Support St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore

With coverage on the Florida Channel and a couple of approving head nods from House Speaker Paul Renner and State Senator Travis Hutson, I spoke October 13, 2023 before our St. Johns County Legislative Delegation in support of the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore legislation. Will speak to our new St. Johns County Legislative Delegation when it meets in January 2025. 

Here's my October 13, 2023 written testimony for the record: 

STATEMENT OF STAUGUSTGREENTM,

BEFORE THE

ST. JOHNS COUNTY LEGISLATIVE DELEGATION ON:

ST. AUGUSTINE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK AND NATIONAL SEASHORE

October 13, 2023

Thank you Chair, Senator Hutson, Speaker Renner, Representatives Stevenson and Payne:

St. Augustine survived genocide, wars, arson, slavery,  segregation, malaria, COVID and other pandemics. Now, plagued by overdevelopment, the Oldest European- founded City in America, just past our 458th birthday, faces the future. 

What's our legacy?  How do we preserve and protect God’s country from ocean level rise, global warming, excessive traffic and overdevelopment?  

Seven times the people of St. Johns County have rejected proposed sales tax increases, as recently as last year.  We, the People, have spoken, seven times.

Meanwhile, we have unmet infrastructure needs caused by overdevelopment.  

The National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2004 study found that environmental and historic tourists spend twice as much and twice as long.  

Our economy is based on tourism, but we offer little to tourists in the way of historic and environmental interpretation.  

The answer to our prayers was provided in 1939 by the Mayor of St. Augustine, our Congressman and both U.S. Senators.

1. StAugustGreenTM supports the creation of a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. See www.staugustgreen.com.

2. Our National Parks are truly “America's Best Idea,” as Ken Burns' acclaimed PBS series established, quoting Wallace Stegner. With your help, we can and will help preserve, protect and expand our National Parks, which help create more than 6.5 million American jobs.

3. In 1939, the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore Act was introduced during the 76th Congress, supported by then-Mayor Walter Fraser, introduced by then-Representative Joseph Hendricks and then-Senators Charles Andrews and Claude Pepper to conserve this wonderfully unique place. That was 84 years ago. 

4. St. Augustine deserves its rightful place in the pantheon of National Parks. St. Augustine's story is our Nation's story. Diverse people lived, learned from each other and prospered here since 1565. Our Nation's oldest continually-occupied, European-founded City, St. Augustine has a rich history of cultural diversity – America's original melting pot since 1565. Many never learn this in schools, where British-centrism prevails. The story of the United States began in St. Augustine on September 8, 1565: the 800 colonizers included the first Hispanic-Americans, first African-Americans (freed and slave), first Catholics, first Jews and first women from Europe, along with many other firsts in what is now the United States. That was 42 years before Jamestown,Virginia and 55 years before Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

5. The late University of Florida History Professor Michael Gannon said, “When Jamestown was founded, St. Augustine was already up for urban renewal.”

6. Europe’s bloody religious wars were fought here: Spanish, French and English forces fought for hegemony in St. Augustine Northeast Florida. Europeans killed Europeans here, over dogma and which empire would rule. Our Matanzas River (Spanish for “slaughters”) is named for one September 1565 event, where 270 Frenchmen were put to the sword. No monument to their memories exists in Florida. Likewise, the “Columbian Exchange” began here, with Native American and Europeans first interacting, sharing and fighting for dominance. No proper interpretation or monument to this remarkable exchange currently exists.
7. St. Augustine is a very special place and deserves protection: it was America's first in so many ways: we had the first Catholic Mass and first Thanksgiving feast (both on September 8, 1565). St. Augustine had America's first town plan (1586), first school, first church, first weddings, first baptisms, first hospital, first forts, first public square, first public market, first paved streets, first park, first system of weights and measures, first cattle, first horses, first pigs, first government with written records, first army and navy, first recorded marriages (including African-Americans), first freed slave communities, first African-American soldiers/sailors, first African-American general and first government anti-Gay hate crime (on Governor's orders in 1566).

8. St. Augustine residents' courageous activism and litigation produced landmark Congressional and federal court Civil Rights and First Amendment victories (including the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a series of landmark 1963-71 federal court public accommodations and school desegregation orders, a series of orders vindicating the rights of artists and entertainers (buskers) in St. Augustine's historic area (the latest in 2009 and one expected soon), and a 2005 court order for Rainbow flags on historic Bridge of Lions in honor of GLBT history, including the Governor's ordering the 1566 murder of a Gay French translator of the Guale Indian language).  While the Spanish Inquisition was here to a small degree, Spanish governors in St. Augustine never burned a single “witch” (unlike Salem, Massachusetts counterparts). St. Augustine was a small garrison town that beat the odds, surviving continuously since 1565, when other European settlements were swiftly abandoned (including the 1607 British settlement of Jamestown).  St. Augustine represents the triumph of the human spirit in our first, diverse city.
9. The Underground Railroad began in St. Augustine in 1687. Under Spanish rule, St. Augustine grew into America's first shining bulwark of freedom – the first Underground Railroad ran south to St. Augustine, starting in 1687, as Spain granted freedom to any British slaves who would become Catholics and fight for Spain. Slave revolts resulted in several British colonies upon slaves hearing the news of freedom in St. Augustine, Florida. The British were furious, as their former slaves settled here in 1738 the first freed slave settlement in America, at Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mosé (Fort Mosé). The British attacked St. Augustine in 1740, besieging it for 27 days. Spanish-freed slaves and Spanish soldiers fought off British invaders.

