Manhattan U.S. Attorney Charges U.S. Army Captain with Accepting Bribes While Stationed in Iraq
PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), Brigadier General RODNEY L. JOHNSON, Commanding General of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command ("CID"), and SHARON E. WOODS, the Director of the United States Department of Defense's Defense Criminal Investigative Service ("DCIS"), announced today that U.S. Army Captain BRYANT WILLIAMS was charged in an Indictment for allegedly steering more than $500,000 in U.S. Army contracts to favored contractors in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in bribe payments while he was stationed in Baghdad, Iraq. WILLIAMS, 38, of Clarksville, Tennessee, surrendered this morning to federal authorities in Manhattan, and is expected to be presented and arraigned later today before United States Magistrate Judge JAMES C. FRANCIS, IV.
According to the Indictment filed in Manhattan federal court:
From 2005 to 2006, WILLIAMS was stationed in Baghdad, Iraq, and served as a procurement officer with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division. As a procurement officer, WILLIAMS' duties included participating in the solicitation of bids, assisting in the selection of contractors, and overseeing the administration and completion of U.S. Army contracts that were worth between $2,500 and $200,000.
WILLIAMS unlawfully demanded and accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribe payments in exchange for abusing his position to steer over $500,000 in U.S. Army contracts to favored contractors. The contracts were for a broad range of projects, from providing the U.S. Army with copiers to building the U.S. Army guard towers. In an attempt to conceal a portion of the corrupt payments he received, WILLIAMS provided one contractor with a mailing address in Iowa and directed that the contractor send cash payments totaling $20,000 to that address. Following WILLIAMS' directions, the contractor mailed some of the cash to Iowa from the Bronx, New York.
In January 2006, WILLIAMS provided two contractors with information about a diamond ring WILLIAMS found on the Internet that he wanted the contractors to purchase for him. WILLIAMS told one of the contractors that the diamond ring was a gift for his wife to commemorate their upcoming wedding anniversary. WILLIAMS provided a website address, ring size, and ring order number so that the contractor could purchase the ring for him. One of the contractors, while in the United States, ultimately ordered and paid for the diamond ring, for which WILLIAMS never reimbursed the contractor.
The Indictment charges WILLIAMS with one count of honest services mail fraud and one count of bribery. WILLIAMS faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the honest services mail fraud charge and 15 years in prison for the bribery charge. He also faces a maximum fine of the greater of $250,000 or three times the monetary value of the payments he received, as well as forfeiture of the proceeds of his crimes. This case has been assigned to United States District Judge BARBARA S. JONES. Mr. BHARARA praised the investigative work of the FBI, CID, and DCIS.
This case is being prosecuted by the Office's Public Corruption Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys LOYAAN A. EGAL and PABLO QUIÑONES are in charge of this prosecution.
The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Friday, August 21, 2009
City budget now online
Thanks to the City of St. Augustine for putting its budget online. We've been asking them to do it for about four years. During that time, ex-Mayor GEORGE GARDNER and our current Vice Mayor (ERROL JONES) said it would be "too expensive" to put stuff online.
Evidently not.
Go to the City's website and look at the budget for yourself. Note in particular that the word "Lincolnville" never appears, even in City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS' self-laudatory long letter on the City's plans and goals.
Isn't that a slap in the face to the Nation's oldest African-American community founded by freed slaves?
Read HARRISS' narrative for an insight into his character -- he even refers to the Civil war as the "War Between the States" (standard lingo for Confederate secesh sympathizers). Wikipedia reports that name was pushed by "United Confederate Veterans" (UCV) and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC)."
More later.
Evidently not.
Go to the City's website and look at the budget for yourself. Note in particular that the word "Lincolnville" never appears, even in City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS' self-laudatory long letter on the City's plans and goals.
Isn't that a slap in the face to the Nation's oldest African-American community founded by freed slaves?
Read HARRISS' narrative for an insight into his character -- he even refers to the Civil war as the "War Between the States" (standard lingo for Confederate secesh sympathizers). Wikipedia reports that name was pushed by "United Confederate Veterans" (UCV) and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC)."
More later.
American Bar Association Journal:2 Disgraced Pa. Jurists Ask Fed’l Judge to Reconsider Nixed Plea
2 Disgraced Pa. Jurists Ask Fed’l Judge to Reconsider Nixed Plea
Posted 13 minutes ago
By Martha Neil
Two former Pennsylvania jurists whose conditional guilty pleas to corruption charges and agreed 87-month prison term were nixed by a federal judge late last month are now asking him to reinstate their pleas.
In a joint filing yesterday, former Luzerne County president judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. and senior judge Michael Conahan argue that they followed the rules in their post-plea conduct and did not attempt to "obstruct and impede justice" or contradict the government's evidence in public comments, reports the Legal Intelligencer.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik cited Conahan's objections to a pre-sentence investigation report and Ciavarella's denial that there was a "quid pro quo" in exchange for the $2.6 million in kickbacks that the two judges admittedly accepted from an attorney owner and the builder of a juvenile detention facility to which the judges sent individuals who appeared before them.
But Conahan's objections were appropriate, and the honest services fraud to which Ciavarella agreed to plead involved an undisclosed conflict of interest rather than quid-pro-quo bribery, the two former judges argue in a 12-page memorandum filed by their legal counsel.
Meanwhile, federal investigations continue, the legal publication reports, into allegations of case-fixing in criminal and uninsured/underinsured motorist arbitrations in Luzerne County.
Posted 13 minutes ago
By Martha Neil
Two former Pennsylvania jurists whose conditional guilty pleas to corruption charges and agreed 87-month prison term were nixed by a federal judge late last month are now asking him to reinstate their pleas.
In a joint filing yesterday, former Luzerne County president judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. and senior judge Michael Conahan argue that they followed the rules in their post-plea conduct and did not attempt to "obstruct and impede justice" or contradict the government's evidence in public comments, reports the Legal Intelligencer.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik cited Conahan's objections to a pre-sentence investigation report and Ciavarella's denial that there was a "quid pro quo" in exchange for the $2.6 million in kickbacks that the two judges admittedly accepted from an attorney owner and the builder of a juvenile detention facility to which the judges sent individuals who appeared before them.
But Conahan's objections were appropriate, and the honest services fraud to which Ciavarella agreed to plead involved an undisclosed conflict of interest rather than quid-pro-quo bribery, the two former judges argue in a 12-page memorandum filed by their legal counsel.
Meanwhile, federal investigations continue, the legal publication reports, into allegations of case-fixing in criminal and uninsured/underinsured motorist arbitrations in Luzerne County.
Boardwalk nearly complete -- Beachgoers will soon see unspoiled side of Maratea when 1,700-foot tract opens
ANTHONY DeMATTEO
Special to The Record
Publication Date: 08/21/09
ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH -- Local residents and visitors soon will be able to walk through the largest undeveloped oceanfront tract in St. Johns County.
Construction is almost complete on a 1,700-foot boardwalk through land known as the London Tract and more recently as Maratea. It is scheduled to open in October, said St. Augustine Beach Public Works Director Mark Chattin.
"This is going to be a great way for people to access the southern part of the beach," said St. Augustine Beach Mayor Frank Charles.
The construction marks a significant milestone in the 11.8-acre parcel of land, which the City of St. Augustine Beach bought for $5 million after voters approved the purchase.
The land had been approved for construction of a high-end condominium complex called Maratea, but the sour economy for condominium sales scuttled the project, opening the way for the city to purchase the land from the Maratea developer. The developer retains a small section in the northeast corner of the tract.
The wide boardwalk runs from A1A Beach Boulevard to the beach. Remaining work on the boardwalk consists mostly of creating a paved walkway from its western end to the A1A Beach Boulevard sidewalk.
The boardwalk, located between beach communities Bermuda Run and Sea Colony, is made from a mostly plastic composite material.
Flanking the boardwalk is algae-topped marshland, home to cedar trees, water moccasins and other wildlife.
The cost of the boardwalk, including permitting and signage, is a little more than $400,000. A state grant from the Florida Recreation Development Assistance Program provided $200,000.
"This is the only (public pedestrian) access from F Street to Ocean Trace," Chattin said. "We are just delighted with it. It's exactly what we hoped it would be. I think it's going to be used a lot."
City officials said they hope the boardwalk will host school field trips, on which students can learn about surrounding nature.
Sea Colony resident Lisa Bond squinted at the boardwalk from the beach Thursday morning, her Boxer ZuZu at her side. The city is installing a privacy fence along a portion of its southern side, responding to privacy concerns voiced by some Sea Colony residents.
"They did a fantastic job," Bond said. "I think it's a nice idea to give people access to the beach."
Click here to return to story:
http://www.staugustine.com/stories/082109/news_1869713.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Government Auditors Need to Sharpen Their Pencils
When DAVIS MONK presented its audit findings to the City of St. Augustine Beach, they bragged about having no audit findings. As Jimmy Breslin once wrote, if an IRS auditor doesn't find a problem, they take away their pencil and make them write with an Indian Head nickle.
Too many government auditors are lapdogs, who won't find problems.
Too many local governments hire incurious auditors who lack zeal.
Too many local governments give these auditors long-term contracts -- the CIty of St. Augustine has had the same auditors for 30 years. They don't do other municipal audits, but they work for a lot of work for car dealers.
We need watchdogs, not lapdogs, as auditors. See below.
Enough!
Too many government auditors are lapdogs, who won't find problems.
Too many local governments hire incurious auditors who lack zeal.
Too many local governments give these auditors long-term contracts -- the CIty of St. Augustine has had the same auditors for 30 years. They don't do other municipal audits, but they work for a lot of work for car dealers.
We need watchdogs, not lapdogs, as auditors. See below.
Enough!
OLSHAN GRUNDMAN Law firm: "Improper Influence on Conduct of Audits"
M e m o r a n d u m
To:
Our Clients and Friends
From:
Olshan Grundman Frome Rosenzweig & Wolosky LLP
Date:
June 10, 2003
Re:
Improper Influence on Conduct of Audits
Introduction
On May 20, 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") issued final rules[1] relating to Section 303(a)[2] of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the "Act"). The new rules supplement already existing prohibitions under Regulation 13(b)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act") and are designed to ensure that management effectuates full disclosure to, and has honest discussions with, the auditor of the issuer's financial statements. Under new Rule 13b2-2, it is unlawful for any officer or director of an issuer, or any other person acting under their direction, to take any action, directly or indirectly, to coerce, manipulate, mislead or fraudulently influence any independent public or certified accountant[3] engaged in the performance of an audit or review of the financial statements of that issuer that are required to be filed with the SEC if that person knew, or should have known, that such action could, if successful, result in rendering those financial statements materially misleading.[4] These new rules are effective as of June 27, 2003.
Persons Covered
The new rules concern actions by officers, directors and persons acting "under the direction" of officers and directors. The SEC interpreted the Act's use of the term "direction" to encompass a broader spectrum of behavior than "supervision." The SEC has stated that a person may be "acting under the direction" of an officer or director even if he or she is not under the supervision or control of that officer or director. Such persons include the issuer's employees, customers, vendors or creditors who, under the direction of an officer or director, provide false or misleading confirmations or other false or misleading information to auditors. Persons acting under the direction of officers and directors may also include other partners or employees of the accounting firm (such as consultants or forensic accounting specialists retained by company counsel) as well as attorneys, securities professionals, or other advisers who pressure an auditor to limit the scope of the audit, issue an unqualified report on the financial statements when such a report would be unwarranted, refrain from objecting to an inappropriate accounting treatment or fail to withdraw an issued opinion on the issuer's financial statements.
Prohibited Conduct
The SEC stated that means of coercing, manipulating, misleading or exerting fraudulent influence include, but are not limited to:
• offering or paying bribes or other financial incentives, including offering future employment or contracts for non-audit services;
• providing an accountant with an inaccurate or misleading legal analysis;
• threatening to cancel or canceling existing non-audit or audit engagements if the accountant objects to the issuer's accounting;
• seeking to have a partner removed from the audit engagement because the partner objects to the issuer's accounting;
• blackmailing; and
• making physical threats.
The SEC release recites other conduct that when predicated by an intent to defraud could violate the rules such as verbal abuse, undue time pressure, failing to provide information on a timely basis, and being unavailable to discuss matters with the auditors on a timely basis.
Under the new rules, actions that could result in rendering materially misleading financial statements include, but are not limited to actions to coerce, manipulate, mislead or fraudulently influence an accountant to:
• issue or reissue an unwarranted report on the issuer's financial statements (due to material violations of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), generally accepted auditing standards (GAAS) or other professional standards);
• not perform audit, review or other procedures required by GAAS or other professional standards;
• not withdraw a previously issued report; or
• not communicate matters to the audit committee.
The new rules are not limited to the audit of annual financial statements, and would be applicable to, among other things, a review of interim financial statements and the issuance of a consent to the use of a previously issued audit report.
Time Period Covered
The new rules apply when the accountant is "engaged in the performance of an audit or review of the financial statements." The SEC has interpreted this to apply throughout the accountant's professional engagement commencing when the accountant is selected to perform audit or review services and continuing until there is a public notification that the professional relationship has ended. The engagement period also includes any other time the accountant is asked to make decisions or judgments regarding the issuer's financial statements, including negotiations for retention of the accountant and post-audit relationship decisions regarding prior audit reports.[5]
Scienter
Section 303 of the Act prohibits conduct by an officer, director or person acting under the direction of an officer or director, if undertaken for the purpose of rendering an issuer's financial statements materially misleading. The new rules do not require a showing of a particular purpose or intent. The SEC stated that requiring an element of scienter would have been inconsistent with the rules as they existed prior to their modification. Accordingly, an officer, director or person acting under the direction of the officer or director, who engages in conduct to improperly influence an auditor will be culpable if he or she knows, or is negligent in not knowing, that the improper influence could, if successful, result in rendering financial statements materially misleading.
The SEC noted that violations of the new rules are illegal acts within Section 10A of the Exchange Act. Consequently, accountants would be obligated to report violations of the new rules to management and the audit committee and, if remedial action were not taken, to the board of directors and in certain circumstances to the SEC.[6]
____________________
These are only brief descriptions of the SEC's new rules. This memorandum provides general information only and does not constitute legal advice that may be applied to any particular situation. Please contact the Partners in our Corporate Department for further advice and assistance.
[1] See the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/34-47890.htm.
[2] Section 303 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 states:
It shall be unlawful, in contravention of such rules or regulations as the Commission shall prescribe as necessary and appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors, for any officer or director of an issuer, or any other person acting under the direction thereof, to take any action to fraudulently influence, coerce, manipulate, or mislead any independent public or certified accountant engaged in the performance of an audit of the financial statements of that issuer for the purpose of rendering such financial statements materially misleading.
