In a week of weasely, half-witted editorial decisions by the half-hearted editorial staff of the half-witted St. Augustine Record, there was an online "Clarification" in Saturday's online newspaper (not in print, it appears) about my published March 29, 2014 witticism being mistakenly attributed to City Manager, JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E.-- in case you (probably) missed it, Saturday being a reliably half-read issue:
Clarification
Posted: May 15, 2015 - 12:08am
In an editiorial titled “7-Eleven deal is the best way out,” The Record correctly quoted City Manager John Regan at Monday’s meeting saying, “Oh, thank heaven there’ll be no 7-Eleven.”
However, the editorial framed it this way: “... Posterity may recall that it was City Manager John Regan who turned the phrase, “Oh, thank heaven ...”
That may have led readers to assume that it was he who founded those words.
According to resident Ed Slavin, he, not Regan, first coined that phrase, and “I deserve the credit over Regan,” he insisted in a phone call Thursday morning. [Phone message -- Record never called back -- may be a paraphrase, not actual quote.]
It was on March 29, 2014 that the Record printed my letter, headlined and stating in haec verba, without the ® symbol for 7-Eleven's registered trademark that appeared in my original letter:
Letter: 'Oh thank heaven' for no 7-Eleven
'Oh thank heaven' for no 7-Eleven
Posted: March 29, 2014 - 12:06am
By ED SLAVIN
‘Oh thank heaven’ for no 7-Eleven
Editor: St. Augustine’s history and way of life were preserved and protected March 24, when city commissioners rejected an appeal by a developer to stick a 7-Eleven at the heavily-congested May Street and San Marco Avenue intersection. In the words of 7-Eleven’s own registered trademark, “Oh thank heaven!” History has been preserved, as well as safety and our small town values, ambiance and way of life.
Our city planning director, Mark Knight, HARB and the commission have now thrice upheld our entry corridor guidelines over misleading attacks by Wallace Devlin, whose counsel inaccurately told HARB there were “no sidewalks” in front of the long-vacant property, which the speculator once promised to turn into retail stores to replace those bulldozed on that promise.
Devlin is the failed developer of the bankrupt Sebastian Inner Harbor Project, which still stands flat, after years of unkept, unsworn promises to build a Westin Hotel.
7-Eleven is a publicly-held, government-regulated, Japanese multinational corporation.
Does Japan want its “contribution” to our 450th commemoration to be 12 gasoline pumps, bad PR and accompanying destruction of our historic downtown?
Write, call and ask both Japanese and U.S. governments to tell 7-Eleven to drop this insanity. Please contact:
Ambassador Caroline Kennedy
U.S. Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
Unit 9800 Box 300
APO AP 96303-0300
011-81-3-3224-5000
011-81-3-3505-1862 (fax)
Shirley & Wallace Devlin, Sr.
First City Development LLC
7518 Albert Tillinghhast Drive
Sarasota, Florida 34240
St. Augustine residents are united in preserving our history, nature and beauty.
Environmental and historic preservation, and heritage and eco-tourism, are our future — not ugly buildings and sprawl. For more, please see staugustgreen.com.
St. Augustine
http://staugustine.com/opinions/2014-03-29/letter-oh-thank-heaven-no-7-eleven
No, Record, I don't just "insist" I coined the phrase -- the irrefragable proof is in the Record. Pitiful. The Record is so sweet on JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E. that not only did you "spike" my April 4, 2015 column about his works and pomps, you pompously attributed my words as his original bon mot, then curdled the correction by making it half-hearted. I forgive the Record's apprentice tortfeasors, for your hauteur and ineptness, and inability to put a simple correction of your editorial lede in the printed newspaper, or to put it online without snark and smirkiness.
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