HALTING CORRUPTION

Ending Board Members and Commissioners Representing Clients Before City Government -- Petition for Emergency Rulemaking

Dear Mayor Shaver and Commissioners:
1. As recipient of millions of dollars of federal funds, our City of St. Augustine, Florida is required to comply with federal criminal laws, including 18 U.S.C. 666, under which former St. Johns County Commission Chairman Thomas G. Manuel was indicted, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated in a federal prison.
2. Please order by appropriate ethics ordinance that no city commissioner or board member may ever again represent clients before City government again. See 18 U.S.C. 666 and F.S. 112.313 (below).
3. Please end the culture of corruption that embarrasses all of the citizens in the City of St. Augustine. It destroys our buildings, wastes our treasure and hurts our image in the eyes of the world.
4. On May 5, 2015, we shall have the spectacle of two (2) current HARB members (Jeremy Marquis and Paul Weaver, III) , the former Vice Mayor (Donald Crichlow) and the former City Planning and Building Director (Mark Alan Knight) representing an applicant before our Planning and Zoning Board.
5. With significant encouragement from City Manager JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E., http://www.firstcoastnews.com/story/news/local/st-augustine/2014/11/19/of-historic-homes/19295359/, who told First Coast News he was "thrilled," controversial applicant DAVID BARTON CORNEAL is seeking to turn the $2 million state-rehabilitated former Dow Museum of Historic Homes on St. George Street into a high-end hotel in the midst of our historic HP-1 neighborhood, through a "Planned Unit Development," called a "sneaky way to get around zoning" by PZB member Cathy Brown.
6. This not-so-subtle corruption of our government is indefeasible, and must be ended at once. Please end the sale of offices and favors in St. Augustine in the manner that my late Georgetown Professor Jan Karski described the situation in Venezuela, where he advised President Rómulo Betancourt, whom he described as “one of the greatest statesmen ever,” who referred to corrupt Venezuelan government officials "selling their wares."
7. The whole world is watching St. Augustine, Florida during our 450th anniversary. Please make us proud of our Ancient City, and no longer ashamed.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
www.fourowls.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998