[3] The SEC stated that, while it believes that an officer or director, or person acting under the direction of an officer or director, providing misleading information to an internal auditor would be relevant to the status of the issuer's internal accounting controls or disclosure controls, it would not appear to be related to the purpose of Section 303 and the new rules, which is to protect and enhance the independent audit function. The SEC cautioned, however, that, to the extent work of the internal auditor is used by the independent accountant in conducting an audit or review of the issuer's financial statements, misleading or inaccurate information provided to the internal auditor may be deemed to be provided to the independent accountant.
[4] These rules apply to private issuers that prepare financial statements "that are required to be filed" with the SEC, registered investment companies and small business issuers, and do not establish a private right of action for violation of these rules.
[5] This extends the period beyond the end of the professional engagement if the accountant is considering whether to consent to the use, reissue or withdrawal of a prior years' audit reports. The rules can also apply before the professional engagement period begins, such as when an officer, director or person acting under their direction offers to engage an accounting firm subject to a condition that could result in rendering the financial statements materially misleading, such as a condition that the firm issue an unqualified audit report on financial statements that do not conform with GAAP or limit the scope or performance of audit or review procedures in violation of GAAS.
[6] Similarly, although not explicitly stated, violations of these new rules would likely trigger an attorney's "up the ladder" reporting requirements.
To:
Our Clients and Friends
From:
Olshan Grundman Frome Rosenzweig & Wolosky LLP
Date:
June 10, 2003
Re:
Improper Influence on Conduct of Audits
Introduction
On May 20, 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") issued final rules[1] relating to Section 303(a)[2] of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the "Act"). The new rules supplement already existing prohibitions under Regulation 13(b)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act") and are designed to ensure that management effectuates full disclosure to, and has honest discussions with, the auditor of the issuer's financial statements. Under new Rule 13b2-2, it is unlawful for any officer or director of an issuer, or any other person acting under their direction, to take any action, directly or indirectly, to coerce, manipulate, mislead or fraudulently influence any independent public or certified accountant[3] engaged in the performance of an audit or review of the financial statements of that issuer that are required to be filed with the SEC if that person knew, or should have known, that such action could, if successful, result in rendering those financial statements materially misleading.[4] These new rules are effective as of June 27, 2003.
Persons Covered
The new rules concern actions by officers, directors and persons acting "under the direction" of officers and directors. The SEC interpreted the Act's use of the term "direction" to encompass a broader spectrum of behavior than "supervision." The SEC has stated that a person may be "acting under the direction" of an officer or director even if he or she is not under the supervision or control of that officer or director. Such persons include the issuer's employees, customers, vendors or creditors who, under the direction of an officer or director, provide false or misleading confirmations or other false or misleading information to auditors. Persons acting under the direction of officers and directors may also include other partners or employees of the accounting firm (such as consultants or forensic accounting specialists retained by company counsel) as well as attorneys, securities professionals, or other advisers who pressure an auditor to limit the scope of the audit, issue an unqualified report on the financial statements when such a report would be unwarranted, refrain from objecting to an inappropriate accounting treatment or fail to withdraw an issued opinion on the issuer's financial statements.
Prohibited Conduct
The SEC stated that means of coercing, manipulating, misleading or exerting fraudulent influence include, but are not limited to:
• offering or paying bribes or other financial incentives, including offering future employment or contracts for non-audit services;
• providing an accountant with an inaccurate or misleading legal analysis;
• threatening to cancel or canceling existing non-audit or audit engagements if the accountant objects to the issuer's accounting;
• seeking to have a partner removed from the audit engagement because the partner objects to the issuer's accounting;
• blackmailing; and
• making physical threats.
The SEC release recites other conduct that when predicated by an intent to defraud could violate the rules such as verbal abuse, undue time pressure, failing to provide information on a timely basis, and being unavailable to discuss matters with the auditors on a timely basis.
Under the new rules, actions that could result in rendering materially misleading financial statements include, but are not limited to actions to coerce, manipulate, mislead or fraudulently influence an accountant to:
• issue or reissue an unwarranted report on the issuer's financial statements (due to material violations of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), generally accepted auditing standards (GAAS) or other professional standards);
• not perform audit, review or other procedures required by GAAS or other professional standards;
• not withdraw a previously issued report; or
• not communicate matters to the audit committee.
The new rules are not limited to the audit of annual financial statements, and would be applicable to, among other things, a review of interim financial statements and the issuance of a consent to the use of a previously issued audit report.
Time Period Covered
The new rules apply when the accountant is "engaged in the performance of an audit or review of the financial statements." The SEC has interpreted this to apply throughout the accountant's professional engagement commencing when the accountant is selected to perform audit or review services and continuing until there is a public notification that the professional relationship has ended. The engagement period also includes any other time the accountant is asked to make decisions or judgments regarding the issuer's financial statements, including negotiations for retention of the accountant and post-audit relationship decisions regarding prior audit reports.[5]
Scienter
Section 303 of the Act prohibits conduct by an officer, director or person acting under the direction of an officer or director, if undertaken for the purpose of rendering an issuer's financial statements materially misleading. The new rules do not require a showing of a particular purpose or intent. The SEC stated that requiring an element of scienter would have been inconsistent with the rules as they existed prior to their modification. Accordingly, an officer, director or person acting under the direction of the officer or director, who engages in conduct to improperly influence an auditor will be culpable if he or she knows, or is negligent in not knowing, that the improper influence could, if successful, result in rendering financial statements materially misleading.
The SEC noted that violations of the new rules are illegal acts within Section 10A of the Exchange Act. Consequently, accountants would be obligated to report violations of the new rules to management and the audit committee and, if remedial action were not taken, to the board of directors and in certain circumstances to the SEC.[6]
____________________
These are only brief descriptions of the SEC's new rules. This memorandum provides general information only and does not constitute legal advice that may be applied to any particular situation. Please contact the Partners in our Corporate Department for further advice and assistance.
[1] See the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/34-47890.htm.
[2] Section 303 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 states:
It shall be unlawful, in contravention of such rules or regulations as the Commission shall prescribe as necessary and appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors, for any officer or director of an issuer, or any other person acting under the direction thereof, to take any action to fraudulently influence, coerce, manipulate, or mislead any independent public or certified accountant engaged in the performance of an audit of the financial statements of that issuer for the purpose of rendering such financial statements materially misleading.
[3] The SEC stated that, while it believes that an officer or director, or person acting under the direction of an officer or director, providing misleading information to an internal auditor would be relevant to the status of the issuer's internal accounting controls or disclosure controls, it would not appear to be related to the purpose of Section 303 and the new rules, which is to protect and enhance the independent audit function. The SEC cautioned, however, that, to the extent work of the internal auditor is used by the independent accountant in conducting an audit or review of the issuer's financial statements, misleading or inaccurate information provided to the internal auditor may be deemed to be provided to the independent accountant.
[4] These rules apply to private issuers that prepare financial statements "that are required to be filed" with the SEC, registered investment companies and small business issuers, and do not establish a private right of action for violation of these rules.
[5] This extends the period beyond the end of the professional engagement if the accountant is considering whether to consent to the use, reissue or withdrawal of a prior years' audit reports. The rules can also apply before the professional engagement period begins, such as when an officer, director or person acting under their direction offers to engage an accounting firm subject to a condition that could result in rendering the financial statements materially misleading, such as a condition that the firm issue an unqualified audit report on financial statements that do not conform with GAAP or limit the scope or performance of audit or review procedures in violation of GAAS.
[6] Similarly, although not explicitly stated, violations of these new rules would likely trigger an attorney's "up the ladder" reporting requirements.
Record Was Wrong to Fire Printers, Outsource Printing to Jacksonville
No Compass magazine today, folks.
I sincerely hope that Morris Communications reconsiders its outsourcing printing to Jacksonville. That decision eliminated dozens of newspaper printing and mailroom jobs here in St. Augustine, while reducing the quantum, quantity and timeliness of the news delivered to our homes each day.
I sincerely hope that Morris Communications reconsiders its outsourcing printing to Jacksonville. That decision eliminated dozens of newspaper printing and mailroom jobs here in St. Augustine, while reducing the quantum, quantity and timeliness of the news delivered to our homes each day.
St. Augustine Record:Compass Magazines to be delivered Saturday
Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 9:57 am by Steve Carswell
The Compass magazines, were not included in The Record this morning due to a production error. Compass will be delivered with your Saturday paper. We apologize for the inconvenience to you, our readers, and to our faithful advertisers.
The Compass magazines, were not included in The Record this morning due to a production error. Compass will be delivered with your Saturday paper. We apologize for the inconvenience to you, our readers, and to our faithful advertisers.
Mosquito Board Deserves Strict Scrutiny, Fair Treatment
"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic."
--- John F. Kennedy, commencement address, Yale University, June 11, 1962)
JFK was right.
Among the myths and shibboleths of the Florida Mosquito Control Association (FMCA) and American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA) are that pesticide spraying doesn’t hurt non-target organisms (like you and me).
That’s not just a myth, it’s a lie.
There has never been a programmatic environmental impact statement on mosquito control in Florida. That’s insane. Without baseline data, scientific peer review and public hearings (as required by our Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission of St. Johns County (AMCD) July 2007 Mission Statement), all the “trust me” rhetoric is smoke and mirrors.
County Commissioner Phil Mays was absolutely right to call for investigation and scrutiny of mosquito control. Like Tom Manuel before him, he recognizes that there’s some savings possible and that AMCD could be improved. Two cheers for County Commissioners for voting to delay the rezoning for an AMCD Taj Mahal.
Sounds like Mosquito Control Commissioner VIVIAN BROWNING lacked charm and diplomacy in dealing with County Commissioners (see below). Her remark about a “hijacking” after the County Commission meeting sounds like sour grapes. Her championing consolidation of District operations and building of a new building at I-95 is unadorned by any sort of economic needs analysis. Last year, she said she wanted to “cut corners” at AMCD – a bad idea when you’re dealing with pesticides.
Peter Guinta’s article says that in the event of a hurricane organophosphates would wash out to sea. That’s funny, because the District said it wasn’t going to use organophosphate (OP) neurotoxins (except in hot spots in emergencies), yet refused to define when and where OP spraying may take place, while rejecting an effort to appoint an environmental advisory committee.
Much money could be saved, for example, if St. Johns County ROAD & BRIDGE DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR JOE STEPHENSON would order his crews to clean out the ditches full of standing water, which breeds mosquitoes. It’s his job. If he won’t do it, AMCD should file a public nuisance lawsuit against St. Johns County and get a judge to order ditch-cleaning.
More money would be saved by AMCD if it put bats in its bat houses and made greater use of non-toxic alternatives (larvicides like Bti and Gambusia fish). AMCD needs to restructure its budget to where there is a line item for environmental monitoring of pesticide effects and another for environmentally-friendly pest controls.
More money would be saved by both AMCD and the County if they’d stop spending money on Taj Mahals – AMCD does not need a new building and for years the County has spent
More money would be saved by both AMCD and the County if they’d stop spending money on flubdubs – neither the County nor AMCD need color copiers or expensive contracts. AMCD is even paying a contractor to cut the grass, when AMCD employees (including managers) could do the job.
Top County and AMCD managers should volunteer for 5% pay cuts, to show we’re all in this together and that the Grand Poohbahs will feel the pain they expect workers to bear.
As to AMCD’s PR piece in Sunday’s record, talking about “grave danger” – let us ask, “Is there any other kind? (as the Jack Nicholson character said in Aaron Sorkin’s play/movie, “A Few Good Men”).
There’s a “grave danger” that organophosphates are killing wildlife and people. So long as AMCD, FMCA and AMCA continue to be bossed and bullied by chemical manufacturers and their salesmen – while refusing to base decisions on sound scientific data – we will continue to question mosquito control.
Get used to it. Ever since Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring,” Americans have been more sophisticated about using poisons to kill bugs when the poisons can kill non-target organisms, including bald eagles (and people). That’s the “grave danger.”
It’s time that Mosquito Control honors its commitment and has real scientific peer review (not “drylabbing” or “warm fuzzies” substituting for real science). No more “junk science,” please.
We need real science at AMCD – not "junk science" or "political science" based on chemical company shibboleths, myths and lies. What do you reckon?
County and AMCD Commissioners can't hide from this issue, for as JFK said, "Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." (upon signing of a charter establishing the German Peace Corps, Bonn, West Germany)(24 June 24, 1963).
--- John F. Kennedy, commencement address, Yale University, June 11, 1962)
JFK was right.
Among the myths and shibboleths of the Florida Mosquito Control Association (FMCA) and American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA) are that pesticide spraying doesn’t hurt non-target organisms (like you and me).
That’s not just a myth, it’s a lie.
There has never been a programmatic environmental impact statement on mosquito control in Florida. That’s insane. Without baseline data, scientific peer review and public hearings (as required by our Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission of St. Johns County (AMCD) July 2007 Mission Statement), all the “trust me” rhetoric is smoke and mirrors.
County Commissioner Phil Mays was absolutely right to call for investigation and scrutiny of mosquito control. Like Tom Manuel before him, he recognizes that there’s some savings possible and that AMCD could be improved. Two cheers for County Commissioners for voting to delay the rezoning for an AMCD Taj Mahal.
Sounds like Mosquito Control Commissioner VIVIAN BROWNING lacked charm and diplomacy in dealing with County Commissioners (see below). Her remark about a “hijacking” after the County Commission meeting sounds like sour grapes. Her championing consolidation of District operations and building of a new building at I-95 is unadorned by any sort of economic needs analysis. Last year, she said she wanted to “cut corners” at AMCD – a bad idea when you’re dealing with pesticides.
Peter Guinta’s article says that in the event of a hurricane organophosphates would wash out to sea. That’s funny, because the District said it wasn’t going to use organophosphate (OP) neurotoxins (except in hot spots in emergencies), yet refused to define when and where OP spraying may take place, while rejecting an effort to appoint an environmental advisory committee.
Much money could be saved, for example, if St. Johns County ROAD & BRIDGE DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR JOE STEPHENSON would order his crews to clean out the ditches full of standing water, which breeds mosquitoes. It’s his job. If he won’t do it, AMCD should file a public nuisance lawsuit against St. Johns County and get a judge to order ditch-cleaning.
More money would be saved by AMCD if it put bats in its bat houses and made greater use of non-toxic alternatives (larvicides like Bti and Gambusia fish). AMCD needs to restructure its budget to where there is a line item for environmental monitoring of pesticide effects and another for environmentally-friendly pest controls.
