Flagler College Dominates Town & Gown Meeting, Members Plan Six Months of Possible Sunshine and Open Records Violations

With two "sides" seated separately, the public disrespected, excluded and silenced and excluded and no live streaming video (only audio) available to the residents, the City of St. Augustine-Flagler College Town and Gown Task Force meeting began poorly today. Without audio, who knows who said what? Without accurate minutes, we may never know (and only shallow minutes were contemplated).

Under artificial pressure (unexplained) to vacate the room at 4:30, citizens were not allowed to speak into microphones, could not be heard, and did not identify themselves. The committee bragged it finished "with two minutes to spare." How louche and lugubrious.

Flagler College members endeavored to limit the scope of the group and its work, attempting to bar expressions of opinions. They and other board members plotted and connived how to exchange documents (including Flagler College expansion plans) without sending them to Assistant City Administrator TIMOTHY BURCHFIELD, claiming this would not make them public records. We will just see about that.

No mention was made of Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) or the Spanish Garden. One of Flagler College male members interrupted women members with chauvinistic chutzpa, with Lincolnville resident Judith Seraphin talked over after only some ten words at one point.
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At the end, one board members said (with microphone still on) that he was a member of the St. Johns County Planning and Zoning Agency and hated public comment, stating that "it's always the same two or three people" and "it's always a rant." This board member's name is DAVID RICE, SENIOR PASTOR AT ANCIENT CITY BAPTIST CHURCH. The ungraciously run committee is set to finish work in six months. Another exercise in futility? Let the CONTROL GAMES begin.


DAVID RICE, SENIOR PASTOR AT ANCIENT CITY BAPTIST CHURCH (Historic City News)