SAVE THE CORAZON THEATER: Lazy PZB Recommends Flawed PUD, 6-1 -- 36 Granada Street LLC PUD Heads to Two (2) City Commission Public Hearings

CORAZON Destroyer, JAY McGARVEY, admitted his initially proposed six-year completion deadline in. proposed Planed Unit Development was an "arbitrary number." 

The entire 36 Granada Street LLC PUD is "arbitrary," with the developer and his conflicted lawyer trying to cram a new full-alcohol bar vendor with 200 seats right next to Flagler College. and across the street from CityHall/Lightner Museum. more density and intensity  This is an overbearing demand in our already alcohol-besotted hsotirc downtown, inflicting another 

In the wake of Title IX federal sexual harassment litigation. that brought down its maladroit President and corrupt Chancellor, Flagler College's Interim President, ex-Mayor John Delaney of Jacksonville, was nowhere to be seen on the issue. Delaney is a RogersTowers law firm partner and a lobbyist with the firm of Thomas Martin Fiorentino, Jr. who also lobbies for St. Johns County and local developera.

Kudos to Capt. Lee Geanuleas, U.S.N. (Retired), former U.S. Naval Academy ethics instructor; to Colonel Bruce Maguire, U.S.A.F. (Retired), a former St. Johns County Commissioner, a current Airport Commissioner; to St. Augustine Neighborhood Council President Melinda Rakoncay; and to other well-informed citizen speakers at PZB the evening of August 10, 2021.  

The expert witnesses schooled PZB, which was pressured to approve 6-1 a Godawful Planned Unit Development at 36 Granada street, site off the CORAZON THEATER. There are law students alive who could have done a better job on an exam, with fewer mistakes and less sturm und drang.

Maguire alleged that the legal description of the parking lot property was incorrect, a fatal error. No one seemed too concerned, as the long meeting droned on.

Thanks to PZB members for sometimes thoughtful consideration.  They and all citizenships. witness were right -- the PUD they approved 6-1 (John Carl Blow, longest-serving PZB member, dissenting) IS half-baked, unprofessional, poorly written articulate and does not meet City Commission standards.   

These sloppy flaws remain, including bad precedents that would leave PUDs vague and unenforceable and lead to repeal of the "useful tool" for negotiated, well-defined developments, suggested longest-serving PZB member, John Carl Blow, who voted "NO" with gusto and aplomb.  He was heroic.

Grant Misterly and wife enjoy Nights of Life with City Manager JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E. and wife circa December 2014.

Sharing several of Mr. Blow's concerns were longtime PZB members Sarah Ryan, a Virginia tech educated architect, and Grant Misterly, an engineering consultant for governments, who ran a strong race for City Commission against Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline in 2014. Misterly appeared torn, with a look of pained cognitive dissonance about the poor-=quality application. In the end he voted with the majority, empowering future bad PUDs.

This was PZB's third go-round with the demanding devious developer, who lost straight rezoning 3-3. Video of the August 10, 2021 meeting is here (click on item 7): https://staugustinefl.swagit.com/play/08102021-905

Ponte Vedra Reach real estate developer JAY McGARVEY whined, "Don't make me come back next month." 

When developer JAY McGARVEY whines, Dull Republicans genuflect.  

I once saw JAY McGAEVEY at St. Augustine Beach when he begged off answering questions because he had "an appointment' at 8:30 at night!

The pompous plutocratic perpetrator of Sea Grove and Sea Colony, MAY McGARVEY is in a hurry. He's a bully and so is his louche lapdog lawyer. Florida's "full-time federal employee" top Florida National Guard lawyer, GARY BIAN DAVENPORT.

JAU McGARVEY and his unknown, undisclosed investors paid some $1.5 million for the CORAZON THEATER. They have no interest in restoring the movie house and

McGARVEY and other non-resident Philistines want to destroy the only movie house in St. Augustine (having prematurely performed an internal demolition of walls (Were they load-bearing? Time will tell.  

As scholar Edward Alvord Ross, crimiologist, wrote in 1907, criminaloids are :"in a hurry,' want succeess and "not particular as to the means." In this case, the "Applicant" is listed not as McGarvey, but as Florida National Guard Judge Advocate General Major GARY BRIAN DAVENPORT, a disagreeable bumptious bully who admits he is a "full-time federal employee," and never provided any copy of an legal authority to moonlight for developers.  

My July 16, 2021 letter complaint is pending with FTC and DOJ on unfair trade practices and antitrust violations. nHiring a full-time federal lawyer.

In making disclosures of ex parte contacts, of seven members only Chairman John DePreter appeared to have read my August 9, 2021 e-mail and FTC and DOJ complaint.  PZB is guilty of shallow work -- and refusing to discuss the nascent movie monopoly in St. Augustine contaminates this PUD. 

PZB held a marathon seven hour meeting, from 2 pm to 9 pm, with a half hour dinner break and bathroom breaks.  