More money would be saved by both AMCD and the County if they’d stop spending money on Taj Mahals – AMCD does not need a new building and for years the County has spent
More money would be saved by both AMCD and the County if they’d stop spending money on flubdubs – neither the County nor AMCD need color copiers or expensive contracts. AMCD is even paying a contractor to cut the grass, when AMCD employees (including managers) could do the job.
Top County and AMCD managers should volunteer for 5% pay cuts, to show we’re all in this together and that the Grand Poohbahs will feel the pain they expect workers to bear.
As to AMCD’s PR piece in Sunday’s record, talking about “grave danger” – let us ask, “Is there any other kind? (as the Jack Nicholson character said in Aaron Sorkin’s play/movie, “A Few Good Men”).
There’s a “grave danger” that organophosphates are killing wildlife and people. So long as AMCD, FMCA and AMCA continue to be bossed and bullied by chemical manufacturers and their salesmen – while refusing to base decisions on sound scientific data – we will continue to question mosquito control.
Get used to it. Ever since Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring,” Americans have been more sophisticated about using poisons to kill bugs when the poisons can kill non-target organisms, including bald eagles (and people). That’s the “grave danger.”
It’s time that Mosquito Control honors its commitment and has real scientific peer review (not “drylabbing” or “warm fuzzies” substituting for real science). No more “junk science,” please.
We need real science at AMCD – not "junk science" or "political science" based on chemical company shibboleths, myths and lies. What do you reckon?
County and AMCD Commissioners can't hide from this issue, for as JFK said, "Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." (upon signing of a charter establishing the German Peace Corps, Bonn, West Germany)(24 June 24, 1963).
County delays Mosquito zoning
PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 08/19/09
Anastasia Mosquito Control District staffers walked out of St. Johns County Auditorium with sour expressions Tuesday because just moments before, commission members had implied that district operations were inefficient and had voted to postpone a district zoning request for two months.
District board member Vivian Browning was upset.
"This was a hijacking, basically," she said outside. "We came here in good faith."
The district's board wanted to rezone 9.5 acres of its own property to build a new $2.5 million headquarters off Agricultural Center Road. The board thought the request would pass easily because the district had donated seven acres to the county for the new Emergency Operations Center.
"(At the time), they said they would handle getting our land rezoned," Browning said. "This (application) was a usual and customary procedure, but they made it a political procedure.
"This was really about us and our need to exist."
A sharp divergence of opinion began after District 4 Commissioner Phil Mays said he wanted to pull the two Mosquito Control items from the county's agenda so the district's "efficiency and effectiveness and waste of tax dollars" could be examined.
Browning said she "highly objected" to that accusation and told Mays, "We are not a county department. We have been a chartered by the Legislature as a special district since 1949."
The district headquarters is a 1970s building off Old Beach Road, which is only a few hundred yards from Anastasia State Park. In the event of a hurricane, harmful organophosphates and other insecticides could spill into the sea.
"This is a rezoning issue, not a funding issue," Browning said. "We own the land, and the public is invited to come to our meetings and see our finances.
"We have 28 employees and a world-class laboratory. We spend our money very frugally."
Vice Chairman Ron Sanchez said "numerous citizens" asked the commission to look into the district.
"We have no control over your board," Sanchez said. "We're looking for cooperation.
"We (also) must be careful that we're not trying to manage their money by holding up the zoning application."
Commissioner Mark Miner said the issue was a comprehensive land amendment and a rezoning only.
The district has more than $2 million in the bank, saved year by year to build a new headquarters. In the past, county commissioners have cast a covetous eye on the district's nest egg.
County Administrator Michael Wanchick suggested an efficiency study of district operations, which will take 45 to 60 days.
Mays made a motion to reschedule the rezoning and comprehensive plan requests until the commission's Oct. 20 meeting.
It passed 4-1, with Miner dissenting.
Browning and half a dozen Mosquito Control employees left the room.
"We do not (want) our headquarters in a residential neighborhood," she said. "We've been waiting on this for two years. Our entire facility will cost less than many of the upper end homes in the county."
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© The St. Augustine Record
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 08/19/09
Anastasia Mosquito Control District staffers walked out of St. Johns County Auditorium with sour expressions Tuesday because just moments before, commission members had implied that district operations were inefficient and had voted to postpone a district zoning request for two months.
District board member Vivian Browning was upset.
"This was a hijacking, basically," she said outside. "We came here in good faith."
The district's board wanted to rezone 9.5 acres of its own property to build a new $2.5 million headquarters off Agricultural Center Road. The board thought the request would pass easily because the district had donated seven acres to the county for the new Emergency Operations Center.
"(At the time), they said they would handle getting our land rezoned," Browning said. "This (application) was a usual and customary procedure, but they made it a political procedure.
"This was really about us and our need to exist."
A sharp divergence of opinion began after District 4 Commissioner Phil Mays said he wanted to pull the two Mosquito Control items from the county's agenda so the district's "efficiency and effectiveness and waste of tax dollars" could be examined.
Browning said she "highly objected" to that accusation and told Mays, "We are not a county department. We have been a chartered by the Legislature as a special district since 1949."
The district headquarters is a 1970s building off Old Beach Road, which is only a few hundred yards from Anastasia State Park. In the event of a hurricane, harmful organophosphates and other insecticides could spill into the sea.
"This is a rezoning issue, not a funding issue," Browning said. "We own the land, and the public is invited to come to our meetings and see our finances.
"We have 28 employees and a world-class laboratory. We spend our money very frugally."
Vice Chairman Ron Sanchez said "numerous citizens" asked the commission to look into the district.
"We have no control over your board," Sanchez said. "We're looking for cooperation.
"We (also) must be careful that we're not trying to manage their money by holding up the zoning application."
Commissioner Mark Miner said the issue was a comprehensive land amendment and a rezoning only.
The district has more than $2 million in the bank, saved year by year to build a new headquarters. In the past, county commissioners have cast a covetous eye on the district's nest egg.
County Administrator Michael Wanchick suggested an efficiency study of district operations, which will take 45 to 60 days.
Mays made a motion to reschedule the rezoning and comprehensive plan requests until the commission's Oct. 20 meeting.
It passed 4-1, with Miner dissenting.
Browning and half a dozen Mosquito Control employees left the room.
"We do not (want) our headquarters in a residential neighborhood," she said. "We've been waiting on this for two years. Our entire facility will cost less than many of the upper end homes in the county."
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© The St. Augustine Record
Guest Column: Mosquito control keeps residents safe from disease
By JEANNE MOELLER
St. Augustine
Publication Date: 08/16/09
Historically speaking St. Johns County residents have battled and lost with many mosquito-borne diseases.
Yellow fever plagued this area up until the early 1900s. All one has to do is visit Evergreen Cemetery in St. Augustine to realize the impact yellow fever had on the citizens of this county. In fact the discovery of yellow fever transmission by the mosquito was so monumental in American history that it has been linked with the creation of American modern medicine.
Malaria was also common place in St. Johns County up until the late 1940s when Anastasia Island residents created the Anastasia Mosquito Control District (AMCD) which now covers the entire county.
Today still 1.5 million people die a year due infection with malaria. New mosquito-borne diseases are making their way across the world to our borders every year. Dengue fever which results in 19,000 deaths a year has been considered an epidemic in Mexico and the Caribbean since 2007. With the emergence of West Nile (WNV) virus in Florida in 2001, the public is again aware of concerns associated with mosquito-borne diseases.
In order to protect the resident of the county, AMCD conducts mosquito-borne disease surveillance. AMCD uses sentinel chickens and mosquito pooling to monitor for mosquito-borne diseases: West Nile virus, Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) virus, Saint Louis encephalitis (SL) virus, and Highlands J (HJ) virus. Surveillance provides an early detection system of mosquito-borne arboviruses in the county and the justification for vector mosquito control, such as conducting pesticide ULV (ultra low volume), spraying by ground and air.
Whitney Qualls, AMCD's biologist reports: "In 2003 there was a West Nile human fatality reported. There have been no other human cases of any mosquito-borne disease since 2003 in the county. We have had horse mortalities with a total of 22 horses testing positive for either EEE or WNV. There have been a total of 302 sentinel chickens that have tested positive for mosquito-borne viruses in St. Johns County from 2001 to date, of which 177 were WNV, 105 were EEE, and 19 were HJ. Our sentinel chicken results from year to year indicate that mosquito-borne viruses are present and a common occurrence in our county. Efforts are made when our sentinel chickens test positive to control the problem mosquitoes before we ever see a human case.''
AMCD is here to protect the public from nuisance mosquitoes but more importantly mosquito-borne diseases. Our control efforts are done with justification provided under the mosquito control law (Chapter 388-mosquito control law and the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Service's (DACS) Administration Code 5E-13). Pesticide application for mosquito control is the last choice for AMCD after other non-pesticide methods; source reduction, personal protection through public education, and biocontrol has failed.
We have in this county the mosquito vectors for all of the mentioned mosquito-borne diseases, the perfect climate, and an influx of travelers from different countries that have been exposed to exotic mosquito-borne diseases.
Without efficient and effective mosquito control we put not only the residents but the tourist industry of this county in grave danger.
*
Jeanne Moeller is a commissioner of the Anastasia Mosquito Control District who was elected in 2006 to a four-year term.
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© The St. Augustine Record
St. Augustine
Publication Date: 08/16/09
Historically speaking St. Johns County residents have battled and lost with many mosquito-borne diseases.
Yellow fever plagued this area up until the early 1900s. All one has to do is visit Evergreen Cemetery in St. Augustine to realize the impact yellow fever had on the citizens of this county. In fact the discovery of yellow fever transmission by the mosquito was so monumental in American history that it has been linked with the creation of American modern medicine.
Malaria was also common place in St. Johns County up until the late 1940s when Anastasia Island residents created the Anastasia Mosquito Control District (AMCD) which now covers the entire county.
Today still 1.5 million people die a year due infection with malaria. New mosquito-borne diseases are making their way across the world to our borders every year. Dengue fever which results in 19,000 deaths a year has been considered an epidemic in Mexico and the Caribbean since 2007. With the emergence of West Nile (WNV) virus in Florida in 2001, the public is again aware of concerns associated with mosquito-borne diseases.
In order to protect the resident of the county, AMCD conducts mosquito-borne disease surveillance. AMCD uses sentinel chickens and mosquito pooling to monitor for mosquito-borne diseases: West Nile virus, Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) virus, Saint Louis encephalitis (SL) virus, and Highlands J (HJ) virus. Surveillance provides an early detection system of mosquito-borne arboviruses in the county and the justification for vector mosquito control, such as conducting pesticide ULV (ultra low volume), spraying by ground and air.
Whitney Qualls, AMCD's biologist reports: "In 2003 there was a West Nile human fatality reported. There have been no other human cases of any mosquito-borne disease since 2003 in the county. We have had horse mortalities with a total of 22 horses testing positive for either EEE or WNV. There have been a total of 302 sentinel chickens that have tested positive for mosquito-borne viruses in St. Johns County from 2001 to date, of which 177 were WNV, 105 were EEE, and 19 were HJ. Our sentinel chicken results from year to year indicate that mosquito-borne viruses are present and a common occurrence in our county. Efforts are made when our sentinel chickens test positive to control the problem mosquitoes before we ever see a human case.''
AMCD is here to protect the public from nuisance mosquitoes but more importantly mosquito-borne diseases. Our control efforts are done with justification provided under the mosquito control law (Chapter 388-mosquito control law and the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Service's (DACS) Administration Code 5E-13). Pesticide application for mosquito control is the last choice for AMCD after other non-pesticide methods; source reduction, personal protection through public education, and biocontrol has failed.
We have in this county the mosquito vectors for all of the mentioned mosquito-borne diseases, the perfect climate, and an influx of travelers from different countries that have been exposed to exotic mosquito-borne diseases.
Without efficient and effective mosquito control we put not only the residents but the tourist industry of this county in grave danger.
*
Jeanne Moeller is a commissioner of the Anastasia Mosquito Control District who was elected in 2006 to a four-year term.
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© The St. Augustine Record
Three historic homes saved
PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 08/21/09
Three St. Augustine buildings -- the earliest built about 1840, the latest 1890 -- escaped the wrecking ball Thursday after the city's Historic Architectural Review Board tabled requests by property owner George Arnold to demolish all of them.
The buildings are 74 and 76 Spanish St. and 22 Avenida Menendez.
Arnold's attorney, Seth B. Dempsey of Sheppard & Sheppard, St. Augustine, said the oldest of the three, 76 Spanish St., is "seriously deteriorated in several different ways."
The building is one of the few Territorial Era structures left, built before Florida was a state.
Dempsey said a report by an architect hired by Arnold said wood rot had damaged the 1-story building's floor. The report also said parts of its floor, some walls and the staircase are missing and the building remains an eyesore and a nuisance.
"It's the owner's contention that the structure is beyond repair or rehabilitation," Dempsey said. "The owner is seeking to have this demolished down to vacant land. (But) he hasn't decided what to do with (the land) yet."
Fred Halback, chairman of HARB, said Arnold had previously submitted drawings and a business plan to create a 150-seat restaurant by converting 74 and 76 Spanish into one building. That plan was approved, though Arnold didn't get one parking space he wanted.
But Dempsey said that approval "wasn't acceptable to the owner. It wasn't what he was looking for."
He said renovation and rehabilitation of the two oldest buildings would be cost prohibitive.
Halback said, "What was that cost? None of that data has been provided. Simply saying it's too expensive doesn't demonstrate a hardship."
He said plenty of other buildings in St. Augustine were in that condition and repaired.
HARB member Paul Weaver said a "For Sale" sign was up outside the building, priced at $219,500.
Len Weeks, another HARB member, said, "We've been working with this guy for a year. But every time he sends an application in, he sends someone else (to answer questions). He needs to come himself."
Dempsey said, "I don't know" to many board questions, adding that he was recently hired and didn't know everything about Arnold's previous history with HARB.
Halback said, "It's always easier to tear things down. I don't think that (wanting to demolish a building) is justification for demolition."
Dempsey said 76 Spanish St. is "a structure in complete disrepair. This isn't a building that's even close (to being habitable). Complete sections of it are gone. It's a community eyesore."
However, Weaver pointed out that Arnold had left the building's windows open and never secured it, allowing the rain and weather to do great damage.
"Isn't it his responsibility to maintain his properties? It doesn't look to me that he's done anything," Weaver said.
Architect and HARB member Les Thomas told Dempsey that the city wants to know the economic effect.
"You're not providing that information. In six years, (Arnold) spent $645 on repairs on that property."
Arnold, an investor, purchased the three properties in 2002.
Architect Kenneth Smith, a HARB member, said he didn't believe there was "any claim here that the building needs to be demolished."