10. Hundreds of British indentured servants from the Mediterranean fled to freedom in 1777. During the 20-year British period, Menorcans, Greeks, Corsicans and Italians, who were British “indentured servants” (slaves by contract), fled to St. Augustine from the deadly failed mosquito-infested New Smyrna indigo plantations, “voting with their feet,” walking some 70 miles to freedom in St. Augustine in 1777. Their long walk to freedom deserves a National Historical Park, which can happen with state donation of several current state parks along the route they walked from New Smyrna to St. Augustine in 1777 – this should include wonderful bird and other wildlife observation points in two counties, already state parks. Imagine more than 130,000 acres of NPS protected land, including state parks along this freedom walk.

11. St. Augustine survived genocide, wars, arson, slavery, and segregation – and we the Oldest European- founded City in America recently observed our 456th birthday. 

12. What’s our legacy? St. Augustine survived and outlasted slavery, genocide of Native Americans (the Timucua tribe ceased to exist), Jim Crow segregation, hurricanes and the British, who thrice burned St. Augustine to the ground (1586, 1668 and 1702) and twice besieged it (1702 and 1740). Continental America's oldest masonry fort – Castillo de San Marcos – was started in 1672 in response to British arson and completed in 1695. The Castillo survived two British sieges and cannonballs with its its unique porous coquina shell construction and artisans' nightly masonry work restoring sections blown away by day. Great Britain owned St. Augustine for twenty years under the two Treaties of Paris, with two peaceful transition to British and back to Spanish rule in 1763 and 1784. Likewise, St. Augustine survived the Civil War without a single shot – in 1861, an Army sergeant turned over the Castillo's keys (Fort Marion), obtaining a receipt from the Confederates. On March 11, 1862, Confederates left peaceably when the U.S. Navy (with U.S. Marines) were sighted offshore. The fort was used as a military prison until the Spanish-American War in 1898 – it was a prison for selected American Revolutionary War patriots during the British period, and then for selected Native Americans (Osceola and fellow Seminole warriors; Kiowa; Apaches, including members of Geronimo's band and several of his wives) under the U.S. Army. The U.S. Government's controversial system of Indian boarding schools began right here at the Castillo, and was expanded to dozens of other sites around America. These schools are rightly deserving of NPS interpretation beyond that which was traditionally available at the Castillo.

13. Slavery began in St. Augustine, Florida on September 8, 1565 – not in Virginia in 1607, as often misreported. Jim Crow segregation was ended by what happened here in 1964, through the courage of local residents and visiting supporters -- the “St. Augustine Movement.” This history deserves NPS interpretation.

14. In 1964, St. Augustine's 400th anniversary was marred by KKK segregationists, allied with local law enforcement: their fury at peaceful Civil Rights protesters helped President Johnson break the U.S. Senate filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The “St. Augustine Movement” was led by local African-American dentist Dr. Robert B. Hayling, D.D.S. Dr. Hayling brought Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and baseball hero Jackie Robinson to help the St. Augustine Movement. The “St. Augustine Movement” saw the largest arrest of rabbis in American history, the Monson Motel swim-ins, St. Augustine Beach ocean wade-ins, the beating of Rev. Andrew Young and the arrest of Dr. King and the mother of Massachusetts' Governor Endicott Peabody. This was all daily national news.

15. White House tapes show that in dealing with Southern Senators, President Lyndon Johnson was empowered by the courage of “St. Augustine Movement” as much as by the nightly revolting images and page one headlines of St. Augustine beatings, shootings, muriatic acid poured into the Monson Motel pool, and an iconic photo of a policeman jumping into that pool to arrest J.T. Johnson, Al Lingo, Mamie Ford Jones, Peter Shiras and others for swimming there. After federal court rulings, state law enforcement (Highway Patrol and Fish and Game Commission, supervised by courageous State's Attorney Dan Warren) finally came to defend African-Americans, including those swimming in Atlantic Ocean amid wade-ins. Jim Crow segregation ended because of all that had happened in St. Augustine, Florida.

16. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Today, women, racial and ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities and Gay and Lesbian people are protected thanks to the courage of the St. Augustine Movement – the 1964 Civil Rights Act was the precedent for human rights laws worldwide. Some of our St. Augustine neighbors who protested in 1964 survive: our elders are sharing their wisdom with future generations and working with Rev. Andrew Young, et. al on several different Civil Rights museums, including the former dental office of Dr. Robert B. Hayling.

17. Rev. Andrew Young said it best back in 1964: “We change history through finding the one thing that can capture the imagination of the world. History moves in leaps and bounds.”

18. In 2014, America and St. Augustine honored the 50th anniversary of our1964 Civil Rights Act. Still no federal NPS civil rights museum presence due to lack of funding, although our City did a good turn with its "Journey" exhibit on 450 years of African-American history.  We need the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore to tell the story of the slaves -- Minorcan and African-American -- whose stories are an integral part of our history. 

19. Would this be the first National Seashore with a Civil Rights component? Under Florida laws at the time, the Atlantic Ocean was segregated under Jim Crow segregation. Protest wade-ins at St. Augustine Beach pier were international news. Today, formerly segregated African-American beaches statewide are in need of protection, including Bethune-Volusia Beach (near New Smyrna Beach), Virginia Key (Miami) and Bunche Beach (near Fort Myers). DOI must appreciate the urgency of preserving this history, including potential NPS status and protection and possible sequential referral legislation denying flood insurance to anyone destroying their historic homes? St. Augustine's Native American, Hispanic, Roman Catholic, Jewish, African-American, Minorcan, Greek, Italian and Civil Rights history deserves greater respect from DoI. As Admiral Hyman Rickover once said to President Jimmy Carter (then a recent Naval Academy graduate: “Why not the best?” Why not a public-private partnership to present St. Augustine's diverse history to the world? 

20. A possible location for an NPS Visitor Center might be the Sebastian Inner Harbor” project, where boat docks were built years ago for a project that was abandoned, foreclosed on, transmogrified and still moribund, after years of successive developers’ halcyon promises.

