Governor RICHARD LYNN SCOTT and his Gang of Four cabinet members snuck into St. Augustine September 1, 2015 for a meeting of the Governor and Cabinet, without advance public notice and without taking public comment. It was the first time in six months that the Governor and Cabinet met outside of Tallahassee, amid embarrassing Sunshine and Gay marriage litigation and FDLE firing questions that could never be raised here amidst secrecy and security here in St. Augustine, the nation's Oldest European-founded City.
Controversial Florida GOVERNOR RICHARD LYNN SCOTT, a/k/a "RICK SCOTT," his cabined all-Republican Cabinet, and a retinue of several dozen aides, blew into St. Augustine this morning for a PR pep rally at a small wedding venue, The Treasury at 24 Cathedral Place (formerly a bank).
History lesson: Ironically, the Governor and Attorney General PAMELA JO BONDI a/k/a "PAM BONDI" squandered your tax money furiously frivolously fighting Gays' right to marry in Florida long after it became embarrassing. They lost. Now our homophobic Republican State AG seeks to duck cover, avoid and evade paying civil rights attorney fees to the successful Jacksonville law firm, Sheppard White, which won the case. The State AG owes some $700,000 to tbe prevailing Gay marriage plaintiffs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1988.
AG BONDI paraded around the Treasury wedding venue with a dog named "Daisy," whose "owner" recently died, seeking a new adoptive home. Crass Governor RICHARD LYNN SCOTT showed his business acumen by quipping that they could hold "an auction." Everyone laughed nervously. Staff members were again visibly afraid of our grip-and-grin Governor, just as they were at a similar April 3, 2013 Governor and Cabinet meeting held at Flagler College, in a 100-person room in the former Ponce de Leon Hotel.
Officially called a meeting of the "Governor and Cabinet," it was in reality a staged pep rally. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by the Fifth Grade class of St. Paul School of Excellence. Those students were among the few African-Americans in the nearly all-white room.
You paid for it.
You weren't invited.
How gauche and louche.
There were more than 100 applause lines and dozens of gold medals, including a resolution for our St. Augustine 450th ("450 years of continuous occupation!"). (No public comment allowed in support of our St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, with no legal authority provided).
There were also applause lines and gold medals and photo-ops and forced smily grip-and-grins for teachers, girls' soccer teams, Republican businesspeople, a retired Flagler County Undersheriff (whose wife nominated him for an award for courage in a 1978 shooting, surprising him this morning). There were applause lines, gold medals and smily grip-and-grin photo ops for an AG's consumer lawyer who recovered some $12 million (BONDI fired June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards, two consumer lawyers for recovering more significant amounts as a result of criminal conduct by foreclosure mills, but annoying bankster campaign contribution recipients BONDI and SCOTT). There were awards to three conservation officers (the first time three women won the award), and to others. I actually lost count of how many people were given gold medals around their necks, with grip-and-grin photographs with Governor SCOTT, famous for his rictus, and his Cabinet.
There was also a one-sided upbeat propagandistic presentation on the state's economy by Department of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Jesse Panuucio, unadorned by publicly viewable PowerPoint® slides -- the inept preparations did not include a screen, so the Governor and his Cabinet flipped through handouts the old-fashioned way. Mr. Panuccio bragged that Florida has a "smaller government sector" than other states. True enough, perhaps accounting for the lax regulation of polluters, fraudfeasors, monopolists, oligopolists, utilities and other corporations beloved by RICK SCOTT and Tallahassee Republicans of his ilk.
Panuccio's invisible PowerPoint® slides also showed that nineteen (19) of 24 SMSAs (Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the State of Florida had a higher growth rate than the national average. This "growth" is metastatic in some places, resulting in ugly-as-sin "developments," fattening carpetbaggers, resulting in some 500,000 unoccupied condos reported by The New York Times in 2013, while doing nothing for working people. it would appear.
No copies of the PowerPoint® presentation were available to anyone but the Governor and Cabinet.
Our City of St. Augustine had at least a week's notice of the event, but there was no public notice. I learned of the event last night at 8:29 PM. Word of the Governor and Cabinet meeting was not shared by our half-million dollar a year Public Affairs Department or by the multi-millionaire Governor's multi-million dollar PR machine.