Dempsey proposed a continuance.
The board agreed, though it warned that they would swear Arnold in and ask questions when they met next on Oct. 15.
Not discussed was 22 Avenida Menendez, where city officials said Arnold was turning into a single-family home. However, after his request and appeal to HARB to use cheaper concrete roof tiles was rejected, he filed a certificate of demolition.
Only one member of the public spoke on this issue.
Dennis Cunningham said 22 Avenida Menendez was part of the city's historic waterfront.
"I am deeply offended that (Arnold) wants to tear down these buildings," Cunningham said. "He's trying to tear down our history."
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Letter: Restructure health care or everyone's benefit
Kaye Byrnes
Ponte Vedra
Publication Date: 08/18/09
Editor: For years my family was insured at little cost through very good, employer-provided coverage. When we lost that coverage, we had to purchase our health insurance directly. It was hard to obtain and expensive. In less then four years, our premium has doubled. Everyone on the policy has a $2,500 annual deductible. Absurd "pre-existing conditions" are excluded. The health insurance industry, especially in Florida, is not competitive. Too many Floridians have no coverage, can't get coverage, can't afford coverage.
The health care delivery system is a mess. I managed my elderly mother-in-law's care for the last 10 years of her life. Duplicate tests and x-rays, blatant "working the system" to maximize Medicare payments, and an unbelievable amount of paper records. The delivery system and financial incentives to doctors, hospitals and pharmacies is totally messed up.
I support the legislative effort to reform our health care system -- there is no perfect, silver-bullet solution to the existing problems but a significant regulatory overhaul and a public option insurance plan would go a long ways towards giving all Americans decent coverage and a system to deliver quality care.
Those who are objecting so vehemently must have great coverage, not expect to lose that coverage, not care about the millions who are uninsured and fail to understand the impact the existing system has on our economy.
Wake up, folks -- it's time to restructure our health care system so it works for everyone.
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© The St. Augustine Record
Ponte Vedra
Publication Date: 08/18/09
Editor: For years my family was insured at little cost through very good, employer-provided coverage. When we lost that coverage, we had to purchase our health insurance directly. It was hard to obtain and expensive. In less then four years, our premium has doubled. Everyone on the policy has a $2,500 annual deductible. Absurd "pre-existing conditions" are excluded. The health insurance industry, especially in Florida, is not competitive. Too many Floridians have no coverage, can't get coverage, can't afford coverage.
The health care delivery system is a mess. I managed my elderly mother-in-law's care for the last 10 years of her life. Duplicate tests and x-rays, blatant "working the system" to maximize Medicare payments, and an unbelievable amount of paper records. The delivery system and financial incentives to doctors, hospitals and pharmacies is totally messed up.
I support the legislative effort to reform our health care system -- there is no perfect, silver-bullet solution to the existing problems but a significant regulatory overhaul and a public option insurance plan would go a long ways towards giving all Americans decent coverage and a system to deliver quality care.
Those who are objecting so vehemently must have great coverage, not expect to lose that coverage, not care about the millions who are uninsured and fail to understand the impact the existing system has on our economy.
Wake up, folks -- it's time to restructure our health care system so it works for everyone.
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© The St. Augustine Record
Letter: Parking ticket, set-up sours resident
Kate Rucker
St. Augustine
Publication Date: 08/21/09
Editor: We keep hearing that the city wants residents to support businesses downtown. Last Saturday, my husband and I and some friends came downtown to eat and then take in a movie. After riding around and around and because we were on limited time, we finally parked in a lot on Spanish Street. We noticed that the cars around us did not have parking permits on them, so we parked. We have a handicap sticker and because I am unable to walk far, we parked there.
When we returned, we had a parking ticket. What seems odd is that the cars around us did not have parking tickets. Most of them were from other states.
Could it be that because we had a Florida plate (St. Johns County), we were singled out? Why can't all the lots in the historic district be open for public parking on the weekends? Why doesn't the city build more garages downtown and offer free transportation to the historic district?
It is too far for the handicapped and the elderly to walk from the current garage to most of the historic district especially in the heat.
Why doesn't this town do like Williamsburg, Va. and get all of the cars out of downtown? It is unsightly and takes away from the beauty of the city.
Permits should be issued to those who live in the old city. Business owners should have permits to park in the existing parking lots.
I will pay the ticket but never again will we come back to the old city to eat or shop. There are plenty of other historic cities where we can park close by for free such as Cocoa, Sanford, Mt. Dora and don't have to walk a mile to where we want to be.
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© The St. Augustine Record
St. Augustine
Publication Date: 08/21/09
Editor: We keep hearing that the city wants residents to support businesses downtown. Last Saturday, my husband and I and some friends came downtown to eat and then take in a movie. After riding around and around and because we were on limited time, we finally parked in a lot on Spanish Street. We noticed that the cars around us did not have parking permits on them, so we parked. We have a handicap sticker and because I am unable to walk far, we parked there.
When we returned, we had a parking ticket. What seems odd is that the cars around us did not have parking tickets. Most of them were from other states.
Could it be that because we had a Florida plate (St. Johns County), we were singled out? Why can't all the lots in the historic district be open for public parking on the weekends? Why doesn't the city build more garages downtown and offer free transportation to the historic district?
It is too far for the handicapped and the elderly to walk from the current garage to most of the historic district especially in the heat.
Why doesn't this town do like Williamsburg, Va. and get all of the cars out of downtown? It is unsightly and takes away from the beauty of the city.
Permits should be issued to those who live in the old city. Business owners should have permits to park in the existing parking lots.
I will pay the ticket but never again will we come back to the old city to eat or shop. There are plenty of other historic cities where we can park close by for free such as Cocoa, Sanford, Mt. Dora and don't have to walk a mile to where we want to be.
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Florida Schools Must Study St. Augustine and Civil Rights
Great news -- the State of Mississippi will require that civil rights be taught "in every grade from kindergarten through high school." See below. Right on!
America's Founding Fathers were right -- the perfectability of human nature is never in doubt, not even in the State of Mississippi. That's progress.
Not to be outdone, the State of Florida should likewise require a civil rights curriculum, including visits to St. Augustine. To help the world learn from our civil right heritage, let's have a National Civil Rights and Native American History Museum here in St. Augustine, Florida as part of a St. Augustine National Historical Park, Seashore and Snenic Coastal Parkway.
What better way to help observe the 50th anniversary of St. Augustine's Civil Rights Foot Soldiers (2014), the 450th anniversary of St. Augustine's founding (2015) and 500th anniversary of the Spanish in Florida (against a backdrop of 11,000 years of human history hereabouts)?
America's Founding Fathers were right -- the perfectability of human nature is never in doubt, not even in the State of Mississippi. That's progress.
Not to be outdone, the State of Florida should likewise require a civil rights curriculum, including visits to St. Augustine. To help the world learn from our civil right heritage, let's have a National Civil Rights and Native American History Museum here in St. Augustine, Florida as part of a St. Augustine National Historical Park, Seashore and Snenic Coastal Parkway.
What better way to help observe the 50th anniversary of St. Augustine's Civil Rights Foot Soldiers (2014), the 450th anniversary of St. Augustine's founding (2015) and 500th anniversary of the Spanish in Florida (against a backdrop of 11,000 years of human history hereabouts)?
AP: Miss. making civil rights part of K-12 instruction
Miss. making civil rights part of K-12 instruction
By SHELIA BYRD
Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — In Mississippi, where mention of the civil rights movement evokes images of bombings, beatings and the Ku Klux Klan, public schools are preparing to test a program that will ultimately teach students about the subject in every grade from kindergarten through high school.
Many experts believe the effort will make Mississippi the first state to mandate civil rights instruction for all k-12 students.
So far, four school systems have asked to be part of a pilot effort to test the curriculum in high schools. In September, the Mississippi Department of Education will name the systems that have been approved for the pilot. By the 2010-2011 school year, the program should be in place at all grade levels as part of social studies courses.
Advocacy groups such as the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation and Washington-based Teaching for Change are preparing to train Mississippi teachers to tell the “untold story” of the civil rights struggle to the nearly half million students in the state’s public schools.
“Now more than ever we are engaged in national debates about race and so much of those debates are impoverished in their understanding of history,” said Susan Glissen of the Winter Institute. “We want to emphasize the grass-roots nature of civil rights and the institution of racism.”
The program is the outgrowth of a law passed in 2006 by the Legislature. The state moves forward with statewide implementation in the 2010-2011 school year, despite an unsuccessful legislative effort to eliminate the plan this year.
Education officials looked to other states for a model, but couldn’t find one that included anything as comprehensive as what Mississippi has in mind, said Chauncey Spears, who works in the curriculum and instruction office of Mississippi’s education agency.
The Education Commission of the States didn’t know of any other state with a such a program, although it does not specifically track social studies curriculum.
Some states, including Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas, have placed an emphasis on civil rights instruction. New Jersey created an Amistad Commission to ensure the history of slavery is taught in schools. Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia school district requires students to complete an African-American history course before graduation.
“We’re behind time. Students don’t know about what blacks did. They’re not taught anything about culture, about our history,” said Ollye Shirley, a member of the commission created to research the Mississippi curriculum and a former Jackson Public School board member.
History classes will be the proving ground this fall, and the state Board of Education is expected to approve expansion of the curriculum to other grade levels in spring 2010, said Spears.
Deborah Menkart, executive director of Teaching for Change, said it’s important to help students understand that Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weren’t the only important figures in the civil rights movement.
“The traditional version would be that it started in 1954, thereby leaving out the fact that a lot of groundwork had to be done before that,” Menkart said. “The other part that gets left out is the struggle for economic justice, like Martin Luther King’s support of the sanitation workers in Memphis.
”
Menkart said classrooms activities can include role-playing in which students act out civil rights protests such as the Montgomery bus boycott, improving their critical thinking and social interaction.
By SHELIA BYRD
Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — In Mississippi, where mention of the civil rights movement evokes images of bombings, beatings and the Ku Klux Klan, public schools are preparing to test a program that will ultimately teach students about the subject in every grade from kindergarten through high school.
Many experts believe the effort will make Mississippi the first state to mandate civil rights instruction for all k-12 students.
So far, four school systems have asked to be part of a pilot effort to test the curriculum in high schools. In September, the Mississippi Department of Education will name the systems that have been approved for the pilot. By the 2010-2011 school year, the program should be in place at all grade levels as part of social studies courses.
Advocacy groups such as the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation and Washington-based Teaching for Change are preparing to train Mississippi teachers to tell the “untold story” of the civil rights struggle to the nearly half million students in the state’s public schools.
“Now more than ever we are engaged in national debates about race and so much of those debates are impoverished in their understanding of history,” said Susan Glissen of the Winter Institute. “We want to emphasize the grass-roots nature of civil rights and the institution of racism.”
The program is the outgrowth of a law passed in 2006 by the Legislature. The state moves forward with statewide implementation in the 2010-2011 school year, despite an unsuccessful legislative effort to eliminate the plan this year.
Education officials looked to other states for a model, but couldn’t find one that included anything as comprehensive as what Mississippi has in mind, said Chauncey Spears, who works in the curriculum and instruction office of Mississippi’s education agency.
The Education Commission of the States didn’t know of any other state with a such a program, although it does not specifically track social studies curriculum.
Some states, including Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas, have placed an emphasis on civil rights instruction. New Jersey created an Amistad Commission to ensure the history of slavery is taught in schools. Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia school district requires students to complete an African-American history course before graduation.
“We’re behind time. Students don’t know about what blacks did. They’re not taught anything about culture, about our history,” said Ollye Shirley, a member of the commission created to research the Mississippi curriculum and a former Jackson Public School board member.
History classes will be the proving ground this fall, and the state Board of Education is expected to approve expansion of the curriculum to other grade levels in spring 2010, said Spears.
Deborah Menkart, executive director of Teaching for Change, said it’s important to help students understand that Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weren’t the only important figures in the civil rights movement.
“The traditional version would be that it started in 1954, thereby leaving out the fact that a lot of groundwork had to be done before that,” Menkart said. “The other part that gets left out is the struggle for economic justice, like Martin Luther King’s support of the sanitation workers in Memphis.
”
Menkart said classrooms activities can include role-playing in which students act out civil rights protests such as the Montgomery bus boycott, improving their critical thinking and social interaction.
JFK: "I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.'"
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
John F. Kennedy, accepting New York Liberal Party nomination (September 14, 1960)
Settlement Leads to Unethical Agreement to Delete Judicial Opinions from Legal Databases
The settlement of the case of Klein v. AMTRAK (below) is contrary to public policy.
The settlement requires that no less than eight (8) judicial opinions be deleted from LEXIS and WESTLAW databases.
It is wrong. It is just plain wrong. There are moral absolutes, even in litigation. One of them is that parties don't have a right to remove, alter or destory government documents
It reminds me of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission Administrative Law Judge who okayed destruction of the court reporter's transcript and tapes of a three day whistleblower hearing, because the parties settled and wanted it thattaway.
The destroyed records would have been helpful to future litigants at a coal mine where inadequate roof bolting -- and retaliation against miners -- was at issue. The Washington Post carried a story on this outrage on December 24, 1988 (p. A-2).
Courts must not be cat's paws for the powerful or reactive rubberstamps for litigations who demand to destroy government records or erase judicial decisions.
Congress must investigate. Congress must step in and use its rulemaking authority to amend the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for as JFK said, "The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society...."
The settlement requires that no less than eight (8) judicial opinions be deleted from LEXIS and WESTLAW databases.
It is wrong. It is just plain wrong. There are moral absolutes, even in litigation. One of them is that parties don't have a right to remove, alter or destory government documents
It reminds me of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission Administrative Law Judge who okayed destruction of the court reporter's transcript and tapes of a three day whistleblower hearing, because the parties settled and wanted it thattaway.
The destroyed records would have been helpful to future litigants at a coal mine where inadequate roof bolting -- and retaliation against miners -- was at issue. The Washington Post carried a story on this outrage on December 24, 1988 (p. A-2).
Courts must not be cat's paws for the powerful or reactive rubberstamps for litigations who demand to destroy government records or erase judicial decisions.
Congress must investigate. Congress must step in and use its rulemaking authority to amend the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for as JFK said, "The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society...."
LAW.COM: After Settlement in Amtrak Case, Opinions Erased From Lexis and Westlaw
Shannon P. Duffy
08-19-2009
Ordinarily, the decision to settle a case while an appeal is pending means giving up the opportunity to set a legal precedent as well as forgoing the chance to win a reversal of any unfavorable published decisions handed down by the lower court.