Perhaps PZB should meet twice a month, as the County PZA does. Developers are conmen and have repeatedly used staff and Commissioners to manipulate schedules with a phony sense of urgency, as with Dow PUD and Flagler College Communications Building.  These are volunteers, who repeatedly said they were tired and it was late.  That's a good time to take a recess and come back another day.  (That's what Mayor Nancy Shaver attempted to do during  discussion of other PUDs, with truculent, ungracious, uncouth then-Commissioner Leanna Freeman refusing to agree (she once refused to agree to a bathroom break suggested by Mayor Shaver).

The City amended its PZB ordinance in 2015 at the behest of former Vice Mayor "ODD TODD" NEVILLE, making PZB members serve at the pleasure of City Commission. It shows.

Several recently-appointed PZB members, including one WILLIAM MASSON, an angry young lawyer who earlier insulted residents concerned about their view, tactlessly stating that if you don't want neighbors, go in the "middle of the woods" and buy all the surrounding lands. MASSON was tBOLES' campaign manager in 2014 when BOLES lost to Nancy Shaver. MASSON is the green law Elder Law associate and stepson of disgraced ex-Mayor JOSEH LESTER BOLES JR., who is partnered with ex-Mayor CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR. in the lucrative no-bid, below-market City property lease at 81 St. George Street for Florida Cracker Cafe and Savannah Sweets, the exposure of which on this blog and Folio Weekly helped end BOLES' political career and elect reformer Nancy Shaver as Mayor in 2014.

Ex-Mayors LEN WEEKS and JOE BOLES, business [partners,  including questionable  no-bid, below market City property lease, exposed by this blog and Folio Weekly in 2014, resulting in BOLES' defeat by reformer Nancy Shaver.

BOLES was the undergraduate and law school roommate of past and current Mayor TRACY WILSON UPCHURCH, illegally selected March 4, 2019 as Interim Mayor after Mayor Nancy Shaver suffered a stroke on February 25, 2019 ("Triple Crown of Lawbreaking," involving violations of Sunshine, Open Records and Florida Constitution, Article I, Section 24, adopted by vote of 83$ of voters -- 3.8 million in 1992. Public comment was cabined because applicants were. not disclosed. After the applicants were disclosed, no comment ws allowed. And the Assistant City Attorney falsely told the remaining four Commissioners none of them could be nominated because of Florida's (inapplicable) resign-to-run law. Orchestrated Commissioners said that the Interim Mayor should have been. an elected Mayor before and mirabile dictu, mutatis mutandis, UPC HURCH was "elected." Ever since, the quality if appointed Board members has plummeted. UPCHURCH is scion of the UPCHURCH, BAILEY AND UPCHURCH law firm, son and grandson of Southsegregationists (his grandfather led the Florida Dixiecrat Party, which bolted from the Demoratidc Party in 1948 at the Democratic National Convention),

A Flagler College professor of law and history, former UPCHURCH law firm partner TRACY WILSON UPCHURCH was a third-generation Florida State Representtive, elected after his father and grandfather. He may not be richer than Croesus, but putting it mildly, he and others say that her is "invested" in St. Augustine.

Under Mayor TRAXY UPCHURCH, there are few checks and balances on the questionable performance of longtime City Manager JOHN PATRICK REGAN.

REGAN and allied corporate conmen special interests -- aided and abetted by the "not-so-good-ole boys" who defended the itty-bitty-City when it dumped a landfill in a lake remain empowered. While Mayor UPCHURCH talks a good game on equality and ocean level rise, he remains a cynical tool of the Establishment, as evidenced by cynical lackadaisical lazy people he helped put on our all-white St. Augustine PZB. There are no African-Americans or Hispanics on PZB, in a City where the first Afridcans and first Blacks helped the Spanish Empire found our town on September 8, 1565.

Post-Shaver St. Augustine City PZB members remind me a little bit of a story about my own Irish grandfather, who once found himself managing a downtown Philadelphia movie house during the Great Depression. He hired a skid row denizen to sweep up the movie theater floors and haul out trash. The man quit after an hour, saying "The hours is too long and the works too hard."

To the new crew of second-rate, mediocre Mayor TRACY WILSON UPCHURCH-appointed Bolesian Quockerwodgers on PZB -- apparently incurious, incopetent, other-directed, under-qualified or unethical PZB members who talked over veteran longest-serving PZB member John Carl Blow and instead residents -- if "the hours are too long and then work's too hard" Is it time for you to go" Perhaps it's time to head for the exit before you receive FBI, DOJ or FTC investigators. Let qualified residents like Ms. Rakoncay fill those chairs, inst3adinof acting like lackadaisical lapdogs and doormats for developers.

To City Commissioners, you should reject this PUD after two public hearings.  

To ethically challenged JAY McGARVEY and his smarmy, conflicted, pettifogging Florida National Guard "full-time federal employee: mouthpiece, Major GARY BRIAN DAVENPORT: you must decide now.  