21. Imagine a DOI-staffed public-private partnership – a National Civil Rights Museum – bordering on the San Sebastian River, site a currently bankrupt development, symbolizing “waters that run like justice” working waterfront, with shrimp boats (not unlike Tarpon Springs' sponge docks), with artists and entertainers (buskers) as in Key West's Mallory Square, with outdoor restaurants.

22. We treasure our wonderful jewel of a 1672-95 Spanish fort, our Castillo de San Marcos – one of our most-frequently visited but most interpretation-deprived locations in the entire National Park Service. There is also the sister fort of Fort Matanzas. There is also Fort Mosé State Park (underfunded state park sometimes threatened with closure), the site of first free black settlement in 1738). There is also a lone historical marker in St. Augustine Beach for beach wade-ins. There is a Civil Rights Foot Soldiers and an Andrew Young memorial in St. Augustine's Historic Slave Market square, where abolitionist and transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson first observed slave-selling in 1827 (with multitasking by the chair of the Bible Society and a slave auction being conducted in the public market across St. George Street). We are blessed with the Lincolnville Museum and Dr. Hayling’s dental office museum, and a Northrop Grumman sponsored series of historic monuments. 

23. Like Atlanta's Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sites, St. Augustine deserves NPS ranger interpretation of African-American and civil Rights history at Fort Mosé, Government House, the “Slave Market” and the churches and homes of Lincolnville and West Augustine (where Civil Rights heroes lived, worked and planned peaceful protests). This will make history come alive, inspiring generations of future Americans to respect equality and the people who struggled to attain it.

24. Now, more than ever, St. Augustine's key role in U.S. and world history deserves greater National Park Service attention. St. Augustine's wonderful natural beauty likewise deserves National Park Service protection.

25. With all this history and beauty, St. Augustine currently has only two (2) relatively small National Park Service installations – Castillo de San Marco National Monument (20.5 acres) and Fort Matanzas National Monument (some 300 acres). That is de minimis if not de micromis. 

26. We can do better for future generations.  

27. Only NPS has the wisdom, experience and duty to protect cultural and environmental resources rather than destroy, damage or remove them with a whim of iron. Parochial local decisions here about Confederate monuments have sidetracked us from telling the truth about our history.  The City of St. Augustine and University of Florida removed historic and cultural resources without adequate involvement of the community and historic preservationists. It appears that the City of St. Augustine may have violated Sunshine laws in abruptly reconsidering the monument to Minorcan Civil War soldiers, at the behest of Jacksonville Mayor Leonard Curry in 2020, as Jacksonville was removing its monuments in order to attract an abruptly rescheduled and failed Republican National Convention.  

28. Meanwhile The University of Florida’s St. Augustine Operations abruptly dropped a planned monument to U.S Colored Troops at Government House, based on the pretext that removal of the Confederate Monuments somehow excused failure to honor heroic African-Americans who helped liberate Jacksonville, free enslaved people, and helped re-take Fort Sumter. That was wrong.  

29.  St. Johns County’s oxymoronic “Growth Management” Department ordered the Cultural Resources Coordinator to lie to members of the Cultural Resources Review Board.  He was ordered to suppress a three-year old report on preserving historic Hastings High School, telling employees not to do their jobs as required in the Land Development Code, expressing the fear that compliance with historic preservation laws would “scare off developers.” Four (4) Cultural Resources Coordinators in a row were driven off amidst a hostile working environment.

30.  St. Augustine, UF and St. Johns County’s maladroit approach to St. Augustine history must end.  

31. As suggested by Ary Lamme, III of UF in his book, America’s Historic Landscapes — Community Power and the Preservation of Four Historic Sites (1990), historic preservation in St. Augustine was delayed and history was destroyed because of provincial local businessmen, in sharp and marked contrast to other historic towns elsewhere. 

32. JFK said, “Let us make the world safe for diversity.  The National Park and Seashore should embrace diversity.  It needs: (a) a U.S.C.T. monument.  Likewise, we need a monument to: (a) the sixteen rabbis and one aide arrested here for praying in June 1964; (b) the three Roman Catholic nuns arrested on Governor’s orders for teaching Black people to read on May 20, 1916), and the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. 

33. With wise gifts of state and local public lands and wise stewardship by NPS and local residents, we will create a St. Augustine National Seashore. We will help protect against beach erosion and flooding, protecting glorious wetlands and beaches and private property.

34. We must protect the winter calving (baby-rearing) grounds of the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale (some 300 survive), endangered turtles' nesting grounds, and habitats of bald eagles, beach mice, butterflies and other endangered and threatened wildlife for future generations to enjoy. 

35. We have, we can and we will rescue historic lands threatened by “Temple Destroyers” (in John Muir's words).  Thanks to Florida Forever funds, the St. Augustine City Commission and Planning and Zoning Board and the wisdom of our Matanzas Riverkeeper, Ms. Jen Lomberk, and thought leaders like Commissioner I. Henry Dean and former St. Augustine Beach Mayor Sherman Gary Snodgrass, Fish Island is ours.  Threatened with development, the State of Florida bought it.  Fish Island preserves the site of a slave plantation and burials, including the grave of Jesse Fish, a louche local businessman who started Florida’s citrus industry on Anastasia Island.

36.  But we must be mindful that wrecking balls have already destroyed some of our history in this century, including Carpenter's House (part of the Dow Museum of Historic Homes now being privatized despite a $2.1 million State of Florida investment and Kenneth Worcester Dow's 62 years of philanthropic purchases; Don Pedro Fornells House (destroyed by Len Weeks, Historic Architectural Review Board chair, our ex-Mayor, working without mandatory permits, and fined only $3600 by our Code Enforcement Board); and a 3000-4000 year old Native American Indian archaeological site just south of St. Augustine (destroyed to build a strip malls and condominiums).  Meanwhile, there’s no longer much Civil War history left in St. Augustine — two cenotaphs honoring local veterans were removed, at great expense, to a rural location, with hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the City of St. Augustine and University of Florida to do the deed.  Promised memorials to a lynching victim and to Civil War U.S. Colored Troops have not materialized.  As Tacitus said, “They made a desert and they called it peace.” 

