Historic Preservation Racism COVERUP CONTINUES: St. Johns County PRIDE Complaint No. 2304407. (May 28, 2023)

Coverup of historic preservation racism continues.

The facts are irrefragable. 

Let justice be done.    

No response or acknowledgement from St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners as of 5:05 PM today.  

On Sunday, May 28, 2023, 01:19:10 PM EDT, Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:

Dear Chairman Whitehurst, Vice Chair Arnold, and Commissioners Dean, Joseph and Alaimo: 

I have today filed St. Johns County PRIDE Complaint No. 2304407, stating: 

1. Our St. Johns County Clerk of Courts and Comptroller Brandon J. Patty fired SJC Inspector General Ms. Nilsa Arissa, C.I.G., C.I.G.I, preventing our SJC Inspector General from doing her job, without adequate investigation or oversight by the Board of County Commissioners or County Attorney. 

2. This firing prevented investigation of pending cases, including one that had languished for six months -- the complaint of Mr. Trey Alexander Asner, Cultural Resources Coordinator, whose resignation was forced under false pretenses by Growth Management Director, who said it was at the behest of Administration.  There has still not been an investigation. The coverup continues.

3. This firing and coverup threaten any possibility of accreditation of or respect for our nascent neglected St. Johns County Inspector General 

4. Clerk of Courts told the ethical former employee whistleblower -- who was pressured to resign in retaliation for protecting civil rights sites -- that our County let him down by not responding to his Inspector General complaint within the requisite 30 days.

5. Clerk of Courts claims it has no jurisdiction over complaints by non employees, referring him to HR.

6. HR washed its hands, not unlike Pontius Pilate, and did nothing. 

7. Three (3) Commissioners met with retaliation and discrimination victim, though the Chief Depity County Attorney ran interference and discouraged meetings with Commissioners.

8. County Administrator refused to meet with the whistleblower.

9. Please place on the agenda of a future County Commission meeting. 

10. There has never been an investigation. 

11. Therefore, please refer to FBI, USDOJ Public Integrity Section and FDLE Executive Investigations. 

Thank you.

With kindest regards, I am,

Sincerely yours,

Ed Slavin

Box 3084

St. Augustine, Florida 32085

www.edslavin.com

http://www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com

(904) 377-4998 

ANNALS OF DeSANTISTAN: DeSANTIS Gave Fox News Exclusive on S.B. 90 Voter Suppression Bill Signing. (Bill Day Cartoon, 2021)

 

ANNALS OF DeSANTISTAN: DeSantis Brags About Florida Budget That Includes Billions in Federal Funds He Opposed (Peter Wade, Rolling stone, June 3, 2021)

Once again, an example of a bantam rooster claiming credit for the sun rising.  

Our bragging bully Boy Governor in elevator cowboy boots, whiny RONALD DION DeSANTIS:

o Annoying cloying Governor opposed federal ARPA funds.  

o Took ARPA funds.

o Gave legislature kudos for financial wizardry in balancing the budget during COVID.  

o Ignores the facts that federal funds made it possible and Florida state budgets must be balanced under Florida's law and Constitution.

o That's been mandatory long before deeply deceptive RON DeSANTIS was born, or hatched.  

There are suckers born every minute.  

Is this goofy lugubrious goober the biggest exhibitionist since P.T. Barnum?

You tell me.

From ROLLING STONE, June 3, 2023.  

POLITICS

DeSantis Brags About Florida Budget That Includes Billions in Federal Funds He Opposed

Without funds from Biden's American Rescue Plan, the state was facing a budget shortfall

JUNE 3, 2021

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a press conference at LifeScience Logistics. (Photo by Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images) SIPA USA VIA AP

FLORIDA GOVERNOR RON DeSantis approved Florida’s $101.5 billion budget, which includes a large chunk of Covid-19 federal relief funds from the American Relief Plan, which DeSantis once described as “Washington at its worst.”

Most of the approximately $9 billion federal relief funds will go to police, teachers and first responders, including $1,000 bonus checks for teachers, principals and first responders. Florida was able to increase its budget from last year by more than $9 billion, in large part due to the federal funds, combined with additional revenue the state generated beyond what state economists had predicted. Before the federal funds were allocated, the state was facing a crisis with its education budget and an overall budget shortfall of $3 billion.

