Thursday, February 26, 2015

Good investigative reporting by Sheldon Gardner at St. Augustine Record



Good work, Sheldon Renee Gardner! I loved your story on the gala ticket scam. Good job. Read below. It's fair, balanced, notes other cities have their own ethics rules, and exposes the hypocrisy of free gala tickets. I love the idea of having "unwritten policies." That was always fun in whistleblower trials, whenever employers said they had an "unwritten policy," I knew we'd scored pay dirt. City Manager JOHN REGAN says there's an "unwritten policy" that free tickets for top dawgs mean they and their spouses are "representing the City." Really? That dawg won't hunt. Is that why TIM BURCHFIELD and BILL HARRISS never went? I thought the purpose of a gala was to be snooty, dress in fancy clothes, and look down your distended nostrils at the "peasants" paying your way.

Our late Appalachian Observer Publisher Ernest F. Phillips was so right about the greed of too many government officials.

As Robert Penn Warren wrote in "All The King's Men," it's a case of "Gimme, gimme, gimme, my name's Jimmy!"

In the words of the late Alabama Governor "Kissin" Jim Folsom, "There ain't nothin' louder than the sound of a hog bein' pulled off a tit." No more free tickets. That includes Vice Mayor Horvath, Commissioner Freeman, their spouses, and city staff.


That dawg won't hunt!
The notion of supposing that a "benefit" that makes no profit for four years, benefitting no one, but entertaining rich guys, including freeloading City employees, is somehow "City business" -- pitiful. No written policy requires attendance. This is an outrage. Snotty snooty City managers, with nothing to be snooty about, make us pay for their fancy-bears party. By God, ENOUGH.


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