37. St. Augustine is a national treasure, which must not be destroyed by mindless speculation and endless high rise buildings, like South Florida.

38. Our history, our buildings and these lands must be protected and not neglected – state parks and forests, water management district land, and county beaches, including Anastasia State Park and the Guana-Tolomato-Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTM-NERR) – will be combined into a National Historical Park and National Seashore in two counties, one that will preserve at least 130,000 acres of beach and uplands, rescuing them from threats: closing or privatizing of our parks, e.g., with golf courses (Florida is already blessed with some 1200 golf courses, thank you, and some of those are failing financially). 

39. Every year since 2006, I’ve presented the testimony of StAugustGreen to our St. Johns County Legislative Delegation, and we talked about the St. Augustine National Historical Park and Seashore – our state legislators know that we can save tens of millions of dollars by giving selected state lands to the National Park Service. 

40. Please see attached 2011 column from St. Augustine Underground (formerly published by Milwaukee Journal).

The St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore will help interpret American history that is too often neglected in our schools, including Hispanic, African-American, Native American and Civil Rights history. We have 11,000 years of Native-American history. NPS needs to do a better job of telling it, especially in St. Augustine, where ethnocentrism was long on display at the Castillo, where Native Americans were imprisoned in the 1800s.

41. St. Augustine has 500 years of European and African: history: a unique, multi-cultural blend of Spanish, Roman Catholic, African-American, Jewish, Greek Orthodox, Protestant, French, Menorcan, Greek, Italian, Irish, Haitian, Cuban, Gay, Civil War, Flagler-era, Civil Rights, Military, Nautical, Resort, Artistic and Musical history. Ray Charles and Marcus Roberts learned to play music in St. Augustine, at our Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. Many jazz musicians retire and play here.

42. Tourism is the engine of our economy. Environmental and historic tourists stay twice as long and spend twice as much, and they teach future generations of Americans to appreciate nature and understand our history. St. Augustine is rated as one of the best places to live, with the best schools, one of the best places to to retire, one of the most cultured places in Florida (Women's Day), hosts one of the ten best Christmas light displays in the world (National Geographic), and is one of 20 places in the world to see in 2013 (National Geographic).

43. With National Park Service branding, our City can recover from the Great Recession, just as recovered in past centuries, after hurricanes, British sieges, cannonballs and city-wide arson.

44. Then U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ronald Chairman Wyden said February 19, 2013 at Hanford, Washington's “B” Reactor, “there is an old saying that those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it.... My own view is that history isn't always ideal .... it is important to look deep into the well of history to get a clearer understanding of what lies ahead." Sen. Wyden said Hanford and other Manhattan Project sites “must be preserved so future generations understand what went on here.” He said 2012 was the first in decades Congress hadn't protected our “special places.”

45. Please schedule hearings to discuss the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. Our draft legislation was called “perfect” by one of our former City Commissioners, who worked at the CEQ and DoI under Presidents Clinton and Bush. This was after an unfriendly, unhelpful NPS attorney in Atlanta in 2009 refused to read our draft, while inaccurately writing that this would be criminal, mis-citing 18 U.S.C. 1913.

CONCLUSION

46. Thank you for helping St. Augustine, Florida win the respect she deserves from NPS and DoI. As Albert Camus said, “If you don't help us do this, then who else in the world will help us do this?”

47. Then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, in an ad lib speech on July 18, 2011, came close to endorsing the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, referring to “your National Parks here” Let's make it a reality. Secretary Salazar said St. Augustine is “one of our Creator's most special places,” and that its contributions to history need to be made “known to our Nation and the world – that history is important to tell.”

48. StAugustGreenTM respectfully urges you to support St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. www.staugustgreen.com 

49. By enacting the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore legislation, we will conserve, preserve and protect nature, property and history, right wrongs, promote healing and teach tolerance. Our work is bipartisan, and will create another “public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” as Congress wrote in establishing Yellowstone National Park on March 1, 1872 – 150 years ago.

50. Will y’all please support “America's Best Idea” – a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore – the best “legacy project” left undone after the 500th anniversary of Spanish Florida (2013), 450th anniversary of St. Augustine (2015) and 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (2014)?  

51. What can you do?  Floridians must be prepared to offer up some of our current state parks, forests and water management district lands for the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore.  Let's work together.  Let's make this happen.

52.  Again, as Admiral Hyman Rickover once asked Jimmy Carter in his 1946 job interview after graduating from the Naval Academy, “Why not the best?” Let us invest in “America's Best Idea.”  Your grandchildren, and their grandchildren, will say thank you!

Thank you.

Respectfully submitted,

ED SLAVIN

StAugustGreenTM.

www.staugustgreen.com

PO. Box 3084, 

St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084   

904-377-4998

EASlavin@aol.com

One Attachment: Column with map from St. Augustine Underground (formerly published by Milwaukee Journal).

It's November 19, 2024: What's next? (my November 19, 2024 blog post)

"What kind of place is this? Where you almost mean what you say? Where laws almost work? How can you live like that?" -- The former slave Cinque, in Steven Spielberg's film, Amistad (1997).

It's morning in St. Johns County, America.   We are happy that on Tuesday, November 19, 2024, three reform Commissioners became a 60% majority on our St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners.  Clay Murphy and Ann Taylor will join reformer Krista Keating Joseph, a Gold Star Mother.  Three cheers!

As President Theodore Roosevelt would say, we're "delighted!"  