But a team of defense lawyers fighting to overturn a $24 million verdict have figured out a way to have their settlement cake and eat their jurisprudence, too.
The confidential settlement in Klein v. Amtrak -- a case in which two trespassing teenagers climbed atop a parked train car and suffered serious burns when they got too close to a 12,000-volt catenary wire -- included an unusual provision that called for the trial judge to vacate all of his published opinions and have them removed from Lexis and Westlaw.
And it worked.
A few months after holding an hourlong oral argument, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in late July to remand the case to the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel, who, in turn, agreed to vacate eight of his published opinions and to "direct" Lexis and Westlaw to remove them from their databases.
Gretchen DeSutter, a spokeswoman for Westlaw, said Stengel's request to remove the opinions would "absolutely" be honored, and that any instance in which a judge vacates a published opinion automatically leads to its withdrawal from Westlaw's database.
Calls to Lexis were not returned by press time.
Exactly how the lawyers went about persuading Stengel to take such an unusual step is impossible to say because all of the court papers are under seal and none of the lawyers will talk about it.
Plaintiffs attorney Joseph F. Roda of Roda & Nast in Lancaster, Pa., said, "All I can tell you, I think, is that the case has settled."
Robert C. Clothier of Fox Rothschild, who has handled access cases for The Legal Intelligencer, said he was troubled by the court's decision to allow the defense lawyers to file all of their motions under seal, including the motion that asked for permission to seal the other papers.
To justify sealing any document, Clothier said, the courts have consistently held that it is necessary to "articulate on the record" the extraordinary circumstances that justify secrecy. As a result, he said, the motion to seal itself cannot be under seal.
The audiotape of the 3rd Circuit oral argument reveals that the three-judge panel had tough questions for both sides and that no clear winner emerged.
In five years of litigation, Klein v. Amtrak spawned a series of legally significant decisions -- all now withdrawn -- on issues such as how to apply the "attractive nuisance" doctrine in a case where the injured plaintiff was nearly 18 years old, and the standard of proof required to show that a landowner was aware of a risk because of similar prior accidents.
In April 2008, Stengel issued a 60-page opinion that upheld the jury's verdict, rejecting a slew of arguments that challenged his pretrial rulings, his jury instructions and the size of both the compensatory and punitive damage awards.
Stengel found that the jury's conclusions were supported by clear evidence that "Amtrak had every reason to know trespassers were regularly on its tracks and that teenage boys were inclined to climb to the top of parked boxcars."
In the October 2006 trial, Roda told the jury that catenary wires pose a grave danger because they can inflict a lethal shock even if the victim doesn't come in direct contact with them because of the phenomenon of "arcing" in which the electricity "jumps" from the source to any grounded object.
Roda said at the trial the two defendants -- Amtrak, which owned the property, and Norfolk Southern Corp., which owned the parked boxcar -- were aware of the dangers, and also knew that parked boxcars with ladders on the side that make it possible to climb atop them are attractive to teenage boys.
Amtrak was also aware that trespassers were common in its rail yard, Roda said at the trial, because of pervasive graffiti. But despite regularly training their own employees about the risks of electrocution, Roda said, the defendants did nothing to prevent injuries to trespassers.
Since the boxcars were parked for four days, Roda said, Amtrak could have turned off the power to the catenary lines or at least posted warning signs that labeled the boxcars as a high-voltage area.
The 11-day trial was bifurcated, and the jury found in its first verdict that Amtrak was both negligent and "wanton" and that Norfolk Southern was negligent. It also found that Amtrak was 70 percent responsible; that Norfolk Southern was 30 percent responsible; and that the two plaintiffs were zero percent responsible.
Following a brief trial on the issue of damages, the jury awarded a total of $24,227,435 to plaintiffs Jeffrey Klein and Brett Birdwell.
Klein, who suffered burns over 75 percent of his body and was hospitalized for nearly 11 weeks, was awarded more than $11 million in compensatory damages. Birdwell, who was burned over 18 percent of his body, was awarded more than $588,000.
The jury also awarded $12.5 million in punitive damages -- $8.75 million against Amtrak and $3.75 million against Norfolk Southern Railroad -- to be split equally by the two plaintiffs.
TOUGH QUESTIONS AT ARGUMENT
In the 3rd Circuit oral argument, Amtrak's lawyer, William G. Ballaine of Landman Corsi Ballaine & Fordin New York, argued that Stengel misunderstood some of the basic tenets of Pennsylvania law with respect to the duty that landowners owe to trespassers.
Ballaine said landowners "don't have to anticipate trespassers."
But U.S. Circuit Judge Michael A. Chagares interrupted and reminded Ballaine of the evidence of graffiti that put Amtrak on notice of the trespassers, and said the jury had decided the issues against the railroads.
Ballaine insisted that if Stengel had gotten the law right, Amtrak would have prevailed on summary judgment. "So it shouldn't make a difference that the jury came out the way it did if, as a matter of law, the evidence wasn't there," Ballaine said.
U.S. Circuit Judge Julio M. Fuentes also seemed at first to be rejecting Ballaine's arguments, saying: "You owe a certain duty to trespassers," and reminding Ballaine that the evidence included other similar accidents.
But Ballaine insisted that the evidence of previous accidents didn't satisfy Pennsylvania's rigorous test, which requires proof that similar accidents occurred in the same place and in the same time frame. Stengel erred, he said, by allowing the jury to hear of accidents that occurred decades ago and in other states.
Fuentes seemed less than impressed, saying Ballaine seemed to be arguing that "substantially similar" accidents needed to be "precisely identical."
Norfolk Southern's lawyer, Nancy Winkelman of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, argued that Stengel should have allowed her client out of the case before trial because, unlike the landowning Amtrak, it had no knowledge of the trespassers.
Winkelman said the "perverse result" of the case was that Norfolk Southern was held liable under a negligence standard for allegedly being a co-creator of a dangerous condition, while Amtrak was liable only if the plaintiffs could prove wanton conduct.
But the judges also had tough questions for plaintiffs attorney Roda.
Fuentes pressed Roda on whether he had "any caselaw support" for his argument that the jury was properly told of other accidents that occurred long ago or far away from Pennsylvania.
Roda insisted that the evidence was used only to show Amtrak's "state of mind" and that the theme of the evidence was always the same -- teenagers trespassing and climbing on train cars and getting injured from catenary wires.
Fuentes asked: "Isn't the problem that trespassers are not necessarily foreseeable, and that's why you have the elevated standard when trespassers are involved?"
Roda agreed, but insisted that he had satisfied the test by showing that Amtrak did nothing to eliminate a known and lethal risk even though doing so would have been as simple as flicking a switch.
08-19-2009
Ordinarily, the decision to settle a case while an appeal is pending means giving up the opportunity to set a legal precedent as well as forgoing the chance to win a reversal of any unfavorable published decisions handed down by the lower court.
But a team of defense lawyers fighting to overturn a $24 million verdict have figured out a way to have their settlement cake and eat their jurisprudence, too.
The confidential settlement in Klein v. Amtrak -- a case in which two trespassing teenagers climbed atop a parked train car and suffered serious burns when they got too close to a 12,000-volt catenary wire -- included an unusual provision that called for the trial judge to vacate all of his published opinions and have them removed from Lexis and Westlaw.
And it worked.
A few months after holding an hourlong oral argument, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in late July to remand the case to the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel, who, in turn, agreed to vacate eight of his published opinions and to "direct" Lexis and Westlaw to remove them from their databases.
Gretchen DeSutter, a spokeswoman for Westlaw, said Stengel's request to remove the opinions would "absolutely" be honored, and that any instance in which a judge vacates a published opinion automatically leads to its withdrawal from Westlaw's database.
Calls to Lexis were not returned by press time.
Exactly how the lawyers went about persuading Stengel to take such an unusual step is impossible to say because all of the court papers are under seal and none of the lawyers will talk about it.
Plaintiffs attorney Joseph F. Roda of Roda & Nast in Lancaster, Pa., said, "All I can tell you, I think, is that the case has settled."
Robert C. Clothier of Fox Rothschild, who has handled access cases for The Legal Intelligencer, said he was troubled by the court's decision to allow the defense lawyers to file all of their motions under seal, including the motion that asked for permission to seal the other papers.
To justify sealing any document, Clothier said, the courts have consistently held that it is necessary to "articulate on the record" the extraordinary circumstances that justify secrecy. As a result, he said, the motion to seal itself cannot be under seal.
The audiotape of the 3rd Circuit oral argument reveals that the three-judge panel had tough questions for both sides and that no clear winner emerged.
In five years of litigation, Klein v. Amtrak spawned a series of legally significant decisions -- all now withdrawn -- on issues such as how to apply the "attractive nuisance" doctrine in a case where the injured plaintiff was nearly 18 years old, and the standard of proof required to show that a landowner was aware of a risk because of similar prior accidents.
In April 2008, Stengel issued a 60-page opinion that upheld the jury's verdict, rejecting a slew of arguments that challenged his pretrial rulings, his jury instructions and the size of both the compensatory and punitive damage awards.
Stengel found that the jury's conclusions were supported by clear evidence that "Amtrak had every reason to know trespassers were regularly on its tracks and that teenage boys were inclined to climb to the top of parked boxcars."
In the October 2006 trial, Roda told the jury that catenary wires pose a grave danger because they can inflict a lethal shock even if the victim doesn't come in direct contact with them because of the phenomenon of "arcing" in which the electricity "jumps" from the source to any grounded object.
Roda said at the trial the two defendants -- Amtrak, which owned the property, and Norfolk Southern Corp., which owned the parked boxcar -- were aware of the dangers, and also knew that parked boxcars with ladders on the side that make it possible to climb atop them are attractive to teenage boys.
Amtrak was also aware that trespassers were common in its rail yard, Roda said at the trial, because of pervasive graffiti. But despite regularly training their own employees about the risks of electrocution, Roda said, the defendants did nothing to prevent injuries to trespassers.
Since the boxcars were parked for four days, Roda said, Amtrak could have turned off the power to the catenary lines or at least posted warning signs that labeled the boxcars as a high-voltage area.
The 11-day trial was bifurcated, and the jury found in its first verdict that Amtrak was both negligent and "wanton" and that Norfolk Southern was negligent. It also found that Amtrak was 70 percent responsible; that Norfolk Southern was 30 percent responsible; and that the two plaintiffs were zero percent responsible.
Following a brief trial on the issue of damages, the jury awarded a total of $24,227,435 to plaintiffs Jeffrey Klein and Brett Birdwell.
Klein, who suffered burns over 75 percent of his body and was hospitalized for nearly 11 weeks, was awarded more than $11 million in compensatory damages. Birdwell, who was burned over 18 percent of his body, was awarded more than $588,000.
The jury also awarded $12.5 million in punitive damages -- $8.75 million against Amtrak and $3.75 million against Norfolk Southern Railroad -- to be split equally by the two plaintiffs.
TOUGH QUESTIONS AT ARGUMENT
In the 3rd Circuit oral argument, Amtrak's lawyer, William G. Ballaine of Landman Corsi Ballaine & Fordin New York, argued that Stengel misunderstood some of the basic tenets of Pennsylvania law with respect to the duty that landowners owe to trespassers.
Ballaine said landowners "don't have to anticipate trespassers."
But U.S. Circuit Judge Michael A. Chagares interrupted and reminded Ballaine of the evidence of graffiti that put Amtrak on notice of the trespassers, and said the jury had decided the issues against the railroads.
Ballaine insisted that if Stengel had gotten the law right, Amtrak would have prevailed on summary judgment. "So it shouldn't make a difference that the jury came out the way it did if, as a matter of law, the evidence wasn't there," Ballaine said.
U.S. Circuit Judge Julio M. Fuentes also seemed at first to be rejecting Ballaine's arguments, saying: "You owe a certain duty to trespassers," and reminding Ballaine that the evidence included other similar accidents.
But Ballaine insisted that the evidence of previous accidents didn't satisfy Pennsylvania's rigorous test, which requires proof that similar accidents occurred in the same place and in the same time frame. Stengel erred, he said, by allowing the jury to hear of accidents that occurred decades ago and in other states.
Fuentes seemed less than impressed, saying Ballaine seemed to be arguing that "substantially similar" accidents needed to be "precisely identical."
Norfolk Southern's lawyer, Nancy Winkelman of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, argued that Stengel should have allowed her client out of the case before trial because, unlike the landowning Amtrak, it had no knowledge of the trespassers.
Winkelman said the "perverse result" of the case was that Norfolk Southern was held liable under a negligence standard for allegedly being a co-creator of a dangerous condition, while Amtrak was liable only if the plaintiffs could prove wanton conduct.
But the judges also had tough questions for plaintiffs attorney Roda.
Fuentes pressed Roda on whether he had "any caselaw support" for his argument that the jury was properly told of other accidents that occurred long ago or far away from Pennsylvania.
Roda insisted that the evidence was used only to show Amtrak's "state of mind" and that the theme of the evidence was always the same -- teenagers trespassing and climbing on train cars and getting injured from catenary wires.
Fuentes asked: "Isn't the problem that trespassers are not necessarily foreseeable, and that's why you have the elevated standard when trespassers are involved?"
Roda agreed, but insisted that he had satisfied the test by showing that Amtrak did nothing to eliminate a known and lethal risk even though doing so would have been as simple as flicking a switch.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
EPA Sues City for Environmental Crimes --- Sound familiar?
Photo credit: J.D. Pleasant
The Justice Department and State of West Virginia just "sued the town of Fort Gay, W. Va. to stop discharges of untreated sewage from pipes, manholes, and pumping stations into Mill Creek." See press release, below.
Let the City of St. Augustine be sued next. And there will be no economic stimulus funds for a money-wasting and corrupt city government run by mediocrities who:
1. Put semi-treated sewage effluent in our saltwater marsh, telling no one but Commissioners (and thought it was cute and thought they'd get away with it); and
2. Put solid waste in our Old City Reservoir(and thought it was cute and thought they'd get away with it;
3. Put untreated sewage in Maria Sanchez Lake without proper door hanger notices;
4. Put untreated sewage in San Sebastian Lake without proper door hanger notices;
5. Put lives at risk with boil water advisories without proper door hanger notices.
Suing is too good for WILLIAM B . HARRISS -- he and our City Commissioners must be haled before a Grand Jury.
After hearing all the evidence, HARRISS and the City must be indicted as the Justice Department indicted the City of Venice, Florida for intentional sewage pollution and brought and won criminal charges against THOMPSON BROS. REALTY for intentionally molesting bald eagles at Fish Island.
Anything less suggests the law is a sham.
The EPA press release (belo0w) says sewage pollution threatens "life-threatening illnesses such as cholera, dysentery, infectious hepatitis and severe gastroenteritis. Children, the elderly, people with weakened immune systems and pregnant women are more at risk of illness."
