Healing Continues

The healing continues, as yesterday's St. Augustine City Commission meeting with the County Commission showed.

Commissioners are considering how best to provide sewer service to West Augustine. It will cost some $20 million. Both the City and County will incur "losses" in complying with the Fourteenth Amendment, which requires equal protection. he City staff suggests the County might take over utilities, since t has a higher bonding capacity and the ability to obtain HUD Commmunity Development Block (CDBG) grants to help people afford sewer connection costs.

History of racism: No sewer service was provided anywhere in West Augustine until 1998 (the year our City Manager, John Patrick Regan, P.E., became Utilities Director). Racsts in our City sharply questioned r. Regan then -- and have muted criticism now -- at the "costs." The costs of not having sewer service include death, disease and depressed property values. Failure of the ancien regime to provide equal services a was a flagrant violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Racism in our City is why most of West Augustine has no sewer service. To remedy that scourge of racistm, yesterday our St. Augustine City Commissioners voted to spend some $265,000 on the first next step -- sewer service for the intersection of Volusia and West King. The vote was unanimous.

But a few minutes earlier, Commissioner Donald W. Crichlow essentialy said he wanted to ask people if they wanted higher utility bills to pay for expanding sewer service to African-American homes. That's an unenlightened question, one inviting civil rights litigation for violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

As City Manager John Regan rightly responded to Commissioner Crichlow, West Augustine sewer service has been discussed at dozens of City meetings, and no one has ever objected to paying in our bills to bring sanitary sewers to the African-American community so long neglected by St. Augustine during the time of Jim Crow segregation, de facto and de jure.

With sewer service at that intersection, the likelihood increases of Florida Memorial University (formerly Floridal Normal School) returning to St. Augustine with a branch campus here on land it still owns. FMU moved to its campus in Miami Lakes in 1968, after being hounded by segregationists here. After the anti-segregation protests here in 1964, FMU was made to feel unwelcome, financially, physically and psychologically, in the worst tradition of the KKK's "Unwelcome Wagon."

West Augustine, once thriving with small businesses fueled by spending from the college, professors, students and staff, withered.

Meanwhile, our racist State of Florida Department of Transportation refused to locate an I-95 interchange to serve West King Street, further withering West Augustine. These were intentional acts of the racist power structure.

We look forward to Florida Memorial University coming back. We look forward to West Augustine coming back.

As Lyndon Johnson said, "We SHALL overcome."

Let the healing continue....

Not so fast on relocating two Anastasia Island Fire Stations

Yesterday's joint meeting of the St. Augustine City Commission and St. Johns County Commission included discussion of hte possibility of a joint fire staton, to be located on SR 312 on Anastasia Island. While we appreciate their saving money, response time would increase by two mnutes or more for thousands of residents living on Anastasia Island.

Commissioner Leanna Freeman, Donald Crichlow and Vice Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline are right to question the proposal.

Worse, it appears the proposal is motivated by the desire of St. Johns County to sell the exsting fire and rescue staton (located by the St. Augustine Beach Pier) to developer-speculator-conmen.

Worse still, the name of PIERRE THOMPSON, grandson of hte founder of the St. Augustine Record was menioned as a motivating factor, in noting that THOMPSON owns the entire south side of SR 312, and future growth and developments will occur there.

City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN, along with former City Attorney GEOFFREY DOBSON, were THOMPSON's lawyers for some thirty years. THOMPSON is most noted for throwing his weight around, and nearly escaping federal criminal charges involving his cutting down a bald eagle nest tree. After the Fish and Wildlife Service criminal investigators performed a criminal incvestigation, our lapdog Bush-era U.S. Attorney nearly covered it up. We reported on it in the Collective Press, resulting in a criminal information being filed, and THOMPSON BROTHERS REALTY pleading guilty, agreeing to pay one third of a million dollars and to provide sixteen (16) acres of land to the government. (In East Texas and elsewhere, THOMPSON would have been incracercarted for molestng a bald eagle).

City Attorney RONALD WAYNE BROWN should recuse himself from this and any other matter affecting THOMPSON's interests, to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

Firemen fight fires and provide life-saving to heart attack and accident victims.