President John F. Kennedy's mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was a Gold Star Mother; her favorite Bible verse was "to whom much is given, much is expected."   We have high expectations of our County Commissioners, including Commissioner Krista Keating Joseph, also a Gold Star Mother.  

As JFK said, "Here on Earth, God's work must truly be our own." 

We in St. Johns County are blessed to live here. I've lived here for 25 years.  We have been given so much -- nature, beauty, wealth, natural resources, and a democratic republic to secure the blessings of liberty, "a republic, if you can keep it," as Ben Franklin said at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.  

Our historic County is (as Alexander Hamilton said of New Jersey) not unlike a "cask tapped at both ends."  Demanding special favors, generous, pestiferous demanding, wealthy, real estate speculators pester, fund and unduly influence Commissioners, like maggots on a garbage can in Miami in August.  

The "Tragedy of the Commons" is our prologue, as clogged roads, overcrowded schools and other problems flow from Commissioners' desuetude, dawdling, delay and indecision, on vital matters ranging from Comprehensive Plan to impact fees to lobbying disclosure.  

Sir Winston Spencer Churchill told the House of Commons November 12, 1936,  "They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent” Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now.”

Former SJC Assistant County Administrator Jerry Thomas Cameron told new County Commissioner, "just because you got elected, doesn't mean you gained 20 IQ points!" 

Past SJC Commission mistakes have created and sought to justify and to conceal coverup the crisis of overdevelopment, but as JFK said, "any problem created by man can be solved by man." 

St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners lacks a welcoming spirit.  

Oligarchs rule and citizens are treated as third-class citizens with a sixth-rate government.   

Former Vice President Al Gore, Jr. compared our Nation's mishandling of environmental problems to a dysfunctional family, that won't talk about its problems. Past Commissioners have chilled, stigmatized and coerced citizens and our staff, attempting to silence efforts to protect our history and nature.  How many historic sites have been destroyed? How many forests have been clear-cut? How much wildlife has been destroyed? 

Enough.

We expect all of our Commissioners will now walk and talk humbly, listen to the people, or else know they will face the consequences, like previous Commissioners, some perceived as developer-directed or "too big for their britches," spending huge sums on campaigns to euchre and hornswoggle the victims of overdevelopment and get-rich schemers.

What's next?  

Would Commissioners please be so kind as to discuss and vote to:

1.  Respect our Sunshine and Open Records laws, public participation and transparency.  As James Madison wrote W.T. Barry August 4, 1822, "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowlege will for ever govern ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own Governours, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." Our Florida Sunshine and Open Records laws were adopted as Article I, Section 24 of our Florida Constitution in 1992, by vote of 3.8 million Florida voters (83%).  Sadly, some local governments opposed it, and some still seek to undermine it.  Sadly, some SJC BoCC and staff have violated these rights, enforcing a de facto oath of omertà, concealing documents from Commissioners, Board members and citizens.  "Secrecy is for losers," as the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said it best.  See Senator Moynihan's book, SECRECY: the American Experience (1999). Our County wastes our money, operates in too much secrecy, with too many secret meetings with developers.  It  shows Faustian fetid feculent fealty to dodgy developers.  An Iron Heel descended on our County in 1998, when developers took over our local governments and gerrymandered Commission elections, eliminating single member districts.  Enough. 

Our elected and appointed officials work for us. From this day forward, they must answer all of our questions, with no condescension. No more arrogant Commissioner and staff refusals to answer oral and written questions at our annual TRIM budget hearings.  Our local officials must adopt a rule to require answers citizens' public questions during "question time" (not unlike the British Parliament) by adopting the "Mayor Gary Snodgrass rule" from the City of St. Augustine Beach, requiring public commenters' questions to be answered at or after meetings, instead of rudely ignored.   

No more shady ex parte meetings with zoning applicants. In her splendid 1550 days as Mayor of our City of St. Augustine, Mayor Nancy Shaver refused to meet with zoning applicants (only once varying from her rule in a case of unfairness to the owners of White's Wharf).  SJC Commissioners should do the same. Let developers put their cases on in public, instead of in secret meetings. If a County Commissioner ever again meets ex parte with seekers of government favors, kindly make a video record of any future ex parte meetings with zoning applicants. No more secret ex parte meetings on overdevelopment and government contracts. The subject is always The People's Business.  It's our money, our government and our business. "Open covenants, openly arrived at," is our reasonable expectation of probity, as President Woodrow Wilson said of diplomacy.  Swathed in secrecy, St. Johns County is our home, where Commissioners claimed "200 Years of Excellence" upon our Bicentennial (words drafted by County Administrator Hunter Sinclair Conrad, who never applied for his job, and never disclosed that he was an uinindicted coconspirator (Clerk E) in a federal bribery indictment on the date of his hiring. 

It's our St. Johns County Commission building, it's our business and it's our County.  (It does not belong to foreign corporations, foreign investors and corporate law firms). "A public office is a public trust, " as Thomas Jefferson said it best.  From this day forward, our St. Johns County government must promptly provide all documents as requested, including those on the hostile working environment created, which Commissioners suffered and permitted, under successive County Administrators, while exhibiting fawning obeisance to wealthy zoning applicants and their lawyers.

2. Restore our freedom of speech, decency, dignity and respect to County Commission's public interactions. American Attorney General Robert Francis Kennedy said in 1961, "If our Constitution had followed the style of Saint Paul, the First Amendment might have concluded—'But the greatest of these is speech.' In the darkness of tyranny, this is the key to the sunlight. If it is granted, all doors open. If it is withheld, none."  We must preserve and protect free speech, giving our First Amendment "breathing space."  No more unconstitutional, illegal gag orders for County employees and residents. No more Caudillos are desired or required. The hoary days of dictatorial County Administrators are over, right? https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2023/06/commissioner-sara-arnold-exposes-and.html

St. Johns County Commissioners must start, instanter, to restore our sacred First Amendment rights to free speech, today, starting by restoring non-agenda public comment at the commencement of every single County meeting.  

