DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE: The urgency of preserving and protecting voting rights in St. Augustine, Florida

Who should pick St. Augustine's Mayor? 

You? 

Or them?

Some St. Augustine Commissioners, developers, want to divest you of your vested voting rights to vote for Mayor.

St. Augustine burghers demand to rig the rules against citizens. First they wanted to allow nonresident business owners to vote (illegal). Now they want an end to electing Mayors. The Establishment demands to prevent St. Augustine from ever again electing a reformer quite like Nancy Shaver, ending the threat to the livelihood of those who look to government as a cash register, or "an annex to their own affairs," as FDR put it.  

In response, I've asked USDOJ Civil Rights Division to investigate St. Augustine City Commission's October 28 move toward eliminating cherished rights to vote for Mayor, 

Beware "a small group of selfish [people] who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests." So said Franklin Roosevelt in his "Four Freedoms" speech in 1941. 

In a democracy, one needs damn good reason to wall off voting, or any of our system's "checks and balances." 

"Good fences make good neighbors," as Robert Frost put it:  

"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out."

There is NO principled reason for walling out vested rights to vote for St. Augustine Mayor,

As Mayor, Nancy Shaver served as the accessible conscience of our community, presiding at meetings, representing the City, and serving as a "bulwark against oppression," as Justice Wiliam Rehnquist said about jury trials. 

Since the 1980s, St. Augustine voters voted, twice, to elect our Mayors.  There's no need to insult or second-guess voters with a third ballot.  

St. Augustine residents first elected their Mayor in 1812 under the landmark Spanish Constitution.  Voting rights for Mayor were later deleted  and Commissioners rotated as Mayor by vote of Commissioners in the bad 'ole days, when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called St. Augustine :the most lawless city in America in 1964.   Long trains of abuses by successive City Managers include dumping a landfill in a lake, polluting our saltwater marsh, seeking to develop buildings on top of old garbage dumps, racist annexations diluting minority voting strength; First Amendment violations harassing artists, musicians and journalists -- all dutifully reported for decades in Folio.

Lessons learned: After four (white, male) Commissioners deposed Ramelle Petroglu, the City's first woman mayor, in 1985, residents voted -- twice -- to amend their Charter to protect their right to vote for Mayor.  During 2014-2018, residents thrice elected a reform Mayor Nancy Shaver, who served with honor for 1550 days. She asked questions, demanded answers and expected democracy in St. Augustine.  The New York Times reported in 2017 how she was the object of a "money bomb"  from Sheriff David Shoar. 

She had a stroke, resigned and was replaced by former Mayor Tracy Upchurch, ad interim. 

"We get to overthrow our government every two years," as the character "Josh Liman" said on The West Wing.  Who could be against that?   Opponents of reform want "their" town back.  They'd like to residents' constitutional right to vote for Mayor, without ever doing any constitutional law research.  They have two hollow arguments, data-free, solving non-existent problems:

• "Confusion": some of you are "confused" that we have a "strong Mayor," when we have a "strong City Manager" form of government.
• Only "team players" will be Mayor, thereby ending "turbulence" (read: "Democracy.")

"Team player" is NO qualification to be Mayor.  A "team player" in government and business parlance means one who willingly keeps wrongdoing secret.  When Pentagon cost analyst A. Ernest Fitzgerald in retaliation for his truthful Congressional testimony -- candid answers about C-5A cargo aircraft cost overruns -- President Richard Milhous Nixon gave tape-recorded orders to fire him, stating he was not a "team player."  Case law is replete with examples of "team players" in coverups of crimes.  We want honest representation, not an oath of omertà.  https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2019/10/city-of-st-augustine-establishment.html

I agree with Mayor Upchurch: the elected mayor's position is a check and balance on the City Manager. Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline agrees  . 

• Any "confusion" is de micromis.  Checks and balances on the power of the City Manager are provided by an elected Mayor, our chosen leader. 
•  There is a long list of cities with strong city manager form of governments AND elected mayors.  

Who wants to "rotate" Commissioners into the Mayor's job, like the old "Queen for a Day" tv show (as in deeply-dysfunctional St. Augustine Beach)?  

• An eleven-year Commissioner who never ran for Mayor, but wants it on her resume.  Vice Mayor Leanna Sophia Amaru Freeman, local divorce lawyer, had ethics charges dismissed last month in Tallahassee, with NO testimony at a one minute and 16 second Florida Ethics Commission hearing that cleared her of ethics charges of conflict of interest for not recusing herself from voting on a dubious land purchase.   (Freeman bragged on Facebook she would increase neighboring Davis Shores property values, including her own.  Citing dozens of academic articles, de hors the record, the Florida Ethics Commission developed no actual appraisal or testimony, relying on "warm fuzzies" from City officials.  Freeman and the "Gang of Four often blocked Nancy Shaver, even on a bathroom break and a 450th commemoration forensic compliance audit.  Freeman's a close ally of former Mayors LEN WEEKS and JOE. BOLES, who have a long-term no-bid lease on 81 St. George Street City property at 1/5 market rent (Folio, August 2014, http://folioweekly.com/THE-BLOGGER-THE-LEASE-AND-THE-ST-AUGUSTINE-MAYORS-RACE,10719)
• Steve Cottrell, St. Augustine Record columnist, reclusive former unelected mayor of Nevada City, California (pop. 3068), who's demanded since 2015 we stop electing Mayors here. 
• Developers and campaign contributors, who support Commissioner JOHN OTHA VALDES, a third generation Florida contractor/ developer who describes himself as a "fixer -- I fix things," https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-fixer-john-otha-valdes-makes.html, who moved to St. Augustine from Saudi Arabia after selling his company to Saudi and British partners, who --

• claimed 100% homestead property tax exemption while renting his garage apartment on AirBnB as "oceanfront" property in Lincolnville. 
• was fined only $224 by Code Enforcement Board after an illegal demolition after being denied a permit, saying "I can make it fall down.: 
• testified in support of controversial zoning favors as a candidate.

Commissioners ignored repeated requests to create the City's first-ever Charter Review Commission (recommended by City consultant, Gulf Coast State University Prof. Robert E. Lee, Ph.D., a former city manager who in 2015 recommended one, after Commissioners imported him to lecture them about becoming "team players"). 

No response to my suggestions to allow votes on charter amendments creating an Ombudsman, Inspector General, ethics commission, lobbying disclosures or other improvements that will preserve, protect and enhance liberty.  Why wonder why?

What's next?

Commissioners must hold two (2) public hearings before  putting this turkey on a March 2020 primary ballot. If passed, there would be no more elected Mayors, only rotating figureheads.  

Speak out Tuesday, November 12, 2019 and Monday, December 9, 2019 at 5 pm.  The swing vote is Commissioner Roxanne Horvath, an architect, who initially seconded Mayor Upchurch motion to "table" the idea and to "send it into outer space forever."  (She wants more discussion.)