We did it, St. Johns County. After years of citizens' outspoken advocacy, calling for his firing, St. Johns County Attorney PATICK McCORMACK is retiring.
Friday, September 3, 2011 will be St. Johns County Attorney PATRICK FRANCIS McCORMACK's last day on the job. (As Gore Vidal once said of Truman Capote, "that's a good career move.")
McCORMACK read aloud a brief letter, announcing he did not seek extension of his current lucrative contract. Good move. If it had gone for a vote, McCORMACK would lose.
Upon announcing his last day on the job, McCORMACK appeared to relax beyond his COVID-19 mask. He actually stood up for someone else's rights. Having authored unconstitutional actions impeding citizen rights to speak their minds, McCORMACK made a wry comment about Commission Chair JREMIAH RAY BLOCKR's overbearing effort to misinterpret then rule on "demonstrations."
A National Guard Major, BLOCKER made the mistake of many martinets.
BLOCKER takes himself way too seriously, and views any other biped as a carbon unit to be dominated. First he came for our rights to non-agenda public comment, a feature at every public meeting in these parts. He was aided and abetted by McCORMACK, whose cherry-picking research about other counties seemingly supported BLOCKER.
BLOCKER never addressed my concern that he had abolished an existing public forum. My complaint to the Justice Department includes this outrage.
Having announced his retirement, McCORMACK found a spine. Our late friend Diane Mills would have been proud. She said he was a pretty decent attorney before being promoted, when he turned into just another mouthpiece for developer mendacity in St. Johns County
It happened in America. on March 16, 2021 St. Johns County Commission Chairman called out St. Augustine's own government watchdog, Barbara Jean (B.J.), Kalaidi for a "demonstration," stating that she stood up and "made faces."
No video. No evidence. Just judgmental observations.
McCORMACK said he and others sometime stand up during Commission meetings.
No "demonstration" is intended by standing." We're not in church. JEREMIAH RAY BLOCKER is not an archbishop.
Aa the St. Augustine Record editorialized about an outgoing City of St. Augustine official's attack on me in 2006, our politicians "need thicker skins."
As to "making facer," how does BLOCKER propose to institutionalize his ukase?
Facial recognition software aimed at every person in the County Auditorium?
Perhaps some authoritarian Chinese satraps would advise the County on designing facial recognition software to detect unauthorized face-making We could define the proscribed faces. Faces reflecting skepticism, indignation, curiosity, or anything that fawning obeisance would be detected and deterred. (There's probably "an app for that," no doubt being developed in Communist China.
Florida law provides it is a misdemeanor to disrupt a church service or public meeting. Was bumptious Chairman BLOCKER attempting to brandish his big 'ole notebook and void-for-vagueness rules in an effort to remove Ms. Kalaidi, or ban her from meetings?
Shame on you! Instead of holding Ms. Kalaidi up to opprobrium and obloquy, let's declare August 8 as B.J. Kalaidi day, to thank her for her service
On the day before St. Patrick's day, St. Johns County Attorney PATRICK FRANCIS McCORMACK ended up winning the point, subtly, no doubt grinning behind his mask (which he touches when he speaks, pulling it forward).
BLOCKER needs help -- perhaps a beta blocker description? A cup of tea? A walk in the woods? Or a family intervention?
Sorehead BLOCKER sounded like the angry agitated, paranoid Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, talking about "strawberries," rolling ball bearings in his hands.
Poor BLOCKER sounds like a snowflake with a gavel.
One of our Administrative Law Judges in the U.S. Department of Labor would stand up at the judge's bench at 4 pm during trial days. He would lean upon the back of the judge's chair. He had a bad back. But his standing was sometimes viewed as a sign of impatience with how long testimony took. (As young DOL law clerks, we laughed at a C.F.R. section on DOL administrative law one allowing judges to exclude what it ungrammatically described as "undully (sic) repetitious" testimony,)
In 40+ years attending government meetings and trials, I've never seen anyone called out for "standing" and "making faces."
You sounded off your rocker, Chairman BLOCKER.
Former St. Johns County Assistant County Administrator JERRY THOMAS CAMERON (a/k/a CONMAN") would tell new Commissioners, "Just because you got elected doesn't mean you gained 20 IQ points."
BLOCKER needs to chill out, look into his heart, and cease and desist being a bully. When he responds to a respected citizen's standing up and making faces as a "demonstration," he sounds like the type of U.S. Army officer-bully my father encountered in the 82nd Airborne in WWII, My father taught me, as JFK's father taught him, that, "if you don't stand up to people with power, they walk all over you,"
Pray for BLOCKER to find humility on this St. Patrick's Day. We're driving the snakes out of St, Johns County, starting with PATRICK FRANCIS McCORMACK,
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