But during a press conference Wednesday, DeSantis tried only to give credit to the Republicans in the legislature (who largely opposed the federal funds) and himself for reopening the state economy.

“Part of the reason we’re here is because we’ve had good stewards in the legislature who spend conservatively; and responsibly, but also the fact that Florida has schools open, businesses open and people having the right to work,” DeSantis said. “That has made all the difference.”

The Florida GOP even tweeted last week, trying to give DeSantis credit for the bonuses that were part of the federal relief. “Thank you for going the extra mile to keep our kids in the classroom!” the party wrote.

Democrats were quick to correct DeSantis. “You wouldn’t know it from [the governor’s] press conference, but Florida’s budget was bolstered by billions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan passed by Congress and signed into law by [President Biden],” Florida Democratic House co-leader Bobby DuBose tweeted. “That money, and the additional billions sent to local communities, avoided a potential budget crisis and will help jump-start Florida’s recovery. It’s unfortunate that more of those dollars won’t go directly into the pockets of Floridians to aid our state’s recovery.”

Republican Rep. Charlie Crist, a former Florida governor who is running against DeSantis for the position in 2022, also criticized him for taking credit. “While Governor DeSantis will try to claim credit today, the truth is that he opposed the American Rescue Plan,” Crist said in a statement. “He opposed the funding that is providing bonuses to teachers and first responders. He opposed the funding that is helping cities and schools recover from a challenging year. And he opposed the direct relief checks that were a lifeline as our economy recovers.”

DeSantis also vetoed $1.35 billion in federal relief funds as well as $900,000 in funding for programs that serve the LGBTQ population in Central Florida — included in those vetoed funds was $150,000 for a mental health services program dedicated to survivors and family members of victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

As one survivor, Brandon Wolf, tweeted, “Here’s [Governor DeSantis] in 2019, standing on hallowed ground, promising me that he would always support those of us impacted by the Pulse nightclub shooting. Today, he vetoed mental health services for us. I will never forget.”

Here’s @GovRonDeSantis in 2019, standing on hallowed ground, promising me that he would always support those of us impacted by the Pulse nightclub shooting.

Today, he vetoed mental health services for us. I will never forget. pic.twitter.com/huW8NJbVlP

— Brandon Wolf (@bjoewolf) June 2, 2021

ANNALS OF DeSANTISTAN: Like a rooster taking credit for the sunrise!

People have some to Florida for the weather since the time of Henry Morrison Flagler.  Thus Boy Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS claiming that people come to Florida because of him is silliness, like a rooster claiming credit for the beautiful sunrise.

Memorial Day 2023

The First Amendment, in its majesty, protects our fundamental rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press and the right of the governed to assemble peaceably and petition for a redress of grievances.  

On Memorial Day, we honor the millions of war dead and wounded who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms.  

My dad machine-gunned Nazis on two continents in three combat jumps with the 82nd ABN DIVN, F. Co., 505th PI.R., the last of which took place when he was nearly 32, parachuting into Sainte-Mère-Église in Normandy, France at 1 AM. 

Our American and Allied paratroopers took the town, defeating the Nazi Reich before the sun had risen on June 6, 1944, liberating the first of some 10,000 towns from Hitlerism.  

On Memorial Day 1963, 60 years ago, my dad bought flags for every home on our block in Pennsauken, N.J., and a photo of the two of us putting up a flag on a window mount appeared in the Catholic Star-Herald newspaper.  

Never forget that freedom is not free.  

My dad taught me, as JFK's dad taught him, that you have to stand up to people with power, or they walk all over you.   Let us dedicate ourselves to that.  

It's our time, our country and our place to speak out against injustice and bigotry.  

We honor our dead and wounded as we vindicate the rights of the living.

Let justice be done.

Be not afraid.

Caption needed -- photo of TRUMP and DeSANTIS (keep it clean, please!)

 

ANNALS OF DeSANTISTAN: DeSantis appears to back woman who led Amanda Gorman poem school ban. (The Guardian)

It takes a vicious varmint.

