Two days ago, I wrote St. Augustine Beach Mayor UNDINE PAWLOWSKI GEORGE about her unconstitutional, unctuous, ukases and rude behavior at the Tuesday, January 8, 2019 City Commission meeting, where she:
- repeatedly gaveled people for First Amendment protected activity -- applauding some of the 33 speakers who unanimously opposed the plan, which was tabled
- angrily read at the audience, without eye contact, rat-a-tat-tat, a statement attacking opponents of her PASSPORT LABS, INC. parking app scheme, mocking people for "misinformation"
- demanded to inflict her app idea without any effort to resolve questions about:
- lack of disabled parking spaces, violating ADA
- lack of public support for paid parking
- opposition to privacy-invading app payments using credit cards
- illegal unconscionable contract of adhesion contrary to public policy in a "Confidential" contract that violates F.S. 119.0701
I asked for any legal research supporting her ukase on applause, addressing it to the St. Augustine Beach City Police Chief City Attorney, Florida Bar, Florida Police Lawyers Association, city insurance defense lawyer.
No response.
I asked to talk to Mayor GEORGE about her bad excuse for performance art, as if channeling the ghosts of Richard Milhous Nixon, Captain Queeg from the Caine Mutiny, and Col. Nathan Jessup from A Few Good Men.
In the immortal words of William F. Buckley, Jr., "Why does baloney reject the grinder?"
St. Augustine Beach Mayor UNDINE GEORGE is already drawing comparisons to her petty, mean, vindictive predecessor, disgraced, defeated ex-Mayor ANDREA SAMUELS, and raging redneck boor disgraced former St. Augustine City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRIS.
I rated UNDINE GEORGE our "Worst Mayor" in Folio Weekly superlatives last week. She reminds me of the narrow-minded joyless city officials in the movie, "Footloose."
Mean Mayor UNDINE GEORGE has a "whim of iron": it was she who first pushed the notion of using credit cards and smartphones to pay for parking in a small beach town, arising from her:
- untruthful claims that St. Johns County is close to adopting paid parking:
- still-undisclosed "colleague" communications, which she refuses to disclose, and
- wondrous reported experience with the glories of smartphone app parking in a courthouse garage in Gainesville.
Police officers have a legal duty to disobey illegal orders, like those that Mayor GEORGE would like to give to remove people engaging in First Amendment protected activity.
Police officers will not indulge the delusions of this juvenile judgmental Mayor, whose hare-brained smartphone parking app scheme is in flames.
The next time Mayor UNDINE GEORGE makes an illegal order, as she did to citizens Tom Reynolds and Merrill Roland eleven months ago, Chief Robert Hardwick is now on notice that he is duty-bound to refuse it, or risk being sued for civil rights violations for violating the First Amendment.
Here's the e-mail correspondence:
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Slavin
To: comugeorge
Cc: laureldean1
Sent: Wed, Jan 9, 2019 11:28 am
Subject: Request No. 2018-28: URGENT: Legal status of applause and laughter and other protected activity at St. Augustine Beach City Commission
Dear Mayor George:
Please call me to discuss your irascible behavior at the January 8, 2019 St. Augustine Beach City Commission meeting.
Cordially,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
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Dear Mayor George, Mr. Wilson, Ms. Erdelyi, Ms. Raddatz, Mr. Royle, Chief Hardwick, Ms. Gleason, Mr. Hawkes, et al.
1. Please send me any First, Ninth, Fourteenth Amendment, F.S. 286, Florida Constitution Article I, Section 24 or other legal research or Attorney General opinions on whether the Mayor of St. Augustine Beach, a licensed attorney, may selectively gavel and bark at people and threaten to remove American citizens from a public City Commission meeting (not a quasi-judicial hearing) in retaliation for non-disruptive free speech, e.g., merely applauding or laughing -- while appearing on other meeting videos leading applause and laughter herself, ex officio as Mayor.
2. If no such legal research exists, please ask the Florida Bar, Florida Police Lawyers Association, Florida State Attorney General, St. Augustine Beach City Attorney and insurance defense counsel for their research or opinions.
3. Please send me any insurance policy sections or training manual units for peace officers on their mandatory legal duty under constitutional, civil and human rights law, as reflected in FDLE Law Enforcement Officer Ethical Standards of Conduct Rule 2.5, or otherwise, to disobey an illegal order by a elected or other government official, e.g., by Mayor Undine George inveighing against free speech, e.g., applause or laughter:
2.5 Police officers must obey lawful orders, but must refuse to obey any orders the officer knows would require the officer to commit an illegal act. If in doubt as to the clarity of an order, the officer shall, if feasible, request the issuing officer to clarify the order. An officer refusing to obey an order shall be required to justify his or her actions. (Emphasis added)
4. Please send me the Florida Bar, Florida Police Lawyers Association, Florida Attorney General, FDLE, FCJSTC or SABPD training, seminars and manual information and best practices for police officers who may find themselves thrust into political questions by a civilian government official who may issue illegal orders, seek to make false police reports, or to misuse police officers to intimidate, coerce, restrain, chill or retaliate against protected activity or status. See United States Supreme Court's June 2018 decision in Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-21_p8k0.pdf
5. Please send me any League of Cities or law review articles, or case studies or research, on the historic outcomes for elected officials who abuse their authority, including those who stigmatize and mischaracterize human applause and laughter as "outbursts," or who otherwise seek to stigmatize protected activity as "disruptive," including the journalistic, electoral, civil, criminal, Florida Bar, administrative and psychiatric response(s) or sequelae.
Please free to call me to discuss.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
www.edslavin.com
Not surprised
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