Paper Supports Sunshine, But NEVER Litigates. Why?

The St. Augustine Record says it supports Florida Sunshine laws (see below), but never litigates.

Why?

Its sister Morris Communications newspaper frequently litigates and wins, winning awards, ably represented by George Gabel and Suzanne Judas of Holland & Knight, who in 2010 helped eighteen of us here halt an illegal City Commission business trip to Spain and end the illegal "First America Foundation," to which Commissioners gave $275,000 to run our 450th anniversary celebration secretly, for the express purpose of avoiding and evading Sunshine and Open Records laws.

(The Record's then-publisher and another employee became First America Foundation board members, resulting in Holland & Knight's withdrawal, even though the two employees waived any conflict as they were not being sued).

Yes, the Record says it supports Sunshine and Open Records laws.

See the editorial, below, which has a cute swipe at me (Ed Slavin). I wear their editorial board's seemingly jealous scorn as a badge of honor. See below: "Right, Ed? ... "political gadflies and alarmists..." Harrumph.

Read  then Editor Peter Ellis' editorial praising me, on November 19, 2006, link here, noting exposure of the City's dumping a landfill in a lake and declassification of the largest mercury pollution event in the history of this frail planet (Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant, operated by Union Carbide for the U.S. Government, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee).

 Last year I filed nearly 500 Open Records requests with government agencies.

Q. How many did the Record file?

A. A few?  Good start.  We can do better, right?

The First Amendment and protected activity are like a muscle -- if you don't exercise it, it atrophies.

Time for the Record to unleash its lawyers and its reporters and act like a newspaper and not a doormat for the powerful and a lickspittle for the crooked, tolerating waste, fraud, abuse, misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance, flummery, dupery and nincompoopery -- like the First America Foundation, in which the Record's own publisher was in pari delicto.

What do y'all reckon?

Editorial: Sunshine laws face cloudy day every session
Posted: January 14, 2016 - 9:06pm | Updated: January 15, 2016 - 12:03am

Florida became among the first and certainly the most famous state in terms of mandatory government transparency, when our Sunshine Laws were enacted almost 50 years ago — 1967.

We remain a torchbearer among the 50 states in terms of shining the light of transparency into governmental enclaves large and small. Writing the original legislation was landmark back then. But the real struggle over the years has been in keeping the intent intact.

Every year Florida’s lawmakers file bills to weaken the laws, primarily by chipping away with “exceptions.” The First Amendment Foundation’s purpose is to anticipate the challenges, identify them and fight them in the court of public opinion — or the very real kind of courtroom.

This year, it has identified nearly 50 attempts in the current legislative session. Since 1967, it has opposed 1,106 erosions of the public’s right to know.

And this is an important point: So much of the emphasis of the Sunshine Law seems to center on media challenges. But the truth is that no news organization, no matter how large, has any greater rights under the law than you. We just get a lot more press because, well, we are the press. The law protects the public’s right to know. It says nothing about a newspaper’s right to know — though in practice they are similar.

The foundation sets a hit list at the beginning of legislative sessions, prioritizing the more dangerous of the attempts, in terms of intent and political muscle.

Chief among them this year is a different kind of challenge, more dangerous and duplicitous — it’s camouflaged and cunning. Rather than isolating a specific exemption, this one attacks the root of the transparency tree.

Here’s the scheme. Currently if a government agency or entity fails to provide information to a citizen (or a news organization), the sole recourse is taking it to court. Current law states that if the offending agency or entity is found to be in violation of the Sunshine Law, it is responsible for the legal fees of the entity wronged.

Government officials rarely have a problem spending public money fighting an open records request. If the issue or the political persuasion involved has sufficient juice, an agency can tie a suit up in the courts for years. That in itself is an intimidation factor for the little guy taking on the big boys.

What the new bill attempts seems a baby step — but that’s the way the exemptions gain traction over time. It changes just one word in the current law, stating that a judge “may” award attorney fees to the plaintiff, rather than a judge “shall” award the compensation.

Sponsors will tell you that the new law is intended to crack down on unscrupulous lawyers filing frivolous lawsuits against government entities. Certainly this does occur. Frivolous suits and opportunistic attorneys are facts of life. But we circumvent them as best we can and move on toward fairness.

How many residents would knowingly challenge a government, win the lawsuit, gain access to the public records and then end up with $20,000 in attorney fees? The term “chilling effect” comes quickly to mind.