To which WILLIAM B. HARRISS repiies, "What me worry?"
EPA Press Release: U.S., West Virginia Sue Town of Fort Gay for Violations of Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts
U.S., West Virginia Sue Town of Fort Gay for Violations of Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts
(PHILADELPHIA – August 18, 2009) The Justice Department and the West Virginia Departments of Environmental Protection, and Health and Human Resources have sued the town of Fort Gay, W. Va. to stop discharges of untreated sewage from pipes, manholes, and pumping stations into Mill Creek.
The complaint, filed on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state agencies alleges the discharges pose a threat to human health because of potential contamination of the town’s drinking water. The complaint also alleges numerous violations of the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the West Virginia Water Pollution Control Act.
According to the government’s complaint, on numerous occasions since January 2007, Fort Gay discharged untreated sewage from several of its pumping stations into Mill Creek, a tributary of the Tug Fork River. The intake to the Fort Gay Water works, which provides water for the town, is located along the Tug Fork River less than a half-mile
downstream from Mill Creek.
The complaint also alleges that the untreated sewage has flowed into residential yards, basements, streams and the river; that Fort Gay has failed to take all reasonable steps to minimize or prevent any discharge and; the town failed to comply with a 2003 EPA order to take actions to prevent these discharges. Overall, the complaint alleges that the town did not properly operate and maintain its sewage treatment system.
Untreated sewage contains viruses and protozoa as well as other parasites. People coming in contact with these organisms can suffer adverse health effects ranging from minor ailments such as sore throats, stomach cramps and diarrhea, to life-threatening illnesses such as cholera, dysentery, infectious hepatitis and severe gastroenteritis. Children, the elderly, people with weakened immune systems and pregnant women are more at risk of illness.
The complaint seeks an injunction directing Fort Gay to eliminate or minimize the risk to human health posed by the discharge of raw sewage, and come into compliance with federal requirements and its state-issued pollution discharge permit.
Fort Gay could be subject to financial penalties for the violations. Penalties are assessed based on the seriousness of the violations, the economic benefit from non-compliance, compliance history, the economic impact of the penalty and other factors.
(PHILADELPHIA – August 18, 2009) The Justice Department and the West Virginia Departments of Environmental Protection, and Health and Human Resources have sued the town of Fort Gay, W. Va. to stop discharges of untreated sewage from pipes, manholes, and pumping stations into Mill Creek.
The complaint, filed on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state agencies alleges the discharges pose a threat to human health because of potential contamination of the town’s drinking water. The complaint also alleges numerous violations of the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the West Virginia Water Pollution Control Act.
According to the government’s complaint, on numerous occasions since January 2007, Fort Gay discharged untreated sewage from several of its pumping stations into Mill Creek, a tributary of the Tug Fork River. The intake to the Fort Gay Water works, which provides water for the town, is located along the Tug Fork River less than a half-mile
downstream from Mill Creek.
The complaint also alleges that the untreated sewage has flowed into residential yards, basements, streams and the river; that Fort Gay has failed to take all reasonable steps to minimize or prevent any discharge and; the town failed to comply with a 2003 EPA order to take actions to prevent these discharges. Overall, the complaint alleges that the town did not properly operate and maintain its sewage treatment system.
Untreated sewage contains viruses and protozoa as well as other parasites. People coming in contact with these organisms can suffer adverse health effects ranging from minor ailments such as sore throats, stomach cramps and diarrhea, to life-threatening illnesses such as cholera, dysentery, infectious hepatitis and severe gastroenteritis. Children, the elderly, people with weakened immune systems and pregnant women are more at risk of illness.
The complaint seeks an injunction directing Fort Gay to eliminate or minimize the risk to human health posed by the discharge of raw sewage, and come into compliance with federal requirements and its state-issued pollution discharge permit.
Fort Gay could be subject to financial penalties for the violations. Penalties are assessed based on the seriousness of the violations, the economic benefit from non-compliance, compliance history, the economic impact of the penalty and other factors.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Opinion: The Swashbucklers of the New Media
Garrison Keillor
Syndicated Columnist
Publication Date: 08/15/09
You know it's going to be a difficult day when you wake up with "Guantanamera, Guajira Guantanamera, Guantanamera, Guajira Guantanamera" going around and around in your head and it won't stop. You know that probably you should not tackle health care reform today though brainlessness has not stopped other people from weighing in on it.
Here are mobs of flannel-mouthed robots denouncing Socialist Gummint Takeover as Medicare goes rolling along rather tidily and the private schemes resemble railroads of the early 19th century, when each line decided its own gauge and each stationmaster decided what time it is. Anyone who has tried to coax authorization for payment from Federated Amalgamated Health knows that, for incomprehensible standards and voluminous rules and implacable bureaucrats, the health insurance industry carries on where the Italian postal service left off. But don't mind me, I'm a man with a viral song in my head and I should go soak it.
The goons who go to town hall meetings and shout down the congressmen are museum pieces. They can shout until the bats fall off the rafters, but if you really want to know about health insurance, you just look around on the Internet and it's all there and more. The president gave a good solid tutorial on the subject back in June to the AMA, and you can still find it at YouTube. When you come to choose between him and the goons, you don't have to think too hard.
This is the beauty of new media: It isn't so transitory as newspapers and TV. Good stuff sticks around and people e-mail it to friends and slowly it floods the country.
What the new media age also means is that there won't be newspapers to send reporters to cover the next war, but there will be 6 million teenage girls blogging about their plans for the weekend. There will be no TV networks to put on dramas in which actors in costume strut and orate and gesticulate, but you can see home video of dogs and anybody's high school graduation anywhere in America. We will be a nation of unpaid freelance journalists and memoirists. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
It comes too late for Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton. In the new media age, there would not be a Watergate or a Monica Lewinsky. The president could conspire to break the law or canoodle with anybody within arm's reach and likely there would be nobody in the forest to hear that particular tree fall. And that would be just fine. All we got from those enormous Old Media events, frankly, was entertainment. They were no more enlightening than a Harold Robbins novel.
I'm an old media guy and I love newspapers, but they were brought down by a long period of gluttonous profits when they were run as monopolies by large, phlegmatic, semi-literate men who endowed schools of journalism that labored mightily to stamp out any style or originality and to create a cadre of reliable transcribers. That was their role, crushing writers and rolling them into cookie dough. Nobody who compares newspaper writing to the swashbuckling world of blogging can have any doubt where the future lies. Bloggers are writers who've been liberated from editors, and some of them take you back to the thrilling days of frontier journalism, before the colleges squashed the profession.
The Internet is a powerful tide that is washing away some enormous castles and releasing a lovely sense of independence and playfulness in the American people. Millions of people have discovered the joys of seeing yourself in print Ñ your own words! the unique essence of yourself, your stories, your jokes, your own peculiar take on the world Ñ out there where anybody can see it! Wowser.
Unfortunately, nobody is earning a dime from this. So much work, so little pay. It's tragic.
But one door closes and a window opens. The health care industry is wide open and there's a need for writers. Old people are lonely, old people want to be listened to and their stories written down, old people need entertainment. That's why I am opposed to the current health care reform bill -- there is nothing in there for creative therapy and the artistic fulfillment of the sick and elderly. A humorist in every hospital ward. Laughter is the best medicine. Sick people need distraction. When you wake up in the morning with "Guantanamera" going around in your head, you forget about your troubles except for that one.
*
Garrison Keillor is the author of "77 Love Sonnets," published by Common Good Books.
Click here to return to story:
http://www.staugustine.com/stories/081509/opinions_1843558.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Syndicated Columnist
Publication Date: 08/15/09
You know it's going to be a difficult day when you wake up with "Guantanamera, Guajira Guantanamera, Guantanamera, Guajira Guantanamera" going around and around in your head and it won't stop. You know that probably you should not tackle health care reform today though brainlessness has not stopped other people from weighing in on it.
Here are mobs of flannel-mouthed robots denouncing Socialist Gummint Takeover as Medicare goes rolling along rather tidily and the private schemes resemble railroads of the early 19th century, when each line decided its own gauge and each stationmaster decided what time it is. Anyone who has tried to coax authorization for payment from Federated Amalgamated Health knows that, for incomprehensible standards and voluminous rules and implacable bureaucrats, the health insurance industry carries on where the Italian postal service left off. But don't mind me, I'm a man with a viral song in my head and I should go soak it.
The goons who go to town hall meetings and shout down the congressmen are museum pieces. They can shout until the bats fall off the rafters, but if you really want to know about health insurance, you just look around on the Internet and it's all there and more. The president gave a good solid tutorial on the subject back in June to the AMA, and you can still find it at YouTube. When you come to choose between him and the goons, you don't have to think too hard.
This is the beauty of new media: It isn't so transitory as newspapers and TV. Good stuff sticks around and people e-mail it to friends and slowly it floods the country.
What the new media age also means is that there won't be newspapers to send reporters to cover the next war, but there will be 6 million teenage girls blogging about their plans for the weekend. There will be no TV networks to put on dramas in which actors in costume strut and orate and gesticulate, but you can see home video of dogs and anybody's high school graduation anywhere in America. We will be a nation of unpaid freelance journalists and memoirists. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
It comes too late for Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton. In the new media age, there would not be a Watergate or a Monica Lewinsky. The president could conspire to break the law or canoodle with anybody within arm's reach and likely there would be nobody in the forest to hear that particular tree fall. And that would be just fine. All we got from those enormous Old Media events, frankly, was entertainment. They were no more enlightening than a Harold Robbins novel.
I'm an old media guy and I love newspapers, but they were brought down by a long period of gluttonous profits when they were run as monopolies by large, phlegmatic, semi-literate men who endowed schools of journalism that labored mightily to stamp out any style or originality and to create a cadre of reliable transcribers. That was their role, crushing writers and rolling them into cookie dough. Nobody who compares newspaper writing to the swashbuckling world of blogging can have any doubt where the future lies. Bloggers are writers who've been liberated from editors, and some of them take you back to the thrilling days of frontier journalism, before the colleges squashed the profession.
The Internet is a powerful tide that is washing away some enormous castles and releasing a lovely sense of independence and playfulness in the American people. Millions of people have discovered the joys of seeing yourself in print Ñ your own words! the unique essence of yourself, your stories, your jokes, your own peculiar take on the world Ñ out there where anybody can see it! Wowser.
Unfortunately, nobody is earning a dime from this. So much work, so little pay. It's tragic.
But one door closes and a window opens. The health care industry is wide open and there's a need for writers. Old people are lonely, old people want to be listened to and their stories written down, old people need entertainment. That's why I am opposed to the current health care reform bill -- there is nothing in there for creative therapy and the artistic fulfillment of the sick and elderly. A humorist in every hospital ward. Laughter is the best medicine. Sick people need distraction. When you wake up in the morning with "Guantanamera" going around in your head, you forget about your troubles except for that one.
*
Garrison Keillor is the author of "77 Love Sonnets," published by Common Good Books.
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http://www.staugustine.com/stories/081509/opinions_1843558.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Friday, August 14, 2009
Abuse of Judicial Authority
A six month sentence for yawning in court? (See ABA Journal article below).
A man serving three weeks in jail for yawning in court?
It sounds like this imperious Illinois Judge is the sort of tyrant whom our Founding Fathers fought the Revolutionary War to defeat.
The Judge has power over "his" courtroom, but not the right to violate civil rights.
Will the judge be questioned, sued, removed or indicted for his human rights violation?
Or will this case be covered up?
What do you reckon?
A man serving three weeks in jail for yawning in court?
It sounds like this imperious Illinois Judge is the sort of tyrant whom our Founding Fathers fought the Revolutionary War to defeat.
The Judge has power over "his" courtroom, but not the right to violate civil rights.
Will the judge be questioned, sued, removed or indicted for his human rights violation?
Or will this case be covered up?
What do you reckon?
American Bar Association Journal: Loud Yawn Lands Court Spectator in Jail; 6-Month Sentence Later Reduced
Posted Aug 10, 2009, 09:42 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Updated: A spectator in an Illinois courtroom who let out a loud yawn as his cousin was being sentenced for a felony drug charge soon found himself in jail.
Clifton Williams was sentenced to six months in jail for criminal contempt, the Chicago Tribune reports. His cousin was luckier—he received two years’ probation for his offense.
Spokesman Chuck Pelkie of the Will County State's Attorney's office told the Chicago Tribune that the yawn was not a quiet one, according to the prosecutor who observed it. "It was not a simple yawn,” Pelkie said. “It was a loud and boisterous attempt to disrupt the proceedings."
The sentencing judge was Daniel Rozak of Joliet, who has brought more than a third of contempt charges in Will County south of Chicago, even though he is one of 30 judges there, according to the story. Rozak has brought four out of five criminal contempt charges by Will County judges this year.
He is known for running well-managed trials and a strict courtroom, according to the story. Said Joliet defense lawyer David Carlson: "I think he's terrific—he understands how the world works."
Williams doesn’t agree. “I really can't believe I'm in jail," he wrote his family in a letter. "I done set in this [expletive] a week so far for nothing."
Rozak later reversed course and freed Williams after he served three weeks in jail, but not before delivering a short lecture, according to the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune. Rozak told Williams he wasn't jailed for just yawning. Instead he was punished for making a sound "that was offensive to the court."
Updated on Aug. 14 to include news of Williams' release.
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Updated: A spectator in an Illinois courtroom who let out a loud yawn as his cousin was being sentenced for a felony drug charge soon found himself in jail.
Clifton Williams was sentenced to six months in jail for criminal contempt, the Chicago Tribune reports. His cousin was luckier—he received two years’ probation for his offense.
Spokesman Chuck Pelkie of the Will County State's Attorney's office told the Chicago Tribune that the yawn was not a quiet one, according to the prosecutor who observed it. "It was not a simple yawn,” Pelkie said. “It was a loud and boisterous attempt to disrupt the proceedings."
The sentencing judge was Daniel Rozak of Joliet, who has brought more than a third of contempt charges in Will County south of Chicago, even though he is one of 30 judges there, according to the story. Rozak has brought four out of five criminal contempt charges by Will County judges this year.
He is known for running well-managed trials and a strict courtroom, according to the story. Said Joliet defense lawyer David Carlson: "I think he's terrific—he understands how the world works."
Williams doesn’t agree. “I really can't believe I'm in jail," he wrote his family in a letter. "I done set in this [expletive] a week so far for nothing."
Rozak later reversed course and freed Williams after he served three weeks in jail, but not before delivering a short lecture, according to the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune. Rozak told Williams he wasn't jailed for just yawning. Instead he was punished for making a sound "that was offensive to the court."