So one (1) extremely bigoted parent complained about Amanda Gorman's poetry at the Bob Graham  School in Miami Lakes.  Is she a pestilential Proud Boys supporter who shared Big Lies, including the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?  Is she worth catering to by schoolmarms and our Governor?

Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS, who is always up for a bigoted remark to arouse rebarbative reprobates, showed his sinful sinister nature and  lack of character today, May 26, 2023, a date that should live in infamy.  

From The Guardian:

DeSantis appears to back woman who led Amanda Gorman poem school ban

Florida governor accuses media of creating ‘ridiculous poem hoax’ after complaint targeted verse recited at Biden inauguration

Richard Luscombe in Miami

@richlusc

Fri 26 May 2023 13.01 EDT

Ron DeSantis on Friday appeared to defend a woman who got Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem The Hill We Climb removed from a Miami school, even though she has attended events alongside white supremacist and far-right groups.

The Republican Florida governor, who entered the race for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination with a botched launch on Twitter on Wednesday, said parents such as Daily Salinas were saving children from political ideology “the left [is] trying to jam in” to schools.

Mem Fox book Guess What? banned in Florida county under Ron DeSantis bill 

Read more

“They don’t want the parents involved in education because they view you as an impediment to their ideological agenda,” DeSantis told the Floridaparent educators association homeschool convention in Orlando.

“They view you as an impediment to their ability to indoctrinate kids with their beliefs and their agendas. I’m sorry, I choose our beliefs as parents over the beliefs of the ideological left.

“We want parents to be armed with the ability to make sure their kids are in a safe environment, and yet you have narrative, and you have the left trying to jam this in.”

Salinas, a parent of two children at the Bob Graham education center in Miami Lakes, who has been photographed attending rallies by the neo-fascist Proud Boys group, admitted she had read only “snippets” of several books she sought to have banned from the campus.

They include the ABCs of Black History, poetry by Langston Hughes and books on Cuba, all of which she has criticized for “indirect hate messages”, references to critical race theory and gender indoctrination.

Salinas also posted antisemitic memes on Facebook – for which she later apologized.

“I’m not an expert. I’m not a reader. I’m not a book person. I’m a mom involved in my children’s education,” Salinas told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement.

Salinas is also aligned with Moms for Liberty, a rightwing activist group committed to the removal from the nation’s classrooms of books relating to sex education, LGBTQ+ rights and racism in American history.

In his speech on Friday, DeSantis alluded to coverage of the removal of Gorman’s work from the school’s elementary school library, a decision made by the Miami-Dade school district following a single complaint, from Salinas, as a “ridiculous poem hoax” fomented by what he called the leftwing “legacy media”.

“This is some book of poems, I never heard of it, I had nothing to do with any of this, that was in an elementary school library and the school or the school district determined that was more appropriate to be in the middle school library. So they moved it,” he said.

“These legacy media outlets are … trying to create a political narrative that is totally divorced from the facts and if they’re going to do something like this ridiculous poem hoax and actually put that out there and think that you’re going to believe it, they’re insulting your intelligence and our country.”

DeSantis, who is trailing far behind former president Donald Trump in the race for the Republican 2024 nomination, repeated the falsehood that no books had been banned from Florida’s schools.

“The media, when they talk about ‘book ban’, understand that is a hoax. They are creating a false narrative,” he said.

Yet in April, the writers’ organization PEN America that has been tracking public school book bans for two years, produced a report showing Florida was one of the most prolific states for educational book bans, with 357 separate bans across 12 school districts in the first half of the current school year.

Nationwide, the group recorded 1,477 book bans, with 20% attributed to complaints from Moms for Liberty.

“These groups pressured districts to remove books without following their own policies, even in some cases, removing books without reading them,” the report said.

“That trend has continued in the 2022-23 school year, but it has also been supercharged by a new source of pressure: state legislation.”

This month the Guardian reported on the harmful impact on Florida’s teachers of a range of new education laws introduced by DeSantis, including vague legislation without defined criteria that requires school districts to remove “inappropriate” material from campus libraries.