Stop gaveling people for modest applause, chilling First Amendment protected activity.  

Stop violating citizens' cherished free speech rights, often accompanied by archly abusing procedural rules to interrupt and rule selected citizens "out of order." 

It is an inconvenient truth that it is our SJC BoCC that has too often been "out of order."  Too big for its britches, our SJC BoCC is a peculiar institution, too often unfeeling, unfriendly, secretive and lawbreaking.  

Commission has never revoked or apologized for its patently illegal December 2023 censure of beloved reform Commissioner Krista Keating-Joseph found to violate the First amendment by respected Senior United States District Court Judge Harvey E. Schlessinger of the Middle District of Florida, who issued an injunction against the County. https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2024/07/another-first-amendment-victory-sjc.html https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2024/07/sick-sjc-commission-first-amendment.html

It is the other-directed SJC BoCC that is frequently "out of order" with its unconstitutional, illegal policies discouraging  First Amendment protected public comment rights.  See Moms for Liberty v. Brevard Public Schools, No. 23-10656 (11th Cir., October 8, 2024)(overturning similar First Amendment violations prohibiting criticism of public officials).   https://www.ifs.org/news/moms-for-liberty-and-florida-parents-win-first-amendment-victory-against-school-board-censorship/ https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2024/10/09/moms-for-liberty-gets-a-court-win-in-brevard-school-board-case-speakers-florida/75583569007/  https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2023/01/chairman-whitehurst-and-vice-chairman.html

o Require, once again, accurate County Commission minutes, summarizing the subject matter of citizen concerns, with links to video.  This essential information is no longer included in meeting minutes, with fair reporting inexplicably deleted from our public record of meetings.  BoCC must amend BoCC rules to clarify that Commissioners treat citizens with civility and to encourage dialogue and not chill free speech.  

o Certain misguided St. Johns County Commissioners' haughty, hateful hauteur, bad habits and history of inane interruptions, insults, scowling, barking, hate stares, glares, eye-rolling and threats are beneath the dignity of a free people. Such unkind, uncouth, unconscionable and unethical County Commissioner actions are no way to welcome public comments.   The offending Commissioners in quo never apologized.  My friends, does being St. Johns County mean never having to say you're sorry?  How about a resolution apologizing to Commissioner Joseph?  

o There is not even a receptionist to welcome and help direct citizens at the Administration Building. Why? Likewise, no receptionist at Growth Management Building -- just a computer! How rude. Please establish a reading room  for citizens to read our public documents. We need frequent Commission meetings in the evening, to encourage more people to participate.  Let freedom ring.

3. Require lobbying registration, full disclosure, and a ban on percentage of success "contingency fees" for lobbyists.  Commissioners have never responded to the clarion call for lobbyist disclosure, and it shows.  Ban contingency fees for lobbyists. No percentage fees are allowed for lobbyists in Washington, D.C. or Tallahassee. No percentage fees are allowed in criminal defense or divorce cases. In 2016, the County Attorney recruited lobbyists to oppose a Commission lobbying registration ordinance, which one Commissioner damned as "burdensome" (a $25 annual registration fee!) Require all registered lobbyists to file financial disclosures and wear County photo IDs).

4. Reform our budget process as we know it, beefing up SJC internal controls and procedural safeguards, with a forensic audit of weaknesses in County internal controls.  Our County budget process is deeply flawed, with few questions from Commissioners and no answers to citizen questions.  SJC never answered my 104 questions on FY 2024 budget at our mandatory 2023 Truth in Millage Act (TRIM) hearings.  In response to my requests, in the wake of $786,785 embezzlement, over five (5) years, our mismanaged County has still never provided a list of its internal controls. Why?  It's our government and our time and our money.  With a Commission-appointed budget officer, let's improve County government internal controls and provide a public list of them, as I requested.  How embarrassing that we lost $786,785 to embezzlement over more than five (5) years under former Sheriff DAVID SHOAR shows that our public fisc must be better protected from insider threats. The County's malfeasant auditors were poorly supervised, and the County settled its lawsuits against them only because of its own malfeasance, which included failure to include an attorney fee provision in one of their engagement letters. 

Our County must:

o Require detailed budget justifications for every line item.  F.S. 129.021.  

o Vote on budget line items when Commissioners consider our budget.

o "Turn every page," as Pulitzer Prize winning Robert Caro said about historic research. 

o Ask questions, demand answers and expect democracy.

o Designate a county budget officer.  That is BoCC's prerogative, not the job of the County Administrator or her deputy (her former boss, Jesse Dunn, Director of the Office of Management and Budget). F.S. 129.025.

o Adopt a resolution requiring Constitutional officers' budget proposals to be presented by May 1 of each year, allowing time to discuss them in Administrator budget hearings.  F.S. 129.03(2).  Passage of the resolution would mean for the first time that we can discuss in detail and ask questions about tentative Sheriff, Supervisor of Elections, Clerk of Courts and Comptroller, Tax Collector and Property Appraisers budgets at our annual May budget hearings. 

o Consider Zero Based Budgeting, as President Jimmy Carter supported. Don't assume every department or office gets an increase. Some need to be cut. My late mentor, United States Department of Labor Chief Administrative Law Judge Nahum Litt, said, any government budget could be cut by 10%.  Every government needs to examine every expenditure with a gimlet eye, and stop extravagant spending on what President Abraham Lincoln would have called "flubdubs." For every spending request and every piece of legislation ask, "Is it based on need, or greed?" (As Senator Gary Hart asked his staff to evaluate every single legislative proposal as a freshman Senator in 1975).  Like a good steak, our budget is well-marbled with fat. We need to enlist all of our citizens to examine our budget with a gimlet eye. It is up to all of us.

