"White Christmas" At St. Augustine Beach and St. Augustine, Florida

"White Christmas" At St. Augustine Beach and St. Augustine, Florida

They're celebrating a "White Christmas" at the City of St. Augustine Beach, Florida.
In the WPA Guide to Florida, Stetson Kennedy called it "the Oldest White City in America."
My late mentor, Stetson Kennedy, told the truth.
So did Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who called our community the "most lawless" in America, writing a letter that resulted in sixteen (16) rabbis being arrested here on June 18, 1964, the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history.
The City of St. Augustine Beach, established in 1959, is a place where the ocean was once racially segregated, enforced by energumen local lawmen, until federal court orders in 1964.
Of fifty (50) City of St. Augustine Beach employees, there are no African-Americans.
Zero.
St. Augustine Beach African-American residents and visitors are made to feel uncomfortable.
Concerns about this fact have fallen on uncaring ears and mocked by the likes of Mayor ANDREA SAMUELS, who was herself once a victim of employment discrimination as a Jewish woman nurse in Northeast Florida.
Mayor ANDREA SAMUELS publicly mocked me at a Commission meeting when I said the City of St. Augustine Beach would be ripe for an EEOC pattern and practice race and sex discrimination case. I pity and forgive her -- she often emotes without thinking.
St. Augustine was founded in 1565 by some 800 Spanish, including 50 Africans.
In 1566, the City moved from the mainland to the island, at or near today's St. Augustine Beach, after Temucua Indians torched Spanish buildings.
today, the "twin cities" lack diversity.
The much older of our "twin cities," our City of St. Augustine, is not much better than the CIty of St. Augustine Beach.
Zero African-Americans on the City of St. Augustine "Visioning" Committee. None.
Zero Hispanics on the City of St. Augustine "Visioning" Committee. None.
Little interest in growing the economy to "raise all boats" -- it took the Chamber of Commerce to point that out.
Zero African-American firemen in the City of St. Augustine. None.
Zero African-American policemen in the City of St. Augustine.. None.
The highest-ranking City of St. Augustine African-American City employee is underpaid.
Others are galactically underpaid and underemployed.
The "recruitment patterns" at the City of St. Augustine, the City of St. Augustine Beach and St. Johns County local governments is typical of hick hack sad sacks -- they don't post and advertise positions and they hire relatives and friends and friends' relatives, particularly for top positions.
That's what defeated City of St. Augustine Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, Jr. did in hiring his friend, DANA STE. CLAIRE, to run our 450th commemoration and ISABELLE LOPEZ as City Attorney
No advertising. Duked in. DANA STE. CLAIRE is "the smartest man in St. Augustine," BOLES once called him at Flagler College Auditorium. LOPEZ "protects us," he said.
From whom, for whom?
Our City government dumped a landfill in a lake in one African-American community (West Augustine), then demanded to bring it back to another African-American community (Lincolnville) in 2000 truckloads.
We stopped the fools.
We pity them and forgive them, but have they learned anything in ten years?
Lack of diversity makes for bizarre decisions -- solid waste and sewage pollution in minority communities, for example.
The lack of diversity and equal employment opportunity in local governments is the result of rabid racist Southern officialdom, including former City of St. Augustine City Managers WILLIAM POMAR, WILLIAM BRUCE HARRIS, et al., and KKK and John Birch Society sympathizers, including notorious CIty of St. Augustine Mayor JOSEPH A. SHELLEY, M.D. Dr. SHELLEY was a beloved baby doctor who delivered countless babies while delivering countless threats to African-American protesters, including an embarrassing 1964 NBC Today Show appearance and a fatwa threatening arrest and ruin for any young people joining civil rights protests.
In 2014, City of St. Augustine Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, Jr. was defeated in part because of his rank insensitivity to civil rights issues.
Mayor BOLES said Commissioners only got to hire three employees, but Commissioners make policies and enact ordinances.
Commissioners also appoint Board members -- all fifteen members of the St. Augustine Visioning Committee are white.
(African-American Greg White was on the board but resigned and was replaced).
Yesterday, Mosquito Control Commissioner Jeanne Moeller rightly questioned Vice Mayor Roxanne Horvath about the lack of diversity on the Visioning COmmittee.
There are no African-Americans and no openly Gay or Lesbian members on the City Visioning Committee.
Are there any Jewish or Muslim members?
Any working class people?
Any liberals?
Is the "vision" for St. Augustine's future for conservative middle class white Christian heterosexuals only?
Would Mayor SHELLEY be right at home here now?
Will our new mayor (Nancy Shaver) and new Commissioner (Todd Neville) need to appoint new members, expanding the committee?
Or will they tolerate intolerance and endorse discrimination, sub silent?
To our elected Commissioners of the Cities of St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach and St. Johns County:
We can do better.
We must do better.
We will do better.
Make us proud and not ashamed.
You were elected to do a job.
Do it.
Do it now.
Do it with fidelity and honor.
"Earn this" (as Tom Hanks' character said at the end of "Saving Private Ryan")
Merry Christmas. Happy Hannukah. Happy Solistice.
As LBJ said to Congress after Selma, "We SHALL overcome!"

Ed Slavin
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085
EASlavin@aol.com
904-377-4998
904-377-4998