Another argument sponsors toss out is that the law would cut down on nuisance open records requests. One has nothing to do with the other (right, Ed?)

Political gadflies and alarmists will never go away, and we’re not at all certain that they should. But this new law will do nothing whatever to slow the pace of records requests. It will only serve to stop legal challenges when the requests are ignored.

When the only remedy to illegal sequestration of public documents is the courtroom, it is frightening to imagine that access being blocked by the intimidation of fighting the good fight, winning the battle, then footing the bill.

Crackpot COMMENT:

Dr.MacMantazas a/k/a Dr. WILLIAM McCORMACK, Pharm. D., former Dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Florida and the School of Pharmacy at the University of Houston, St. Johns County Democratic Committeeman, participant with his wife in the all-white St. Augustine Sister Cities Association, Inc. and ethically impaired supporter of the status quo in St. Johns County (the SJC Democratic Party has not run a single candidate for a single partisan countywide race since 2006).
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Dr.MacMantazas 01/15/16 - 10:32 pm 00You're right about one thing, political gadflies like Ed .......
with their nuisance (sic) open records requests will never go away. But you are right, there is a difference between those incidents which are frequent and particularly popular with a few political gadflies and an open records lawsuit which usually has a reasonably legitimate purpose.

UPDATE: Not one Open Records lawsuit by The St. Augustine Record is reflected in the records of the St. Johns County Clerk of Courts on its website. Not one. Ever.

My e-mail in response to VILLAINOUS BILL McCORMICK's crackpot comment (no response as of 8:30 PM:


-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin
To: WMCCORMICK41
Sent: Sat, Jan 16, 2016 7:58 am
Subject: URGENT: WILLIAM McCORMICK's Libelous Statement re: "Nuisance" Open Records Requests -- Demand for Proof/Retraction/Apology for Libelous Statement on St. Augustine Record Website

Dear Dr. McCormick:

1. You stated in a libelous St. Augustine Record posting late last night:
Dr.MacMantazas
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Dr.MacMantazas 01/15/16 - 10:32 pm00You're right about one thing, political gadflies like Ed .......
with their nuisance open records requests will never go away. But you are right, there is a difference between those incidents which are frequent and particularly popular with a few political gadflies and an open records lawsuit which usually has a reasonably legitimate purpose.

2. A. Please retract your false, libelous, retaliatory statements. Now.

B. Please send me by Noon today any documents relied upon by you in your making of your libelous, inflammatory online assertion that I have made "nuisance" Open Records requests and am a "political gadfly." What possessed you to make your libelous posting at 10:32 PM last night as "Dr. Mac Mantanzas" (sic)? Why did you not sign your name to your libelous posting, Dr. McCormick?

3. It is indisputable that "Dr. Mac Mantanzas" (sic) is your "Anonymice" nom de guerre on www.staugustine.com, the website of The St. Augustine Record (which "outed" you and all others hiding behind anonymous NICs during 2013-2014). A jury might infer actual malice on your part and award compensatory and punitive damages for your libelous posting as "Dr. Mac Mantanzas" (sic). The fact that you did not sign your statement with your own name is inculpatory. Everything I write, I sign. This is a matter of principle. For an elected Democratic Party leader to post anonymously is a badge of fraud: you hid behind anonymity to libel me.

4. Your libelous statement about my making "nuisance" records records was days after I wrote about difficulties getting responsive records on the Michelle O'Connel case from St. Johns County and less than six (6) hours after I once again wrote you (and other members of the Steering committee of our St. Johns County Democratic Executive Committee) concerning SJC DEC's long refusing to provide equal access to Senator Bernie Sanders to distribute campaign literature.