5. Expose, eliminate and extirpate organizational and individual conflicts of interest. Enact a tough St. Johns County Ethics Ordinance and County Ethics Commission second to none. Conflicts of interests are to be scrupulously guarded against. See, e.g., United States v. Mississippi Valley Generating Co., 364 U.S. 520, 548 (1961)("the 'Dixon-Yates' case," involving TVA rivals' conflicts of interest in a proposed Memphis coal-fired powerplant), citing Matthew 6:24 -- "no [person] can serve two masters," holding that laws and rules preventing conflicts of interest are aimed "not only at dishonor but at conduct that tempts dishonor."   All conflict of interest laws are based upon Matthew 6:24 ("A man cannot serve two masters"), which the unanimous Supreme Court decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren deemed to be both a "moral "moral principle" and a "maxim which is especially pertinent if one of the masters happens to be economic self-interest."  

We need tougher local laws, fairer public hearings and more effective enforcement to extirpate corruption, discrimination and secrecy. Initiate an anti-bribery campaign, with Public Service announcements, signs and advertising.   https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2021/10/st-johns-countys-peculiar-ways-and.html. https://www.staugustine.com/story/news/local/2010/02/07/manuel-tapes/16130482007/

6.  Reform our Tree Protection ordinance to end deforestation and clearcutting.  Commissioner Krista Keating-Joseph proposed it, but developers and their corporate-funded catty cat's paws opposed it, ending efforts to provide a fair hearing.  Only Commissioner Isaac Henry Dean spoke in support of half of it.  But three developer-aligned Commissioners caterwauled along with developers and their commercial allies.   

7. Create, recruit, hire and inspire a a strong qualified county-wide environmental and land use planning organization and staff to comply with all applicable laws and to help us preserve and protect what we know and love here, including our precious cultural and environmental heritage here in what we locals like to call "God's country."  

8. Create a County Environmental Board with legal powers to halt or limit devious developers' wetland-filling, wildlife-killing, deforestation, and  clear-cutting. 

9. Preserve, protect and defend our SJC public employee and contractor legal rights to report problems and remedy wrongdoing.  Encourage and protect whistleblowers, to end corruption as we know it.  Always hold accountable anyone who would presume to retaliate against a whistleblower.  Inform employees and contractors of their rights.  Adopt a County whistleblower protection policy, ordinance and resolution. Comply with collective bargaining agreements. Treat employees fairly, paying living wages.  End favoritism, sexual harassment, secrecy and retaliation against ethical employee whistleblowers.

10. Require "Truth in Development."  Full disclosure of scientific data and transparency in development, starting with disclosing the names of every single beneficial owner and investor in every single development project.  Apply fair discovery rules and Rules of Evidence for administrative proceedings, including testimony sworn under oath and establishing citizens' rights to question developer witnesses. Don't allow dilatory developer "sandbagging" of citizens by withholding "expert" testimony until after citizens speak.  Stop ignoring objections to hearings without oaths or valid expertise.  Administrative hearings must not longer be a kabuki dance, with sandbagging and developer cat's paws denying justice and fair hearings. Lobbyists must register. No excuses. 

11. Enact a one-year moratorium on residential development hearings and decisions, to allow sufficient time under Florida law so that "We, the People," and our elected County Commissioners can work to understand the nature of our overdevelopment problem lawfully, legally, and protecting everyone's rights to property and to honest government.  Then we can adopt revised laws to protect residents and property owners and adopt rational rules. 

12.  Reform our St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners.  Provide for legislative assistants for each Commissioner, unwisely ended circa 2010. Provide for five single-member County Commission districts, like the School Board has, in order to reduce the influence of developers' Big Money and empower of citizen legislators.  Add two at-large Commission seats, as we had until 1998, with only two of seven Commissioners running county-wide and the rest elected from single-member districts. Adopt a working committee system, with committees to vet budgets and development proposals proposals are sent to the full Commission.

13. Create a proper, lawful St. Johns County Charter Review Commission to evaluate and propose possible better form of government, with greater efficiency, economy, transparency and checks and balances. Improve employee and citizen rights protections and a charter for limited government in the Sunshine. Put the Charter Review Commission's proposals on the ballot.  In 2008, then County Administrator Michael David Wanchisk proposed a deeply flawed, half-baked "starter-charter," which "We, the People" defeated twice that year on its demerits.  No lawful advisory committee suggested the Charter text.  Why? Oligarchs' unsophisticated proposal would have required 20% of all County voters sign petitions to amend it.  They ignored our reasoned and documented requests for a "charter of freedom," rather than a charter that would have empowered takeovers of local city and town governments (St. Augustine, St. Augustine Beach and Town of Hastings) and of independent special taxing districts (Airport Authority, Mosquito Control District).  We, the People, rightly defeated the bad proposed Charter twice in 2008. Charter governments in some 20 other Florida counties limit the powers of government, something Oligarchs did not want -- the reason why Charter government discussion was never revived under successive ill-advised Commissioners and Administrators, 2009-date. 

14. Require County jobs be posted and advertised and require people apply for jobs and conform to merit protection principles. Without either attorney ever applying, SJC BoCC spent our money to hire a County Administrator (Hunter Sinclair Conrad, 2019-2023) and the current County Attorney (Richard Komando) who never so much as applied for their jobs,  no background investigation, posting or advertising.   (Mr. Conrad did not disclose and Commissioners did not discuss that he was when hired an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal bribery case when SJC BoCC picked Conrad on November 19, 2019, upon the unexpected public firing of County Administrator Michael David Wanchick (2007-2019).   Mr. Conrad submitted his resignation before being fired.  https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/st-johns-county/st-johns-county-administrator-submits-resignation-letter-after-workplace-culture-concerns/ZHVQLSFOEJGCRGKY2ZFODKGWVY/ Enough flummery, dupery and nincompoopery. It's our County. It's our money.  It's our government. From this day forward, all County legal jobs must be advertised in Florida Bar Journal: no excuses. County attorney applicants must submit their published and unpublished writing samples, college and law school transcripts, references, with public interviews and thorough background investigations. 

