Tuesday, May 21, 2024

SJC stiffs citizens on records requests re: PAVO LLC ("PAVO" means turkey in Spanish)

UPDATE: Commissioners voted unanimously to table this turkey this morning. Unanimous. Speakers were Heather Harley Davidson, Ed Slavin, Michael McDonald, Charlie Hunt, Clay Murphy, Motion to table by Isaac Henry Dean, seconded by Krista Keating Joseph.   Let's see if speculators show up and answer questions on this turkey. 


When will they ever learn?  Fun fact: the mystery LLC its called "PAVO," Spanish for turkey.  Go figure.  

Lovely group of wild turkeys near County Growth Management Building.  Pure poetry in motion.

  • May 21, 2024
    8:45 AM

    Good morning:
    Please send records and provide briefing.
    This is item 3 on this morning's agenda.
    Thank you.
    With kindest regards, I am,
    Sincerely yours,
    Ed Slavin
    Box 3084
    St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
    www.edslavin.com
    (904) 377-4998


    On Thursday, May 16, 2024 at 08:47:43 AM EDT, Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:


    Good morning:

    1. Please call me today to discuss SJC BoCC May 21, 2024 Agenda Item 3, Speculative" demand by new LLC for $107, 224 "incentives" for warehouse/office.

    2. Would you please be so kind as to send me this morning all the records relating to the PAVO LLC application for "incentives"?  $107,224 "incentive" for "speculative" application by secretive LLC created on October 31, 2023?  Agenda item 3 on May 21, 2024 St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners agenda. https://stjohnsclerk.com/minrec/agendas/2024/052124cd/05-21-24REG03.pdf

    3. Please obtain and provide pursuant to F.S. 119.0701 from PAVO, its beneficial owners, corporate lawyers, corporate parents and related entities all documents responsive to this request concenring this "speculative" project, including but not limited to lobbying, regulatory and business planning and corporate ownershjp documents.  

    4. Please provide the County's background investigation. If none exists, please so state and explain, why.

    5. Please provide documents on all staff and Commissioner meetings concerning this application.  

    6. Please search for all notes, meeting minutes, lobbyist and lawyer meetings, e-mails, correspondence and audio/video presentations, background investigations, record of civil, criminal and administrative investigations and litigation re: applicant and corporate parents, related or associated entities and individuals, whether U.S. or foreign.  

    7. This latest "speculative" demand for corporate welfare from St. Johns County public funds is indefensible.  

    8. Our rights as citizens must be protected and not neglected.

    9. For any government spending proposal, we must ask ourselves, "is this based on need, or greed?"

    10. Please share all responsive documents with our St. Johns County Inspector General and FDLE.

    11.It's our money. 

    12. Please respond today.

    Thank you.
    With kindest regards, I am,
    Sincerely yours,
    Ed Slavin
    Box 3084
    St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084 
    www.edslavin.com
    (904) 377-4998


    On Thursday, May 16, 2024 at 08:04:17 AM EDT, Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:  


    Good morning:
    Please all me to discuss today.
    Thank you.
    With kindest regards, I am,
    Sincerely yours,
    Ed Slavin
    Box 3084
    St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
    www.edslavin.com
    (904) 377-4998


    On Thursday, May 9, 2024 at 10:25:52 AM EDT, Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:



    Good morning:
    1. Please provide a briefing on our SJC internal controls at our FY 2025 May 10, 2024 budget workshop hearing.  
    2. Please provide a complete list of all of the County's internal controls  kindly place it before the SJC BoCC to be voted upon, seek peer review, and place it on County website for evaluation  In light of at least the admitted $786,785 in embezzlement form Sheriff's office alone over five years, this is a matter of the greatest urgency.  It's our money.
    Thank you.
    With kindest regards, I am,
    Sincerely yours,
    Ed Slavin
    Box 3084
    St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
    www.edslavin.com
    (904) 377-4998

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Trump's social media account shares a campaign video with a headline about a 'unified Reich'. (WaPo)

When someone tells you who they are, believe them. 

From The Washington Post: 

Trump's social media account shares a campaign video with a headline about a 'unified Reich'

A video posted to Donald Trump’s account on his social media network Monday included references to a “unified Reich.”

By 
May 20, 2024 at 9:05 p.m. EDT
Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media after attending the day’s proceedings at his hush money trial, in New York, Monday, May 20, 2024. (Sarah Yenesel/Pool Photo via AP)
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NEW YORK — A video posted to Donald Trump's account on his social media network Monday included references to a “unified Reich” among hypothetical news headlines if he wins the election in November.

The headline appears among messages flashing across the screen such as “Trump wins!!” and “Economy booms!” Other headlines appear to be references to World War I.

The word “Reich” is often largely associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, though the references in the video Trump shared appear to be a reference to the formation of the modern pan-German nation, unifying smaller states into a single Reich, or empire, in 1871.