Moving two firehouses away from the population to curry favor with developers is not in their job description.

I read the excellent critique by the union local representing our St. Augustine firemen: I am favoraby impressed. Every single one of their questions and concerns must be asked and answered in a public hearing (no time imits, please). Lives are at stake here.

Moving the fire staton to SR 312 is contary to the public interest. Thank you, Commissioners Freeman, Crichlow and Sikes-Kline for asking questions.

St. Augustine City Commission and St. Johns County Commmission to Hold "Joint" (Concurrent) Meeting

The first agenda distributed by our Nation's Oldest City had no public comment listed. Typo? That's been corrected.
The "joint" City-County Commission meeting commences at 9 AM at our City Hall and Lightner Museum, 75 King Street, on Monday, November 18, 2013.
Ask questions.
Make disclosures.
Expect democracy.
Work ceaselessly to establish the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore.
Decisions get made by those who show up.
Show up.
Be there.
And if you can't, watch on cable channel 3 or on streaming video on the Internet.
Aloha!

Ray Charles Postage Stamp Unveiling Update

Over on the local rigt-wing political machine's hate website masqueradng as "Historic City News" there was a press release from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, announcing an invitation only event on Monday with the U.S. Postal Service.
The event: USPS unveiling a postage stamp for Ray Charles, f/k/a Ray Charles Robinson, the African-American singer whom Frank Sinatra called "the only true genius" in American music.
Ray Charles spent eight years in St. Augustine as an FSDB student.
FSDB excluded our City from the event. FSDB didn't invite anyone with the City.
How exclusionary! That's Apartheid, FSDB-style.
FSDB administration bitterly resents our City government, and planned the event to take place during the City-County workshop on Monday morning, November 17, 2013 See story below.
So yesterday, I telephoned the Postmaster General's office and USPS Inspector General's Congressional Liaison, and spoke with the USPS Corporate Comunications Director for the South and Southeast. I explained to USPS our City's history of racism the advances we've made in recovering from it. I asked for an event to be open to everyone in our City (unlike FSDB's snooty, invitation-only event, announced only on the aforementioned hate site). USPS agreed. USPS will be in touch with St. Augustine, with an eye toward having a public event, with music by Ray Charles, performed by blind students, hopefully in January to coincide with the opening of the City's six month long Jounrey exhibit on our 450 years of African-American experience.
Thank you, USPS.
Thank you, USPS for seeing through FSDB and helping us continue the heeling.
Thank you for helping uncover the heels at FSDB, and their works and pomps.
As my mother would say, "Time wounds all heels."
Now: wasn't that was a sharp elbow FSDB aimed at our City, our residents, our leaders and our City staff? No one in our City government knew about the USPS event. None were invited. Maybe we need a concurrent meeting of the FSDB Board of Directors with the St. Augustine City Commission to discuss matters of mutual concern (and FSDB's being a bad neighbor).
We should all forgive FSDB administrators, whose lack of sensitivity is still noticeable, and still embarassing. Our residents and City leaders prevailed, FSDB did not get its eminent domain land-grabbing bill without being totally watered down. The result: our historic Nelmar Terrace and Fullerwood neighborhoods will never again be assailed.
Thus, FSDB invited USPS for an event and excluded the entire African-American community, all of our residents, and our City leaders.
How cool is that?
With a few phone calls, anything is possible in life. On January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy noticed there were no African-Americans in the Coast Guard contingnent at his Inaugural Parade.
None.
Zilch.
Nada.
JFK told Harris Wofford (later a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania) to do something. Harris Wofford picked up the telephone and the Coast Guard was desegregated. Over and done. He told his colleagues in the new President's office, "You can do anything with these telephones."
Quo vobis videtor? (That's Latin for "what dew yew reckon?")

