That includes the corporations charging our residents and visitors a $2 for bottled water. Yes, $2 for water: a standard plastic bottle of water that costs maybe twelve cents. ($3 at the Fountain of Youth!)
That is a markup of 800% or (1200%).
Happy 450th everybody, brought to you by yet another no-bid BOLESIAN City contract?
That's not "hospitality," it's highway robbery.
While our friends at the Salvation Army truck at Cathedral Place and St. George Street were handing out free water (also in plastic), it was not well-publicized, and when I asked one ofnthe contractor employees where the free water was, he claimed not to know. I told him that I refuse to pay for water, and that our Mayor said there was free water. (Numerous City stores are also selling water, but they typically charged "only" $1 until this weekend -- that's still wrong. Water should come free with a slice of a pizza, not extra, as if we were all slaves of the corporacracy, where cokmecial water users pay pitifully little for "their" water and at least one two-timing pizza joint wants to charge you for it. I won't eat there again.)
The alternative to water price-gouging: free water bottle refilling stations in our city parks and buildings. Because being St. Augustine is not about how much we can gouge guests, is it?
What about "free events" that were not free? You tell me?
The audit must account for every penny, every no-bid contract, and every policy decision. Every single one. Our City's 30-year excuse for an auditing firm need not apply: we need independent professionals.
Speaking of things that were promoted as free... the trolly in and out of town was advertised as free. Numerous signs promising 'Park here, free trolly'. Except try getting one back out of town. Saw the driver of a Red Ripleys train flat out scream at a group of people who inadvertently climbed onto her train, thinking it was free. Tourists don't know the difference, and if they weren't free, they should have been blocked from being in the area.
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