed by Flagler College, Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, and sordid assorted corporate criminals and grasping greedy grifters like LEN WEEKS a/k/a "CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR.," our estimable ex-Mayor, law client and no-bid City lease business partner of Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR. in 81 St. George Street.
No mention in "The Break Room" of the crime of the century -- WEEKS' illegal, dangerous destruction of a 210-year old Spanish colonial building, Don Pedro Fornell house, at 62A Spanish Street without permits, flouting instructions from his architect (Gerry Dixon), his engineer (Bill Freeman) and the entire City Planning and Building Department
Our history is being destroyed by WEEKS and other feckless thugs.
WEEKS may be fined $10,000, which is only a parking ticket for a millionaire.
WEEKS needs to be prosecuted.
WEEKS is still pressuring the City for building permits without providing building plans.
WEEKS, BOLES & CO. believe the law does not apply to them.
They are in Teddy Roosevelt's words, "a small group of willful men."
They are boring bossy businessmen and "Boss Hogg" wannabees -- ungracious, uncouth, unkind greedheads.
They "know not that they know not that they know not," in the phrase of my former client, Senior Special Agent Robert E. Tyndall (Retired) of FBI, EPA and HUD.
As LBJ said after Selma, "We SHALL overcome."
We, the People are about to teach them some manners and respect for our history.
"WE'VE GOT NOWHERE TO GO BUT UP1" (in the words of my late nuclear/environmental whistleblower client, heroic Charles D. "Bud" Varnadore, in the midst of a heavily toxic contaminated hostile working environment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1991).
Here's what our leaders should be saying -- in words from "The West Wing: H. Con-172 (#3.11)" (2002):
President Josiah Bartlet: I was wrong. I was, I was just... I was wrong. Come on, we know that. Lots of times we don't know what right or wrong is, but lots of times we do, and come on... this is one. I may not have had sinister intent at the outset, but there were plenty of opportunities for me to make it right. No one in government takes responsibility for anything any more. We foster, we obfuscate, we rationalize. "Everybody does it", that's what we say. So we come to occupy a moral safe house where everyone's to blame, so no one's guilty.
[sigh]
President Josiah Bartlet: *I'm to blame.* I was wrong.
Robert Kennedy would say to his U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Senate staff, "Don't tell me what I should have done, tell me what I should do now."
Well here it is: Work tirelessly to enact the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. www.staugustgreen.com
Because as Albert Camus once said, "If you don't do this, then who else in the world will do this?"
What do you reckon?
No, it isn't April 1st.
ReplyDeleteThe above article defines the thinking of our city manager regarding historic preservation!
John Regan was barely able to read a letter to the City Commission penned by Len Weeks in which Len "offered" to resign as chairman of HARB after he willfully and with malice aforethought destroyed one of the very few remaining original Colonial houses in town.
Regan, in tears, confessed to the commission and St. Augustine, that "Len Weeks has been my primary mentor in historic preservation."
Why not be mentored by a preservationist instead of a businessman/building contractor? Are you unable to see the conflict?
If we allow John Regan and Paul Williamson to remain in control of HP and the dissemination of the city's attitude toward same, then we are asking for more of the same, which we've witnessed for at least the past 30 years:
Demolition by Flagler College of our downtown and demolition without permit or plans by Len Weeks.
Stop lip service. Put OUR money to work for historic preservation.
If you can't bring yourselves to comprehend and protect our heritage, then make room for those who will.
The culture at city hall must change immediately if we are to have any resources remaining.
Ed Slavin said; "Robert Kennedy would say to his U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Senate staff, "Don't tell me what I should have done, tell me what I should do now."
ReplyDeleteWell here it is: Work tirelessly to enact the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. www.staugustgreen.com
Because as Albert Camus once said, "If you don't do this, then who else in the world will do this?"
What do you reckon?"
I reckon what you "should do now" is first "work tirelessly"to take care of the "corruption and destruction" that you first highlighted in this excellent post for two reasons; first, with corrupt government out of the way it will make bringing the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore to fruition a far easier task; and second, to enact another National park now within the corrupt status quo would be like preparing a chicken dinner for the foxes.
You don't put an addition on a home that is enveloped in flames.
A better reality demands morality!