Do you want to remain a "full-time federal employee?" Or would you prefer to prostitute your God-given talents for thirty pieces of silver to sell out our community"? 

Do you want to be remembered as the unscholarly, semi-skilled dirt lawyern who did low-qualify legal. work in an effort to justify 200 tables with full alcohol right next to Flagler College?

This unsubtle corruption of our government by JAY McGARVEY and other developers is indefensible and must be ended at once.

Circa 1978, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, U.S. Department of Justice, published a study correlating rapid development with political payoffs, studying Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. St, Johns County is now the tenth-fastest growing place in America.

Democracy is under pressure.

The future of St Augustine's only movie house is in the balance. Left bereft and homeless are the St. Augustine Film festival, lovers of foreign and classic movies, trivia and poetry fans, and others who enjoyed this organic part of community -- ripped from us by vulture capitalists like JAY McGARVEY.

What do you reckon?

BRUCE MAGUIRE spoke truth to power, and I salute him!

So did Neighborhood Council President Melinda Rakoncay

So did Captain Lee Geanuleas, USN (Retired)

But ethically challenged City of St. Augustine Planing and Building Director DAVID DOUGLAS BIRCHIM washed his hands of the whole thing, stating that the City staff will not make recommendations about the rezoning of land." Query: is there an unconstitutional Gag order fro developer puppet City Manger JOHN REGAN?  If so, it was engineered by the City Attorney, a Canadian immigrant who was hired when her boss, maladroit then-City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN leaving a train of maladroit subservient government service in his wake.

 

St. Augustine City Attorney ISABELLE CHRISTINE LOPEZ had hardly anything to say, once again proving to be a developer doormat. 

Without posting or advertising or EEO compliance, LOPEZ was promoted to City Attorney, Commissioners LEANNA SOPHIA AMARU FREEMAN (defeated last year by Professor Barbara Bonder) and NANCY SIKES-KLINE both used the same exact words to describe her: 

"She protects us." 

Query: From whom? For whom? 

Ms. LOPEZ in most noted for publicly hugging the developer who destroyed 211-year old Don Pedro Fornells House working without permits, fined only $3700 (ex-Mayor CLAUDE LEONARD "LEN" WEEKS) in 2014, saying "I can hug anyone I want." She called me a "sexist" for questioning her appearance of impropriety, after hiring an inept attorney to prosecute the Code Enforcement case, which could have resulted in $10,500 fines.

CHRISTINA JOY OPSAHL, PZB member, criminal defense lawyer and former local prosecutor.

Third generation A.D. DAVIS FAMILY CONSTRUCTION CO. SCION MICHAEL ALAN "MIKE" DAVIS was commercial landlord to then-Congressman Ron DeSantis, 2013-2018, in the ground floor of DAVIS''s office building. DAVIS often gets lucrative corporate, college3 and liturgical construction contracts from local organizations like Flagler College. His firm was founded in 1954, during the reign of corrupt Sheriff LAWRENCE O. DAVIS, who served from 1949 until the Florida Senate removed him in 1971 by vote of 44-2  (falsely reported as "exoneration" by two successive St Johns County Sheriffs' government websites, despite my protestations since 2013.

During three 2021 PZB hearings on the PUD, DAVIS repeatedly crutuczed the building and its history over 50 years, as if he were leading a prosecution for the developer. DAVIS may have been ahead of his skis when he testified before himself for facts not established by any McGARVEY witnesses.  As Circuit Judge J. Michael Traynor ruled against the City of St. Augustine in June 2005, in an appeal from a HARB decision by the White family, City board members cannot testify before themselves without violating Due Process.

In a 2015 special election, extremist dingbat MIKE DAVIS ran and twice lost as a candidate for state representative, in 2015 almost defeating then-Commissioner CYNTHIA WARD STEVENSION (who still encumbers the 17th State House District seat.  

Full disclosure: On May 5, 2022, I filed to run in 2022 as a Democrat) for that seat. 

Earlier in the August 10, 2021 meeting, PZB Chair John DePrater actually had to ask MIKE DAVIS to disclose the reason for his recusal in another case for reasons of "transparency."  DAVIS belatedly disclosed that he was doing construction work for the other applicant.

SAMUEL "TROY" BLEVINS, named by County Commission to serve as monopolistic foreign-funded hotelier KANTI PATE''s "representative' on the St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau Board. BLEVINS and PZB member MIKE DAVIS long had an hour long weekday radio program on KRIS PHILLIPS' Hate Radio Station WFOY. It included right-wing flummery, dupery and nincompoopery, as I recall.

So McGARVEY's double-minded mouthpiece, GARY BRIAN DAVENPORT "full-time federal employee" never answered my questions since July 5, 2021, saying the answers were "none of my business." The issues were included in documents I sent PZB on July 16, 2021 and August 9, 2019.  

As the Courts have held, "He who decides must here."  

Only Chairman John DePrater said he had read my filing.  

Flummoxed by sophistry, PZB's outrageous decision must be reversed and remanded by St. Augustine City Commission.