In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!
Thursday, September 03, 2015
"Time Wounds All Heels," But Energumens Say Corruption "Non-Issue."
KKK Police Chief Virgil Stuart (grandfather of DOW PUD publicist Melissa Stuart), right.
At right, at KKK rally in Slave Market at Plaza de la Constitucion, a St. Johns County Sheriff's Deputy (see badge on belt , holds up a "Don't Tread on Me" Sign at St. Augustine, Florida Slave Market, as Georgia segregationist lawyer J.B. STONER preaches hatred of African-Americans and Jews in 1964. (JESSE BENJAMIN STONER, JR. died in a nursing home in 2005 after his 1980 conviction and incarceration for 1958 Bethel Baptist Church bombing murders in Birmingham, Alabama).
Late last night, I talked with Ms. Patty O'Connell (Michelle's mom), and then read how Sheriff SHOAR's brother-in-law, former City Commissioner JOHN GIANNOTTA, wrote that Michelle's death and local corruption were "Non-issue. She Killed Herself. RIP."
I was reminded of my own mother's bon mot: TIME WOUNDS ALL HEELS.
My mother had a way with words. She hated cliches. She hated corruption continued to learn her entire life. She took college French when she was in her sixties. She stood up for worker rights. She encouraged me to speak out for the rights of others.
She never saw St. Johns County or Northeast Florida.
But those who have, have had enough, by God!
Cynical public officials feeding at the public trough.
Cynical corporations owning cynical public officials.
Sinister forces corrupting our lawmakers.
Crimes, torts and sins, the likes of which few could even imagine.
Kansas Republican U.S. Representative David Perley Lowe was quoted by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1961 in the landmark police abuse case of Monroe v. Pape, discussing Congressional debate of the 1871 Civil Rights Act (Ku Klux Klan Act): "While murder is stalking abroad in disguise, while whippings and lynchings and banishments have been visited upon unoffending American citizens, the local administrations have been found inadequate or unwilling to apply the proper corrective. Combinations, darker than the night [which] hides them, conspiracies, wicked as the worst felons could devise, have gone unwhipped of justice. Immunity is given to crime, and the records of the public tribunals are searched in vain for any evidence of effective redress." Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 175 (1961), quoting Cong. Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st Sess., App. 166-167.
Congress adopted the 1871 Civil Rights Act as a remedy for that evil wickedness by the KKK, which long ran segregated places like St. Johns County, Florida, terrorizing residents through control of government and police. That 1871 Civil Rights Act was repeatedly, successfully invoked here since 1963; on June 11, 1964, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote reform rabbi Israel "Sy" Dressner that this was "the most lawless city in America," leading to the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history on June 18, 1964.
"Be not afraid."
It's in the Bible hundreds of times. It inspires our lives. It was the first three words spoken by Saint Pope John Paul II on the balcony on October 16, 1978 to the crowds in St. Peter's Square.
We're standing up to mendacity, mediocrity and worse -- ask disgraced, defeated ex-Mayor JOE BOLES.
You're next, Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, and your enablers from City Hall to the County Administration Building.
2016 is an election year.
Your works and pomps are ending soon.
DAVID HOAR, the corrupt young man empowered by City Commissioners to violate the Fourth Amendment at age 19 is now embattled Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, nearing retirement, and, we believe, indictment. The New York Times, PBS Frontline, Dateline NBC, Guardian and Dr. Phil reports all show him for what he is: a hideous coverup artist, a coward, a heel.
"Time wounds all heels."
Count the days, St. Johns County. Count the days, St. Augustine. Sheriff SHOAR will rue the days he obstructed justice and violated constitutional rights. Every single one of them. So will his toadies. Every single one of them. There's a federal criminal investigation of St. Johns County Corruption.
Your time is up, "big shot crooks," as Jimmy Carter would say ("I see no reason why big shot crooks go free and the poor ones go to jail," President Carter famously said).
"Time to pay the piper," in the words of ex-Mayor JOE BOLES, threatening Dr. Dwight Hines with sanctions and attorney fees merely for seeking public records (Dr. HINES won, including release of records Assistant City Manager TIMOTHY BURCHFIELD falsely swore did not exist and payment of his attorney fees by the City of St. Augustine, Sheriff SHOAR's erstwhile employer, starting in the days when JOHN GIANNOTTA was a City Commissioner and "working is way up" to Police Chief before City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRISS helped coronate SHOAR as High Sheriff).
If this is only possible I for one will be grateful to see that justice is seen not only for Michelle O'Connell but, for St Augustine also this has been a very corrupt place for years I will never forget reading in the St Augustine Record how a county commissioner could cut his neighbor to pieces and got away with it even though there was a mountain of evidence also killing others to silence them and it seemed to me it was because the woman stood up for what she believed not a meek and mild with what ever was passed out M.O. only mistake was wanting a better life and trying to get away from the same evil forces that have held this town for years The corrupt Higher ups who swear to protect and in stead do as they choose no matter who it hurts! Helen.
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