Tuesday, November 10, 2015

NY TIMES EXPOSES LLC ABUSES: WILL ST. AUGUSTINE RECORD EVER INVESTIGATE LOCAL DEVELOPERS, LLCs and POLITICIANS?

While local LLC developer politicians attempt chill, coerce, and intimidate public debate -- without objective coverage by developer-influenced editors and reporters at The St. Augustine Record -- a real newspaper continues to investigate Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) and their depredations.
Great story on LLC deed theft by Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter Ms. Stephanie Sauls. Ms. Sauls is spouse of three-time Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter Walt Bogdanich, who on November 24, 2013 exposed mishandling of the Michelle O'Connell shooting by St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID BERNERD SHOAR and State's Attorney RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA.
1. We've got a raft of dodgy, foreign-funded LLCs here in St. Johns County, Florida.
2. As former County Commission Chairman Benjamin C. Rich would tell you, foreign investors in places with high growth rates purchased corrupt contractors, lawyers and politicians, winning zoning favors, with some 70,000 homes authorized to be built in what is the eleventh-fastest growing county in America!
3. LLC lawyers like the late GEORGE MORRIS McCLURE prevaricate to fill wetlands, clear-cut trees and win government favors, as with the Sebastian Inland Harbor project within St. Augustine, still flat after ten years, with the LLC lawyer, McCLURE falsely claiming there was a Westin hotel coming, without documentation.
4. When I've asked for politicians to require identification of the beneficial owners, I've been rebuffed: "It's an LLC," as if its owners' identity were a classified national security secret!
5. Of course, the leading recipient of LLC contributions and leading politician helping developers in St. Johns County is DAVID BERNERD SHOAR, f/k/a "HOAR," successor to the corrupt political machine of Sheriff NEIL PERRY and KKK Sheriff LAWRENCE O. DAVIS. PERRY's wife, SYD PERRY, led "The Issues Group," which vetted and picked our politicians.
6. One of our City Commissioners in St. Augustine (NANCY SIKES-KLINE) works for a land planner and former County Commissioner (KAREN TAYLOR), whose clients for 25 years are mainly LLCs: no response to my question as which of the projects on a 13-page list that she personally worked on, here:
http://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2015/10/query-to-sikes-kline-re-work-for.html
7. The favored method of LLCs in euchring the public interest is the Planned Unit Development, "a sneaky way of getting around zoning," says one City Planning and Zoning Board member, Cathy Brown.
Enough.
Will our local newspaper investigate?
What do you reckon?

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