Ann-Marie Evans, candidate for St. Johns commission, says growth is out of control. (SAR)

Owned by hedge funds, the Incredible Shrinking St. Augustine Record no longer deigns to send reporters to meetings.  It is a superficial sixth rate excuse for a newspaper. It has no office any longer. It once had "Primarily Speaking" and "Generally Speaking" tabloid supplements for our primary and general elections, respectively. No longer.  It once sponsored fora. No longer. This shallow article does not do justice to the intelligence of Ms. Ann Marie Evans, nor does it address the hundreds of thousands of dollars of corporate contributions to her opponent, uneducated CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST.  GANNETT and the St. Augustine Record have delusions of adequacy.  

"Technical denial" is the misnomer our Growth Management staff use to describe a close vote in the Planning and Zoning Agency.  Under Robert's Rules of Order, a denial is a denial.  

Once again, SAR is asking provocative questions about bribery or organized crime, without laying a factual foundation.

Once again, SAR fails to use actual dollar numbers on the promiscuous spending on political campaigns by gambling, construction, development and other special interests.

"I hate shallowness," in the words that FBI Assistant Director Mark Felt (played by Hal Holbrook in All the President's Men).

This reporter, Lucia Viti, is maladroit. Cliches by the carload, devoid of financial contribution analysis.  "Touting a bachelor's and law degree from Western Washington University, Evans has retained her license to practice law in Washington only."  

Use of the word "touting" is taunting, especially when the incumbent, uneducated CHRISTIAN WHITEHURST lacks an education, a datum that is never mentioned by disdainful GANNETT hick hack Ms. Lucia Viti.

From SAR: 

Ann-Marie Evans, candidate for St. Johns commission, says growth is out of control

Lucia Viti

St. Augustine Record

Ann-Marie Evans says the St. Johns County Commission hasn't done enough to slow down growth.

Calling herself a conservative Republican, Evans is challenging incumbent Christian Whitehurst in District 1. Whitehurst is also a Republican.

The mother of seven and grandmother of two moved to St. Johns County from Washington state three years ago. Touting a bachelor's and law degree from Western Washington University, Evans has retained her license to practice law in Washington only.

She has worked as a public records officer, paralegal, victim advocate, realtor and within various fields of human service. Evans also served on the Republican National Lawyers Association Florida Election Law Training and is a designee of the Republican Party of Florida.

The St. Augustine Record: Let’s discuss the hot button issue of growth in St. Johns County.

Ann-Marie Evans: I'm not anti-growth or anti-development. I understand that nothing can be done with homes and apartments already entitled. But if a building development is not beneficial to the community, we need to slow it down. My family moved into an existing home and in three years, things have changed dramatically. The infrastructure has not caught up and the building continues.

During the year I’ve attended commission meetings, developers present projects that occasionally lack the necessary infrastructure. Even with technical denials issued by the advisory board, commissioners approve the project. For example, two apartment complexes on SR16 were technically denied by the advisory board for insufficient road capacity and the commission approved the projects. These decisions lead to school overcrowding and roads over capacity.

The St. Augustine Record: But you are part of the growth, so what would you like to see done differently?

Evans: Individual projects must meet the criteria and follow the law, but that doesn't mean we approve everything. I would like to see more land put into preservation. We have about $2 million in our land acquisition account which isn't enough to buy much. The commissioners recently decided not to purchase a property after it tested as polluted, but one commissioner asked for the property to remain on the list. Why? It's polluted and contaminated. Why does that even need to remain on the list of possibilities?

Tourism brings a lot of money into the community, and we should continue making St. Johns County a great place to visit. We need to attract more businesses; we’re very dependent on the housing market.

here aren’t many restaurants or entertainment where I live. I would like to see entertainment outside of St. Augustine.

I will prioritize getting our children into brick-and-mortar buildings, and out of 600 portables. We need better collaboration between the schools and the county to make sure that the roads can handle the capacity of a school opening.

 I will vote against projects that jeopardize our police officers and firefighters by spreading them too thin.

I'm against new taxes. We have more money than we've ever had before, ever. We need to be good stewards and spend money wisely. We use consultants for things that our skilled, smart and capable county staff could do without consultants.

The St. Augustine Amphitheatre and Ponte Vedra Concert Hall are now managed by a nonprofit. The county’s not receiving any revenue. I would’ve done that differently. If it's a revenue producer that’s not collecting anything on ticket sales, that's problematic.

he county uses black and orange signs for projects on a busy highway that are hard to read with no place to stop and park. I would like to see black and white signs with a QR code where people stop, scan the code and get more information without having to call the county to figure out what's going on in their community.

The St. Augustine Record: Let’s discuss workforce housing.

Evans: I am a proponent of workforce housing, but it needs to make sense. Housing is a huge issue. I would take a special interest in problem solving with community partners and developers.

The St. Augustine Record: Do you think the current commissioners have been transparent?

Evans: I'm very disgusted with the transparency that exists. Meeting minutes used to include public comment. To know what a member said, I must turn on a video and pour through public comments to get to that person. It takes a long time.

I've asked questions at County Commission meetings where they didn't provide answers. The county lost a case because they couldn’t provide records.

If elected, everybody will have access to my voting record in real time. I’ll work with the clerk of the courts to get public comment back into the minutes and have a commission meeting at night for people who work. The commission shifts the time for public comment, which is not fair.

I would adopt tree protections to preserve nature and limit clear cutting to save specimen trees and the critters living on the parcels of land that are displaced.

The St. Augustine Record: Let’s discuss the attack ads.

Evans: I’m accused of being a Seattle, woke, liberal here to destroy our community. Nothing could be further from the truth. It hurts to be called a carpet bagger and an ambulance chaser. I’ve worked hard to fight trillion-dollar industries. I worked to represent the injured when insurance companies wouldn’t cover their medical bills. I am a grassroots candidate. I don’t have the money the incumbents have or PACs in Tallahassee and Gainesville dumping tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, into my campaign to influence our election.

The St. Augustine Record: Do you believe the commissioners are taking bribes or are part of a mafia as they are often accused of?

Evans: No. I think their campaigns are heavily funded by developers and people with special interests; those who have had favorable rulings and maybe will have favorable rulings in the future.

The St. Augustine Record: You speak in generalities that may affect voters who don’t understand the process of the law the way you do. This election is not a one-trick pony where you snap your fingers and it’s done. There are governmental processes. How do voters, who are not lawyers, understand the process the way you, as a lawyer, do?

Evans: I've reviewed the laws often cited by the incumbents. I will follow the law and work to change what’s not beneficial to the community. I don't want to see St. Johns County paved over. If your readers are happy with what they've got, then by all means vote that way. But your readers have a choice. So, if you’re done with overdevelopment, overcrowded schools and overcapacity roads, then vote for me.