The 30-second video appeared on Trump’s account at a time when the presumptive Republican nominee for president, while seeking to portray President Joe Biden as soft on antisemitism, has himself repeatedly faced criticism for using language and rhetoric associated with Nazi Germany.

It was posted and shared on the former president’s Truth Social account while he was on a lunch break from his Manhattan hush money trial.

“This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word, while the President was in court,” Karoline Leavitt, the campaign press secretary, said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Trump said at a fundraiser that Biden is running a “Gestapo administration,” referring to the secret Nazi police force.

Trump previously used rhetoric echoing Adolf Hitler when he said immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and called his opponents “vermin.”

The former president has also drawn wide backlash for having dined with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist in 2022 and for downplaying the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us!”

At least one of the headlines flashing in the video appears to be text that is copied verbatim from a Wikipedia entry on World War I: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich.”

In one image, the headlines “Border Is Closed” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported” appear above smaller text with the start and end dates of World War I.



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US Circuit Court of Appeals nixes a stay in a wetlands permitting fight (Jim Saunders, WFCU/NsOF)

I remember when the United States Congress passed Clean Water Act, Section 404, as amended, in 1972 and 1977.  Landowners, landrapers and their commercial allies were hotter than a two dollar pistol.  Even liberal Senators voted with them, fearful of their power and influence.  Now that Section 404 is the law of the land, the world is a better place, preserving wetlands.  From WGCU/News Service of Florida: 



US Circuit Court of Appeals nixes a stay in a wetlands permitting fight

WGCU | By Jim Saunders - News Service of Florida
Published May 20, 2024 at 3:32 PM EDT
FILE- In this Oct. 18, 2019 file photo, a great egret is seen on top of a tree at dawn in Everglades National Park, near Flamingo, Fla. The federal government granted Florida's request for wider authority over wetland development on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020. The move came under immediate fire by environmentalists and sparked legal action including a lawsuit filed by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida.
Robert F. Bukaty
/
AP
FILE- In this Oct. 18, 2019 file photo, a great egret is seen on top of a tree at dawn in Everglades National Park, near Flamingo, Fla. The federal government granted Florida's request for wider authority over wetland development on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020. The move came under immediate fire by environmentalists and sparked legal action including a lawsuit filed by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida.

Rejecting arguments by Florida and business groups, an appeals court Monday refused to put on hold a U.S. district judge's ruling in a battle about permitting authority for projects that affect wetlands.

Rejecting arguments by Florida and business groups, an appeals court Monday refused to put on hold a U.S. district judge’s ruling in a battle about permitting authority for projects that affect wetlands.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an order that said Florida “has not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay” while an appeal of U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss’ ruling plays out. The order did not provide further explanation.

The case, which is closely watched by business and environmental groups, stems from a 2020 decision by the federal government to shift permitting authority to the state for projects that affect wetlands. Moss in February ruled that actions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in approving the shift violated the federal Endangered Species Act.

Moss vacated the approval of the transfer of authority and in April issued a final judgment that cleared the way for Florida to appeal. Also, the state asked for a stay of Moss’ ruling while the appeal moves forward.

In a motion seeking the stay, Florida pointed to what it called “irreparable injuries” if Moss’ ruling was not put on hold.

“Vacatur (of the transfer of permitting authority) has also thrown Florida’s regulators and regulated community into permitting chaos, deprived Florida of the benefits of years of effort and investment into a comprehensive state program, put over 1,000 pending permit applications into regulatory limbo, blocked Florida agencies from performing legal duties and deprived the state of significant permitting efficiencies obtained from consolidating federal and state wetlands-permitting requirements,” the motion said.

But attorneys for environmental groups that challenged the transfer and the federal government disputed the state’s arguments, in part because they said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had stepped in to handle permitting. The Army Corps reviewed permit applications before authority was shifted to Florida in 2020 and conducts such reviews in other states.

Attorneys from the Earthjustice legal organization wrote in a May 6 brief that Florida’s “claims of economic loss are hyperbolic, unsupported, and unfounded.”

“A stay would revert … authority once again to a state program that does not comply with the ESA (Endangered Species Act), putting listed species at risk of irreparable harm,” the brief said.

Earthjustice filed the lawsuit in 2021 against the federal government on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation, Miami Waterkeeper and St. Johns Riverkeeper.

The state later intervened to defend the transfer, and its arguments have been backed by groups such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Florida and the Association of Florida Community Developers.

Moss’ February ruling focused, in part, on whether the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service properly prepared a biological opinion and what is known as an “incidental take statement” as part of the process of approving the transfer. Incidental takes are situations in which threatened or endangered species could be killed or harmed as a result of what are allowed activities.

Moss said a biological opinion and incidental take statement did not comply with the Endangered Species Act and another law known as the Administrative Procedure Act. He wrote that because the biological opinion and incidental take statement that the Fish and Wildlife Service “issued in this case were facially and legally flawed, the EPA unreasonably relied on those documents in approving Florida’s assumption application.” 

Copyright 2024 WGCU 


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