5. Your libelous statement about my making "nuisance" records requests and calling me a "political gadfly" is contemptible. It is contaminated by irrefragable animus regarding my criticizing:
(a) participation by you and your wife, Penny, in the all-white St. Augustine Sister Cities Association, Inc. with ex-Mayors LEN WEEKS and JOE BOLES; and
(b) your costumed portrayal of a Roman Catholic Pope in a taxpayer-subsidized Menendez Noche de Gala procession, an overt act of blasphemy and sacrilege offensive to Roman Catholics. http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2011-02-26/colorful-parade-gala-remember-menendez ("Bill McCormick portrays the Pope"):





Bill McCormick portrays the pope as the Noche de Gala procession travels down St. George Street, from the City Gates, on the way to the Lightner Museum on Saturday evening. By DARON DEAN, daron.dean@staugustine.com
Bill McCormick portrays the pope as the Noche de Gala procession travels down St. George Street, from the City Gates, on the way to the Lightner Museum on Saturday evening. By DARON DEAN, daron.dean@staugustine.com

6. The procession in quo was held in as part of the money-losing, no-bid "Menendez Noche de Gala," a phony "benefit" that lost money and cost $195/person, an "exclusive" annual party in which you and the wealthy, including ex-Mayors LEN WEEKS and JOE BOLES, frolicked at City government expense, with contributions by Florida Power & Light, Baker & Hostetler and other franchisees, vendors and lobbyists seeking influence with the City of St. Augustine.

7. The Florida League of Cities informed me in 2014 that no other city in our State of Florida put on galas -- under the ancien regime of WEEKS-BOLES, our City of St. Augustine had two (2) annual galas. Thanks to my righteous open records requests and pointed questions by citizens and Mayor Shaver, our City of St. Augustine is no longer subsidizing such decadent displays of of what Lincoln Steffens would call "The Shame of the Cit[y]," and which Thorstein Veblen would call "conspicuous invidious consumption."

8. . Your libelous statement about "nuisance" records requests is contaminated by retaliatory animus concerning my having exposed your reactionary behavior vis a vis heckling me at an FDEP meeting when I spoke of the City of St. Augustine's sewage pollution of Matanzas River and San Sebastian River.

9. Your libelous statement about "nuisance" records requests reflects your thinking yourself a part of the "Establishment." You often tell Republican Commissioners "i voted for you, and otherwise seek to curry favor.

10. Your libelous statement about "nuisance" records requests is contaminated by retaliatory animus concerning my having reported on your incoherent defense of our Election Supervisor's Fifteenth Amendment violations concerning no early voting locations within the territorial limits of the City of St. Augustine, 2004-2016, and your insufferably misguided and insulting 2009 effort to blockade the endorsement by the St. Johns County Democratic Executive Committee of the proposed St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore..www.staugustgreen.com

11. Your libelous statement about "nuisance" records requests is beneath the dignity of a free people and embarrasses you, your family, our Florida Democratic elected officials, the SJC DEC and the Florida Democratic Party, to which you are our elected St. Johns County State Committeeman

12. I hereby call upon you to kindly consider resigning as St. Johns County State Democratic Committeeman -- your latest "Anonymice" attack is a disgrace,

13. I have sent a copy of this e-mail on your libel to your son, Mr. Ryan McCormick (the Washington, D.C. lawyer-lobbyist for the ruling classes, Real Estate Roundtable Senior Vice President and Counsel). I sent this e-mail to Ryan, a fellow Georgetown University School of Foreign Service alum, whom I met at SJC DEC functions when he worked for U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, in hopes that Ryan might graciously tell his misguided father you to "knock it off" and "cool it" and perhaps appeal to what Lincoln would call "the better angels of your nature."

14. Please call me to discuss, or perhaps we might meet over coffee.

15. If you purport to be a "Democrat" and (not a Dixiecrat), you are in no position to go about like an anti-literate energumen, making baseless attacks upon a respected citizen-activist for allegedly making "nuisance" Open Records requests.

16. It is the SJC DEC that borders dangerously upon being a real "nuisance" in Our Town -- you and the SJC DEC have a history of obstructing reforms and not running a single Democratic candidate in a countywide partisan race since 2006.

17. The purpose of the Democratic Party is to elect Democrats, correct?

18. The fact of the matter is that our St. Johns County Democratic Party is now a third party (after "Others") due to SJC DEC's maladroit mismanagement, ineptitude and decrepitude. One example of its irrelevance is its failure to take a principled stand in support of Open Records laws, which are everywhere being evaded (as on our efforts to obtain County records since 2014). In the words of Dan Quayle, Bill, "I wear your scorn as a badge of honor."

19. As RFK once wrote in the flyleaf of a book he gave to segregationist Mississippi U.S. Senator James O. Eastland, "Repent now, there's still time!"

20. We, the People (and real Democrats) will be praying for you today.

With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed
Ed Slavin
www.edslavin.com
904-377-4998