Updated on Aug. 14 to include news of Williams' release.
City Taxpayers Should Not Pay for Architect FRED HALBACK's Faliure to Include Berm in Skate Park -- Record Editorial (Below) Is Spot On!
FRED HALBACK
www.halback.com
Margo Pope wrote an excellent editorial (below).
The term “Amateur Hour” came to mind Monday night as City Chief Operations Officer John Regan described how the required skate park berm was deleted by local architect FRED HALBACK without talking to anyone.
Architect FRED HALBACK should notify his professional liability insurance carrier that the City may have a claim. FRED HALBACK is Chair of the City's Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB). FRED HALACK has his fingers in a number of projects of questionable taste, several of which would destroy our history and environment.
Sounds like HALBACK goofed on the skate park berms. City Chief Operations Officer JOHN REGAN made clear that it was HALBACK who failed to include berms in the design, despite clear instructions from the PZB and City Commission,
Rather than taking tax money to pay for the construction of a berm, FRED HALBACK (or his insurance company) must pay.
"Fair is fair," as MARGO POPE's editorial about the Plaza de la Constitucion artists put it.
When MARGO POPE is allowed to research she tends to do a good job.
It seems that when WRecKord Publisher DEREK MAY gives MARGO POPE unreasonable assignments, her editorials ring hollow – they read like something the cat dragged in, as if they were written under duress.
Therefore, my comments yesterday (below) about MARGO POPE may have been too harsh and hasty.
When you have a 30-something Publisher (he comes from an IT and advertising background), it’s natural that he will be overbearing and attempt to tell experienced journalists what to do.
Does DEREK MAY somehow think that marrying into the MORRIS COMMUNICATIONS family suddenly makes him an expert on St. Augustine or Florida or politics or editorials or investigative journalism?
There is precious little investigative journalism now the WrecKord now that it only has two full-time reporters. This is the direct and proximate result of the financial mismanagement, which Folio Weekly reported in 2007.
Extending Record Editorial Page Editor MARGO POPE the benefit of the doubt, it occurs to me that being obliged to obey overbearing instructions from DEREK MAY may be exactly what happened when the WRecKord:
1. Endorsed turkeys like JOHN LUIGI MICA, ERROL JONES, NANCY SIKES-KLINE and RANDY BRUNSON for Congress and for City and County Commission.
2. Heaped praise on outgoing U.S. Senator Mel Martinez.
3. Endorsed violating artists’ God-given First Amendment rights in the Plaza de la Constitucion and St. George Street.
4. Fired political cartoonist Ed Hall for a cartoon it had approved (lampooning a fungible Florida School Superintendent), based on spurious whining from School Superintendent JOSEPH JOYNER and acolytes including PHIL McDANIEL.
That’s why I hereby apologize to MARGO POPE and hope that she stands up to DEREK MAY in the future and insists on printing only editorials that are well-researched and factually based. We have no patience with editorials based on flummery and dupery, like those that give aid and comfort to “KKK Lite.”
"KKK Lite" is the precise technical term for dangerously demagogic homophobic Senator MEL MARTINEZ, who used illegal campaign contributions, naked appeals to prejudice and falsehoods to steal two elections in 2004 (Primary and General Election), making MARTINEZ a stench in the nostrils of the Nation).
FBI agents refer to their last year on the job as their "go to hell year," because they can stand up to bad managers, inspect and criticize investigations, and speak their minds without fear or favor. That's why I hope MARGO POPE does now until she retires, secure in the knowledge that she knows more about journalism than DEREK MAY.
Skate park neighbors deserve fair shake
Publication Date: 08/14/09
The new Upchurch Skate Park is a wonderful addition to recreation on Anastasia Island. But its back-fence neighbors on Flamingo Drive are not as overjoyed as the skateboarders.
That doesn't surprise us. The Borde del Mar neighborhood has new sounds to contend with: the near-constant "clack-clack, clack-clack" of the skateboards against the concrete throughout the day and early evening. A skateboard park is loud, and the noise is constant because of the nature of the activity. But that's not what the residents expected. They were promised noise barriers. That didn't happen because the barrier design got lost in the plan's emphasis on a stormwater runoff system for the site behind the city's Anastasia Island Fire Station.
In response to the neighbors, the city is fast-tracking an earthen berm to attack the noise problem. The target completion time is three months. That's short time for government, but we are confident the city will come through on time. The neighbors don't deserve the noise. They didn't ask for it. They were there before the park was built. Promises were made that didn't happen.
But the city is on the right track now. Mayor Joe Boles set the bar higher for public-private partnerships on Monday night at the city commission meeting when he said partnerships won't proceed to construction until all the funds are in hand and the public affected is part of the decision-making process.
We'd add to his intention: greater oversight by the city from start to finish. Private groups mean well, but often they have goals in mind that do not always mesh with a local government's best practices in reaching the finished project in a manner respectful of all interested.
City officials say that in the interim of the noise barrier being built, there will be a visual screening of the park from the neighborhood and greater enforcement of park operation rules by the police department so that skaters are not in the park when it is closed.
Upchurch Park was meant to be a fun place for the community's youngsters and young adults to skateboard, away from the perils of city streets and traffic. It can still be that way with the city's expedited construction of a berm. The neighbors deserve more consideration than they were initially given.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/081409/opinions_1848764.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
The new Upchurch Skate Park is a wonderful addition to recreation on Anastasia Island. But its back-fence neighbors on Flamingo Drive are not as overjoyed as the skateboarders.
That doesn't surprise us. The Borde del Mar neighborhood has new sounds to contend with: the near-constant "clack-clack, clack-clack" of the skateboards against the concrete throughout the day and early evening. A skateboard park is loud, and the noise is constant because of the nature of the activity. But that's not what the residents expected. They were promised noise barriers. That didn't happen because the barrier design got lost in the plan's emphasis on a stormwater runoff system for the site behind the city's Anastasia Island Fire Station.
In response to the neighbors, the city is fast-tracking an earthen berm to attack the noise problem. The target completion time is three months. That's short time for government, but we are confident the city will come through on time. The neighbors don't deserve the noise. They didn't ask for it. They were there before the park was built. Promises were made that didn't happen.
But the city is on the right track now. Mayor Joe Boles set the bar higher for public-private partnerships on Monday night at the city commission meeting when he said partnerships won't proceed to construction until all the funds are in hand and the public affected is part of the decision-making process.
We'd add to his intention: greater oversight by the city from start to finish. Private groups mean well, but often they have goals in mind that do not always mesh with a local government's best practices in reaching the finished project in a manner respectful of all interested.
City officials say that in the interim of the noise barrier being built, there will be a visual screening of the park from the neighborhood and greater enforcement of park operation rules by the police department so that skaters are not in the park when it is closed.
Upchurch Park was meant to be a fun place for the community's youngsters and young adults to skateboard, away from the perils of city streets and traffic. It can still be that way with the city's expedited construction of a berm. The neighbors deserve more consideration than they were initially given.
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http://staugustine.com/stories/081409/opinions_1848764.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Yellow Journaism Editorial (below) typifies the genre of mediocrity in newspapers directed by City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS.
If I owned a newspaper, I would not hire anyone to write news or editorials if they were overly trusting in abusers of authority.
That would apply to MARGO POPE.
Her editorial (below) is the latest of several insipid editorials that have led people to believe it is time for her to retire.
MARGO POPE is easily led by RONALD WAYNE BROWN (City Attorney) and WILLIAM B. HARRIS (City Manager), expressing herself in logical fallacies:
1. "{i]t's time for the state of Florida to enforce sales tax collections." Who says they're not enforcing it?
2. "Because of court orders, the Plaza is a wide-open marketplace with sales of virtually anything allowed." Sounds like a Jim Crow segregationist newspaper (which the Record once was, taking KKK-style potshots against federal courts. How gauche. The courts freed artists from unconstitutional infringements on FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS, something a real newspaper (rather than a right-wing Republican rag) would inveigh against. Allowing "a wide-open marketplace with sales of virtually anything allowed" was the City's idea, to create a crisis, to exploit fears and divide our community. Enough! See blog entry below the editorial
3. There is only hearsay, no economic study, to support the claim that "sales of similar articles in their own stores or those of others have declined because of Plaza vendors."
4. There is no proof that anyone is not collecting taxes. That's defamatory. If you libel an identifiable group, it's called group libel. Any one of the artists could sue MARGO POPE, DERRECK MAY and the St. Augustine Record and win.
5. In MARGO POPE-ese, "we hope that the State investigates all the St. Augustine Record and Times-Union managers and investigates their employment practices -- sure are an awful lot of civil rights cases reported on PACER. We hope the merchants who won't hire any minority employees are investigated. We hope the landlords who may commit antitrust violations get prosecuted. We hope the public officials taking bribes get nailed. {POPE wrote, "One merchant said she has complained to the state that the vendors are not collecting sales tax. We hope the state takes her complaint seriously and investigates any violations."
6. POPE worships and channels City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS (a/k/a "WILL HARASS") who was not at Monday's meeting. Did she call him on vacation? Or nudge him in bed.(She wrote, "City Manager Bill Harriss said only the state can enforce sales tax collections. He said that the proposed Plaza vendor sales ordinance will require a prospective vendor to have a sales tax permit. That's good news for everyone.")
7. POPE introduces a red herring: "The state has lost billions of dollars in sales tax revenue because of the declining economy. Fewer people spending means less sales tax collected. When sales tax isn't collected, that loss also affects state revenue that comes back to St. Johns County, the City of St. Augustine and other municipalities. The Department of Revenue needs to ensure that vendors in the Plaza now are following the same laws store merchants do. Fair is fair."
8. Demagogic is demagogic.
9. Unfair is unfair.
10. The WRecKord is once again unfair and demagogic.
11. The WReckord is declining in quality.
12. The WReckord had much better editorials when Pete Ellis wrote editorials.
13. The chauvinistic WRecKord editorial writer and publisher obviously hate artists, love soon-to-be-ex Senator MEL MARTINEZ, love louche loutish developer lobbyist GEORGE McCLURE, and run Anne Coulter and other haters. Call them KKK Lite.
14. I thank God I never took a journalism course. When I was at Georgetown, journalism wasn't offered. (I read the book on the plane to East Tennessee before becoming Editor of the Appalachian Observer.) Too many journalism majors are airheads who party heartily but never learn to stand up and question authority. See Tom Wicker, On Press (1977). If I had a newspaper, I'd hire reporters who knew stuff, instead of how to talk down to people. I'd rather read articles by reporters who know stuff (like the NY Times) than reporters who know not that they know not that they know not.
15. The WRecKOrd editorial writer will soon retire after 35 years of service, the last year of which has been a disservice to her readers and a reward for her friends in power, whom she no longer hesitates to reward with mash notes, like some sixteen year old writing letters with hearts handwritten on the envelopes.
16. In the words of Edward R. Murrow, "Good Night and Good Luck." It's time for MARGO POPE (and City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS) to retire. Say goodnight, graceless ones.
Record editorial: Plaza vendors shouldn't escape sales tax collection
Publication Date: 08/13/09
As St. Augustine City Attorney Ron Brown rewrites proposed rules for vendor sales in the Plaza de la Constitucion, it's time for the state of Florida to enforce sales tax collections.
During Monday's city commission meeting, downtown merchants weighed in on their competition in the Plaza for sales.
Because of court orders, the Plaza is a wide-open marketplace with sales of virtually anything allowed. A recent federal court order allowed artists to return to the Plaza to sell their work, and a county judge has ruled that the city's Plaza sales rules were unconstitutional.
The commission asked Brown to write a new ordinance, but it won't take effect until late September.
Some merchants who spoke Monday said sales of similar articles in their own stores or those of others have declined because of Plaza vendors. One merchant said she has complained to the state that the vendors are not collecting sales tax. We hope the state takes her complaint seriously and investigates any violations.
City Manager Bill Harriss said only the state can enforce sales tax collections. He said that the proposed Plaza vendor sales ordinance will require a prospective vendor to have a sales tax permit. That's good news for everyone.
The state has lost billions of dollars in sales tax revenue because of the declining economy. Fewer people spending means less sales tax collected.
When sales tax isn't collected, that loss also affects state revenue that comes back to St. Johns County, the City of St. Augustine and other municipalities.
The Department of Revenue needs to ensure that vendors in the Plaza now are following the same laws store merchants do.
Fair is fair.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/081309/opinions_1843241.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
As St. Augustine City Attorney Ron Brown rewrites proposed rules for vendor sales in the Plaza de la Constitucion, it's time for the state of Florida to enforce sales tax collections.
During Monday's city commission meeting, downtown merchants weighed in on their competition in the Plaza for sales.
Because of court orders, the Plaza is a wide-open marketplace with sales of virtually anything allowed. A recent federal court order allowed artists to return to the Plaza to sell their work, and a county judge has ruled that the city's Plaza sales rules were unconstitutional.
The commission asked Brown to write a new ordinance, but it won't take effect until late September.
Some merchants who spoke Monday said sales of similar articles in their own stores or those of others have declined because of Plaza vendors. One merchant said she has complained to the state that the vendors are not collecting sales tax. We hope the state takes her complaint seriously and investigates any violations.
City Manager Bill Harriss said only the state can enforce sales tax collections. He said that the proposed Plaza vendor sales ordinance will require a prospective vendor to have a sales tax permit. That's good news for everyone.
The state has lost billions of dollars in sales tax revenue because of the declining economy. Fewer people spending means less sales tax collected.
When sales tax isn't collected, that loss also affects state revenue that comes back to St. Johns County, the City of St. Augustine and other municipalities.
The Department of Revenue needs to ensure that vendors in the Plaza now are following the same laws store merchants do.
Fair is fair.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/081309/opinions_1843241.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS Creates Another Phony "Crisis"
Photo credit: J.D. Pleasant
So City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS has created another crisis. He wasn't even here to enjoy it. What a card. What a self-aggrandizing narcissistic manipulator. He should be fired.
See below.
The Federal Court didn't order hot dog sellers (or anyone other than visual artists) be allowed to sell products in the Plaza de la Constitucion (a/k/a Slave Market Square).
Those orders were given by City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS.
He's counting on manipulating merchants to suppress artists.
In his absence Monday night, City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN offered Commissioners a menu of way they could fee-grab, hornswoggle, cabin, corral, gull and diddle the artists and the people of the City of St. Augustine with another hare-brained scheme.
Just leave the artists alone, please, Mr. HARRISS. As revealed by your ample abdomen, it's obvious that all your taste is in your mouth. We don't need you or your Republican pals (ex-Mayor LEONARD WEEKS, self-appointed arts maven PHIL McDANIEL) deciding what "art" is.