I showed up before 8 AM, to the surprised looks of SCOTT's janissaries, apparatchiks, acolytes, satellites, toadies, hangers-on, supernumeraries, charlatans and gendarmes. They assembled Republican preppy hordes kind of reminded me of the character "Ditto Boland," in Frank O'Conner's "The Last Hurrah." Two SAPD officers stated that "the general public" would not be allowed in at 8AM. We were finally allowed in at 8:30.
The St. Augustine Record covered the event with several photographers and at least one reporter. Yet the Record oddly no advance story, not even this morning. Wonder why? Did SCOTT's staff announce the event but order an "embargo?"
(As respected local videographer/photographer J.D. Pleasant says, "if you want to keep a secret in St. Augustine, tell The St. Augustine Record.
The only "advance" news story of the dog and pony show was on this blog last night. That's it.
The actual business of the meeting -- Cabinet business votes-- consumed about one half hour.
Besides SCOTT and his Cabinet -- all for sale -- you could buy water for $1.00. Yes, they sold water at the Treasury! Too tacky for words?
"It's an honor," Mayor Nancy Shaver said. No, Mayor, it's a disgrace to the human race -- what Saul Alinsky warned about: the manufacturing of consent and the simulation of democracy where there is none. Due to . Tens of thousands of dollars were wasted on this abusive dog and pony show without advance notice or public comment. Excluded from the meeting were:
o High school civics classes.
o Flagler College students and professors.
o Republican and Democratic Executive Committees
o St. Johns County Commissioners
o St. Augustine Beach Commissioners
o Town of Hastings Commissioners
o School Board members
o Airport Authority members (other than Bruce Maguire, likely 2016 City Commission candidate -- whose wife Virginia Whetstone received a gold medal (whose family is yet again suing the City in yet another frivolous lawsuit, this one on ownership of our City bottomlands)
o Anastasia Mosquito Control District of St. Johns County Commissioners
There was no public comment allowed on non-agenda items, contrary to the practice under prior Governors. When I asked for a public comment card to speak on the St. Augustine resolution, I was told by KRISTIN OLSON that this was not a voting item. When it was approved, there was a vote. Like SCOTT, his superficial satellites appear guilty of serial prevarications and tergiversations.
During the actual non-ceremonial business items -- some sixteen (16) of them -- there was little questioning, except from Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. The rote recitation of Republican Governor SCOTT was: "Motion on this item? Second? Any comment or objection? Hearing none, motion approved." (SCOTT does not follow Robert's Rules of Order, which requires a roll call vote anywhere else.)
The only intriguing note of the whole day was discussion on greater financial accountability for college and university projects and bonds.
Meanwhile, Governor RICHARD LYNN SCOTT and his Cabinet finally will hold the long-promised Open Records and Sunshine training -- they so badly need it -- and they needed it this morning before they refused public comment.
In the immortal words of Jim Garrison, "What do you expect from a pig but a grunt?"
The Governor and Cabinet meetings must be subject to widespread advance public notice, held in auditoriums, not small spaces, and open to public comment, as permitted under prior Governors, including Lawton Chiles, John Edward Bush and Charles Crist. That's why 3.8 million voters in Florida adopted Article I, sections 23 and 24 of our Florida Constitution in 1992 (3.8 million).
Free speech and open debate -- it's what our Founding Fathers intended. Its what RICHARD LYNN SCOTT a/k/a "FIFTH AMENDMENT GOVERNOR VALDEMORT) fears the most -- openness and debate.
The Government of the State of Florida is not subject to national security secret -- Governor and Cabinet meetings must not be subject to classified, top secret, UCNI or NOFORN classifications or Stealth technology.
The Governor and Cabinet's secret visit to St. Augustine Florida on the eve of our 450th anniversary commemoration is a stench in the nostrils of our State of Florida and the United States of America. It is as if Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Florida's secretive First Governor, were still around. (Local joke: Adelantado Admiral Menendez left in 1571 and gave orders: "Don't change a thing!")
Here's SCOTT's PR schmooze from the Florida Channel.
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