Remember the parking garage? City Hall insiders dubbed City Manager JOHN PATRICK REGAN. P.E. the "Minister of Propaganda"; he teaches classes.
Wikipedia defines "Propaganda [a]s information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively (perhaps lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information presented."
REGAN emitted "propaganda" twice before breakfast on Easter, with both a page one story and column. Defensive? Yes. Propaganda? Yes. Responsive to our questions and our concerns about 450th contracting? No.
REGAN dubs all City employees "everyday heroes." Is there a war?
REGAN writes of 450th: "$3.6 million, $1.14 million was/will be paid for by event funding, $1.84 million was/will be paid for by parking garage revenue and $631,000 was/will be transferred from the general fund. In context, over the same fiscal years, the city budgeted $348 million." "Only" 1%?
REGAN brags, our"audited financial statements have been recognized for excellence for 22 years in a row." Fact: same auditor for decades, a Jacksonville firm that has not provided documents requested under the Open Records law, including its Government Accounting Standards Board and government grants audit training certifications.
REGAN doesn't address the "St. Augustine Trust for Historic Preservation, Inc.," the Menendez Gala and "crony capitalism." Why?
Evading contract compliance review, REGAN doesn't address lax 450th supervision and lucrative, unaudited, unexamined no-bid contracts. Why? First, City Hall demanded $666.75 for full disclosure of 450th contract bidder lists, bid spreadsheets and other contract data. Then our City placed on its website some contract information, routinely web-posted elsewhere. Where's the rest? No charge, please.
REGAN: "I hear concerns that we spend too much energy on the 450th Commemoration." SAYS WHO?
REGAN: "The public tells me we have real issues to work with in earnest: Traffic, zoning and noise pollution, among others." Trite pouting tautology.
REGAN doesn't address two decades of unconstitutional arrests of street musicians and artists (which led Mayor Nancy Shaver to say publicly,"our streets are not lively").
Professionals avoid emitting/expressing data-free opinions/ukases. Yet self-serving, one-sided, question-free and data-free discussion dominates long City meetings. Maladroit "experts" often aren't questioned/cross-examined and citizens are silenced/disrespected (even our Mayor). Why?
Past Mayor-Commissioners hired at least two City Managers (1998 and 2010) and two City Attorneys (2008 and 2014) without a search or Sunshine notice. Why? Cronyism is being angrily defended, amidst ineffectual bureaucracy.
Women and African-Americans are underpaid and underemployed (City Clerk only paid $53,000).
Judith Seraphin reported a broken Bayfront bench to the City Manager's office, which wrote back, "there's nothing we can do"; alerted, I telephoned DOT, which fixed it. Local governments need Ombuds, Inspectors General and employee whistleblower protection, and more thoughtful people who take pride in their work.
I wrote five years ago, (Record column April 25, 2010): residents deserve a national search for the next St. Augustine City Manager. You deserve transparency/helpfulness from St. Augustine City Hall -- not the opposites, more coverups/incivility, with a heaping helping of oleaginous propaganda sauce. Enough flummery. You elected Mayor Nancy Shaver, expecting reform. "We SHALL overcome," even if it "takes all summer."
Be not afraid. For ten years now, I've been speaking at City meetings (since April 11, 2005). We're making progress. Two dozen people spoke on 450th accountability March 23, 2015. Please attend April 13th, 5 PM, 75 King Street. Bring stadium cushions. Decisions are made by those who show up. Show up. Speak out.
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
ST. AUGUSTINE, FL. 32085
904-377-4998
"and citizens are silenced/disrespected."
ReplyDeleteAll your problems have the same cause — an illegally and immorally hijacked murderous government! Until you address that core problem you will only continue to aid, abet, validate, and legitimize the gangsters with your attention.
"REGAN does not address two decades of unconstitutional arrests of street musicians and artists (which led Mayor Nancy Shaver to say publicly,"our streets are not lively")."
Mayor Nancy Shaver should be telling the truth and saying instead, "our streets are deadly", as in slow death by Judas sell out crooked cops arresting and harassing citizens under knowingly and willfully made unconstitutional Jim Crow law and thereby sending them to early graves.