And as for St. George Street, the notion of City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN that St. George Street is still "protected" (from artists) is a joke. Our corrupt City Manager had a 78-year old woman frog-marched down St. George Street in handcuffs for painting. Our City of St. Augustine is an embarrassment in front of the entire Free World.
We need to be protected from Dumb and Dumber -- the City Manager and the City Attorney, as sebaceous a pair of fatties as ever made expensive chairs squeak (and break). (For that last line, hats off to Robert Penn Warren from All the King's Men).
We need to be protected from the formidable forces of fascism, who think government works for corporate landlords in downtown St. Augustine.
How bizarre that when merchants complained about high rents and non-compete clauses in their leases, not one City Commissioner asked them about it.
How odd that RONALD WAYNE BROWN, our estimable City Attorney, said he was going to request a transcript of the merchants' comments in support of the latest anti-artist ordinance that he's licking his chops to write.
Yet BROWN repeatedly mocks and orders Commissioners to ignore what he terms "the clamor of the crowd" whenever citizens exercise their constitutional right to give expert testimony on the destruction of our city by greedy developers.
Coincidentally, at least one of the merchants whose comments BROWN agreed with organized all the other merchants to oppose the ugly proposed building on Cathedral Place and St. George Street (which conflicted City Commissioner DONALD CRICHLOW designed).
So when the lady opposes BROWN's masters, the "clamor of the crowd" is invoked.
But when the lady agrees with BROWN, he directs the transcription of her talk.
RONALD WAYNE BROWN is the ex-law partner of GEOFFREY DOBSON, the former City Attorney for the City of St. Augustine and the City of St. Augustine Beach. The two of them represented for years speculator PIERRE THOMPSON (grandson of the founder of the St. Augustine Record).
PIERRE THOMPSON owns a real estate company that was most noted for being federally prosecuted in 2008 for THOMPSON's having ordered the cutting down of an eagle nest tree near Fish Island on October 8, 2001, in violation of three federal felony statutes. THOMPSON was only prosecuted in 2008 after the Collective Press reported in 2005 the Justice Department's refusal to prosecute.
GEOFFREY DOBSON nearly cost taxpayers $1.8 million with one act of legal malpractice, when he rubberstamped no-bid purchase of a luxury Textron Bell Jet Long Ranger helicopter (he said it was "sole source" and he was wrong). To its everlasting credit, the Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission of St. Johns County canceled the helicopter and got a full refund after BROWN (and two others lawyers) left (one of the second pair of malfeasant Mosquito Control District lawyers was involved in a Sunshine Law violation (which was videotaped, with six photos on the front page of the St. Augustine REcord).
WILLIAM B. HARRISS and RONALD WAYNE BROWN typify the ancien regime here in St. Augustine and St. Johns County. They vote the straight Republican ticket, they don't care about people, they sup with developers and they sap our public fisc.
Our City has been found guilty of First Amendment violations (resulting in orders to allow artists back in the Plaza and to allow Rainbow flags to be flown on our Bridge of Lions in honor of GLBT rights).
Our City has deposited 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir (then tried to bring it back to Linconville). Our City was fined.
Our City has polluted our saltwater marsh for years with semi-treated sewage effluent, Our City Manager and City Commissioners kept it secret from us.
Our City voted 4-1 to sell out to the Fish Island developer (in a Bert Harris Act case that involved a signature by none other than PIERRE THOMPSON, BROWN's former client. Joe LoPinto has rightly taken our City to Court.
Our ancien regime rips off taxpayers together, destroys our environment together, violates human rights together, suppresses and arrests artists together, and expects us to like it.
Nope. Not a chance. Not any longer. Corruption isn't cute and cuddly. This isn't Hollywood and WILLIAM B. HARRISS isn't "Boss Hogg" in the Dukes of Hazzard. This isn't Louisiana. We don't find our local rogues charming. Not in this economy. Not with what they keep trying to do to our environment(as with their Fish Island sellout).
St. Augustine City Commission should be packed August 24th when they try to raise our fire and trash collection fees, and talk about putting all the artists in the Slave Market, subject to illegal fees, unconstitutional regulations and illogical rules (like closing up at 9 PM).
City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS was hired in a Sunshine violation April 13, 1998, without public notice a decision would be made.
City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN was hired in two Sunshine violations on October 13, 2006 (temporarily) and again in December 2006 (permanently), without public notice.
City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS (a/k/a "WILL HARASS") must be fired. His replacement must be picked from a national search. I don't care if the best candidate is from Kansas -- hire her!
City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN (a/k/a "No Nickname Necessary")must be fired. BROWN's replacement must be picked from at least a statewide search. S/he needs to give legal advice (instead of counting to three, which is all that BROWN ever learned from GEOFFREY DOBSON).
Merchants want plaza reform -- Downtown businesses being 'strangled' by untaxed vendors nearby
PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 08/11/09
Twenty unlicensed, untaxed and unregulated vendors on the Plaza de la Constitution are selling the same product as she is, Carrie White of Carrie's Beads, 162 St. George St., said Monday night.
White told St. Augustine City Commission that her business is 15 percent of what it was before the city allowed the Plaza to become an open-air flea market.
"One day there were five vendors. The next day there were 20," she said. "We pay high rent, insurance, taxes and have non-compete clauses. They don't. It's putting us out of business."
Several other merchants echoed her problem.
Kimmarie Bouza, also a merchant, said she saw vendors selling marijuana pipes called bongs, food and drinks ,and posting handwritten signs.
"Business owners can't even put (little signs) in front of their shops," Bouza said.
The commission voted 5-0 to pass on first reading an ordinance rescinding City Code 22-6, which regulates vending on the Plaza.
City Attorney Ron Brown said 22-6 is unenforceable because of "a federal injunction that it's unconstitutional as applied. (However) the effect on business is a criteria that the federal courts look at. We're going to eliminate this ordinance and get another one ready to go."
This one will be more focused and not allow specific products, such as jewelry, sunglasses, food, beverages, housewares, appliances, clothing, oils and incense, perfumes, stuffed animals and toys, with more items possibly included.
Mayor Joe Boles said the commission regretted the situation as much as the merchants.
"We've had our hands tied," he said. "We can't enforce it and the county court is not going to enforce it either."
Brown said his office will write a new ordinance ready so by the time of the second reading of the ordinance deleting 22-6, a new ordinance controlling sales on the Plaza will be read on second reading at the same time and go into effect immediately.
Gina Kabamba, whose parents have an African art shop on St. George Street, said cheap knockoffs of African masks and drums are being sold on the Plaza and her family's shop had no sales at all.
"That's not fair to my parents," she said. "People don't know the difference."
Lorraine Bender of Sanford Street said she counted 35 tables in the Plaza on Saturday.
"I called the state Department of Revenue (which collects sales tax) and I'm going to have these people checked," she said. "This shows disrespect for us as merchants. A friend on St. George Street sells silver jewelry but sold nothing in the last month because there are three tables of silver jewelry set up in the Plaza.
Mitchell Levy, a new businessman on King Street, said the vendors block sidewalks in the Plaza, don't pay taxes or obey city regulations.
"It's gotten out of hand," Levy said. "This (delay in regulation) is making things worse. I don't feel like the city is backing us."
White said that now is the merchants' busy season.
"It drops off in September and that lasts until March," she said. "We're being strangled."
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/081109/news_1839305.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 08/11/09
Twenty unlicensed, untaxed and unregulated vendors on the Plaza de la Constitution are selling the same product as she is, Carrie White of Carrie's Beads, 162 St. George St., said Monday night.
White told St. Augustine City Commission that her business is 15 percent of what it was before the city allowed the Plaza to become an open-air flea market.
"One day there were five vendors. The next day there were 20," she said. "We pay high rent, insurance, taxes and have non-compete clauses. They don't. It's putting us out of business."
Several other merchants echoed her problem.
Kimmarie Bouza, also a merchant, said she saw vendors selling marijuana pipes called bongs, food and drinks ,and posting handwritten signs.
"Business owners can't even put (little signs) in front of their shops," Bouza said.
The commission voted 5-0 to pass on first reading an ordinance rescinding City Code 22-6, which regulates vending on the Plaza.
City Attorney Ron Brown said 22-6 is unenforceable because of "a federal injunction that it's unconstitutional as applied. (However) the effect on business is a criteria that the federal courts look at. We're going to eliminate this ordinance and get another one ready to go."
This one will be more focused and not allow specific products, such as jewelry, sunglasses, food, beverages, housewares, appliances, clothing, oils and incense, perfumes, stuffed animals and toys, with more items possibly included.
Mayor Joe Boles said the commission regretted the situation as much as the merchants.
"We've had our hands tied," he said. "We can't enforce it and the county court is not going to enforce it either."
Brown said his office will write a new ordinance ready so by the time of the second reading of the ordinance deleting 22-6, a new ordinance controlling sales on the Plaza will be read on second reading at the same time and go into effect immediately.
Gina Kabamba, whose parents have an African art shop on St. George Street, said cheap knockoffs of African masks and drums are being sold on the Plaza and her family's shop had no sales at all.
"That's not fair to my parents," she said. "People don't know the difference."
Lorraine Bender of Sanford Street said she counted 35 tables in the Plaza on Saturday.
"I called the state Department of Revenue (which collects sales tax) and I'm going to have these people checked," she said. "This shows disrespect for us as merchants. A friend on St. George Street sells silver jewelry but sold nothing in the last month because there are three tables of silver jewelry set up in the Plaza.
Mitchell Levy, a new businessman on King Street, said the vendors block sidewalks in the Plaza, don't pay taxes or obey city regulations.
"It's gotten out of hand," Levy said. "This (delay in regulation) is making things worse. I don't feel like the city is backing us."
White said that now is the merchants' busy season.
"It drops off in September and that lasts until March," she said. "We're being strangled."
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/081109/news_1839305.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
The Tragedy of the St. Augustine Record
The St. Augustine Record is no longer printing in St. Augustine for the first time in more than 114 years. Outsourced to the Times-Union in Jacksonville.
See the Pollyanna-ish editorial (below), which raises more questions than it answers.
There's not one Newspaper Guild chapter in the entire state of Florida.
We need more free democratic trade unions to represent workers, including printers and journalists.
We need more worker-owned companies.
We need journalists who can investigate, instead of equivocate.
We need to save our democracy from the formidable forces of authoritarianism.
Starting with newspapers that tell the truth without fear or favor (like the New York Times).
So what became of the "behemoth Goss Urbanite" printing press?
Gone but not forgoten.
And what of the printers and mailroom workers?
No union contract. What kind of severance pay? Does Bill Morris even know their names?
The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind: Vote Democratic. Vote against the cartels (and the cartelists) who have stolen our jobs, pensions and futures for the short-term Politics of Greed.
Record press staff pros to the end
Publication Date: 08/08/09
Sunday night was special and sad as The St. Augustine Record closed out its printing press operation after 114-plus years in four buildings.
Presses of all sizes have produced The St. Augustine Record since its first edition as The Daily Herald on Oct. 21, 1894 from the office of Record founder Charles F. Hopkins in the vicinity of 18 Hypolita St.
For years, the company kept a hand-cranked press "just in case." At least two times in the Record's modern era on Cordova Street, it actually produced a half-sheet edition so The Record could keep its streak alive of continuous publication since 1894.
The first was in 1944, during the height of an unnamed September hurricane and again in October 1950 during a nor'easter and devastating downtown flood.
As the modern press prepared Sunday night for its last Record run, all the ghosts of pressmen and presses past were likely watching over the operation. It went like clockwork, business as usual.
Prepress made the plates from the pages of news and advertising. Each page moved on time to prepress from the newsroom. The plates made from the page negatives were attached to the press.
And then the moment came, the switch was thrown and the behemoth Goss Urbanite slowly turned the ribbon of paper. It became The Record somewhere in that process as it moved to the bottom of the press.
The press crew continued to pull papers intermittently from the stack to check them for any imperfections, including color balance and possible page plate slips that would cause the print to look slanted on the page. Nothing was out of order. The press gained speed and papers move faster to the stack.
The mailroom staff lined up the paper bundles from the press conveyer, stacked them on a pallet for transport to the nearby insert machine. Then the papers moved on another conveyer belt and out the door to waiting carriers.
The energy flowed. A few people snapped photos and many people shook hands; the only indications that this was a landmark night.
Outside around 12:30 a.m. Monday, carriers moved about as usual.
It was more like the first night the press ran in the new building in October 2001 than the last. The excitement and the feeling of accomplishment that always comes when the paper comes off the press hadn't changed.
The people who transformed the work of the newsroom and advertising department into the finished product were professional to the end. It was a job well done turned over to the circulation department on time.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/080809/opinions_080809_016.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
Sunday night was special and sad as The St. Augustine Record closed out its printing press operation after 114-plus years in four buildings.
Presses of all sizes have produced The St. Augustine Record since its first edition as The Daily Herald on Oct. 21, 1894 from the office of Record founder Charles F. Hopkins in the vicinity of 18 Hypolita St.
For years, the company kept a hand-cranked press "just in case." At least two times in the Record's modern era on Cordova Street, it actually produced a half-sheet edition so The Record could keep its streak alive of continuous publication since 1894.
The first was in 1944, during the height of an unnamed September hurricane and again in October 1950 during a nor'easter and devastating downtown flood.
As the modern press prepared Sunday night for its last Record run, all the ghosts of pressmen and presses past were likely watching over the operation. It went like clockwork, business as usual.
Prepress made the plates from the pages of news and advertising. Each page moved on time to prepress from the newsroom. The plates made from the page negatives were attached to the press.
And then the moment came, the switch was thrown and the behemoth Goss Urbanite slowly turned the ribbon of paper. It became The Record somewhere in that process as it moved to the bottom of the press.
The press crew continued to pull papers intermittently from the stack to check them for any imperfections, including color balance and possible page plate slips that would cause the print to look slanted on the page. Nothing was out of order. The press gained speed and papers move faster to the stack.
The mailroom staff lined up the paper bundles from the press conveyer, stacked them on a pallet for transport to the nearby insert machine. Then the papers moved on another conveyer belt and out the door to waiting carriers.
The energy flowed. A few people snapped photos and many people shook hands; the only indications that this was a landmark night.
Outside around 12:30 a.m. Monday, carriers moved about as usual.
It was more like the first night the press ran in the new building in October 2001 than the last. The excitement and the feeling of accomplishment that always comes when the paper comes off the press hadn't changed.
The people who transformed the work of the newsroom and advertising department into the finished product were professional to the end. It was a job well done turned over to the circulation department on time.
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/080809/opinions_080809_016.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
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