15. Preserve, protect and defend our history and nature. Now. Restore and revive Cultural Resources Department and protect its integrity and independence.  Reinstate wrongfully eliminated Cultural Resources director, Trey Alexander Asner.  https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/sjc-coordinator-historical-preservation-forced-out-position-scrubbed-according-claims/HWAV5WJ4QRCCLIQK6VIVABSASQ/

16. Create an Office of Ombudsman, Chief Economist and Chief Scientist. to assist citizens and taxpayers.  Employ a Chief Economist and Chief Scientist to assist Commissioners in evaluating impact fees and environmental impacts. Developers present high-priced experts while the under qualified SJC BoCC staff live in fear of retaliation.  Staff contributes little to discussions of the impacts of overdevelopment. Developers are like hucksters, telling Commissioners anything (publicly or privately) to complete the sale.  Our County staff needs to provide independent expertise, instead of being like cheerleaders, pom-poms flying, arachnid apparatchik accomplices to an orgy of overdevelopment. 

17. Focus on protecting public health from known environmental health hazards.  There is no state OSHA legal protection for public employee safety in Florida since Jeb Bush helped abolish Florida OSHA in 2000; private sector employers are covered by federal OSHA, but Florida chose to delete protection for state and local government employees.  Florida should invite federal OSHA coverage for government employees. 

18. Enhance the powers of our SJC Clerk of Courts Inspector General, with job protections and enhanced budget, with authority to investigate any local government agency, subject to a County Charter approved by the voters.

19. Reform government purchasing as we know it. Reform government contracting procedures.  Report all instances of possible bid-rigging. Guard against government employees self-dealing (as with former Utilities supervisor fired for selling SCADA products to the County for years without criminal prosecution).

20. Stop giving tax holidays to corporations as "incentives," selling our soul to secretive unknown owners and investors for unknown reasons, including recently formed shell companies.  Fully disclose all meetings with those who would seek tax holidays.  

21. Restore and revive SJC's Intergovernmental relations committee: encourage local governments to work together to preserve and protect this magical place.  Let's encourage all of the governments in St. Johns County to communicate better to solve problems like overdevelopment, sharing research and background investigations on developers.

22. Support statewide legislation to revise impact fees as we know them.  Stop subsidizing metastatic growth -- unchecked growth for growth's sake is the ideology of a cancer cell.  Our County's Quisling approach to developer influence is a disgrace. 

23. Helps solve the affordable housing crisis.  Consider joining federal antitrust and unfair trade practice litigation accessing root causes of skyrocketing housing costs, e.g., challenging landlords shared use of algorithms to raise prices of rental units. Allow accessory dwelling units ("mother-in-law" or garage apartments.   Discuss affordable housing opportunities, including those available under F.S. 125.01055.  Let's create a Public Housing Authority to help people get access to HUD Section 8 Housing Vouchers here, instead of only after burdensome out-of-county travel. 

24.  Revise, reform and expand Neighborhood Bill of Rights, to protect homeowners' and renters' reasonable investment-backed expectations under the Bert J. Harris, Jr. Private Property Protection Act. 

25. Support enactment of a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, first proposed by then St. Augustine Mayor Walter Fraser in 1939, and endorsed by the County's Congressman and both Senators from Florida in that year.  Read my October 13, 2023 statement before the St. Johns County Legislative Delegation, here: https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2023/10/support-st-augustine-national.html

26.  Improve response to citizen requests.  

Enthroned, seduced and distracted by Big money campaign contributions and lack of individual staff for Commissioners, people writing Commissioners don't get so much as an answer, breaching the standard of care and reasonable expectations of probity.  

Citizens call and e-mail Commissioners, too often without response.  

In person or in correspondence, citizens raise concerns about County operations damaging their property or violating their rights (or both).  Our County officials are doing little to remedy problems. Citizens respectfully ask for consideration of proclamations, too often without response (including proposed proclamations for Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday, Worker Memorial Day, Gay Pride and School Choice).  Citizens deserve better than this.  County Commissioners need their own staff to help them supervise the County Administrator, as Florida law contemplates.  

                                                CONCLUSION

 This is an exciting week for St. Johns County, where I've lived for 25 years. 

As they roll up their sleeves on the first day of their four-year terms, our two new County Commissioners (and three incumbents) would all do well to remember what President Jimmy Carter said in his Inaugural Address in 1977:

Let us learn together and laugh together and work together and pray together, confident that in the end we will triumph together in the right.

The American dream endures. We must once again have full faith in our country--and in one another. I believe America can be better. We can be even stronger than before.

Let our recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of our Nation, for we know that if we despise our own government, we have no future. We recall in special times when we have stood briefly, but magnificently, united. In those times no prize was beyond our grasp.

But we cannot dwell upon remembered glory. We cannot afford to drift. We reject the prospect of failure or mediocrity or an inferior quality of life for any person. Our Government must at the same time be both competent and compassionate.

We have already found a high degree of personal liberty, and we are now struggling to enhance equality of opportunity. Our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our national beauty preserved; the powerful must not persecute the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced.

We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great Nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems. We cannot afford to do everything, nor can we afford to lack boldness as we meet the future. So, together, in a spirit of individual sacrifice for the common good, we must simply do our best.

What's next?  You tell me.  It is up to us.

Thank you.

Respectfully submitted, 

Ed Slavin

Box 3084

St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084

easlavin@aol.com

www.edslavin.com

http://www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com

http://www.staugustgreen.com

www.gofundme.com/edslavin

(904) 377-4998

Photo credit: Peter Willott, St. Augustine Record