IN HAEC VERBA: StAugustGreen Testimony to St. Johns County Legislative Delegation on St. Augustine National Histrocial Park and National Seashore Legislation

STATEMENT OF STAUGUSTGREEN(TM),
BEFORE THE ST. JOHNS COUNTY LEGISLATIVE DELEGATION ON:
ST. AUGUSTINE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK AND NATIONAL SEASHORE
NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Chairman Hutson, Senator Thrasher, Representative Renuart:

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

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

In 1939, the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore Act was introduced during the 76th Congress, supported by then-Mayor Walter Fraser, introduced by then-Representative Joseph Hendricks and then-Senators Charles Andrews and Claude Pepper to conserve this wonderfully unique place. That was 74 years ago. What exactly are we waiting for? St. Augustine deserves its rightful place. St. Augustine's story is our Nation's story. Diverse people lived, learned from each other and prospered here since 1565. Our Nation's oldest continually-occupied, European-founded City, St. Augustine has a rich history of cultural diversity – America's original melting pot since 1565. Many never learn this in schools, where British-centrism prevails. The story of the United States began in St. Augustine on September 8, 1565: the 800 colonizers included the first Hispanic-Americans, first African-Americans (freed and slave), first Catholics, first Jews and first women from Europe, along with many other firsts in what is now the United States. That was 42 years before Jamestown,Virginia and 55 years before Plymouth, Massachusetts. University of Florida History Professor Michael Gannon says, “When Jamestown was founded, St. Augustine was already up for urban renewal.”

Europe's bloody religious wars were fought here: Spanish, French and English forces fought for hegemony in St. Augustine Northeast Florida. Europeans killed Europeans here, over dogma and which empire would rule. Our Matanzas River (“slaughters”) is named for one September 1565 event, where 270 Frenchmen were put to the sword. No monument to their memories exists in Florida. Likewise, the “Columbian Exchange” began here, with Native American and Europeans first interacting, sharing and fighting for dominance. No proper interpretation or monument to this remarkable exchange currently exists.

St. Augustine is a very special place and deserves protection: it was America's first in so many ways: we had the first Catholic Mass and first Thanksgiving feast (both on September 8, 1565). St. Augustine had America's first town plan (1586), first school, first church, first weddings, first baptisms, first hospital, first forts, first public square, first public market, first paved streets, first park, first system of weights and measures, first cattle, first horses, first pigs, first government with written records, first army and navy, first recorded marriages (including African-Americans), first freed slave communities, first African-American soldiers/sailors, first African-American general and first government anti-Gay hate crime (on Governor's orders in 1566).

St. Augustine residents' courageous activism and litigation produced landmark Congressional and federal court Civil Rights and First Amendment victories (including the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a series of landmark 1963-71 federal court public accommodations and school desegregation orders, a series of orders vindicating the rights of artists and entertainers (buskers) in St. Augustine's historic area, and a 2005 court order for Rainbow flags on historic Bridge of Lions in honor of GLBT history, including the Governor's ordering the 1566 murder of a Gay French translator of the Guale Indian language). While the Spanish Inquisition was here to a small degree, Spanish governors in St. Augustine never burned a single “witch” (unlike Salem, Massachusetts counterparts). St. Augustine was a small garrison town that beat the odds, surviving continuously since 1565, when other European settlements were swiftly abandoned (including the 1607 British settlement of Jamestown).

The Underground Railroad began in St. Augustine in 1687. Under Spanish rule, St. Augustine grew into America's first shining bulwark of freedom – the first Underground Railroad ran south to St. Augustine, starting in 1687, as Spain granted freedom to any British slaves who would become Catholics and fight for Spain. Slave revolts resulted in several British colonies upon slaves hearing the news of freedom in St. Augustine, Florida. The British were furious, as their former slaves settled here in 1738 the first freed slave settlement in America, at Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mosé (Fort Mosé). The British attacked St. Augustine in 1740, besieging it for 27 days. Spanish-freed slaves and Spanish soldiers fought off British invaders.

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

St. Augustine survived genocide, wars, arson, slavery, and segregation – and is the Oldest European-founded City in America about to observe its 450th birthday. St. Augustine survived and outlasted slavery, genocide of Native Americans (the Timucua tribe ceased to exist), Jim Crow segregation, hurricanes and the British, who thrice burned St. Augustine to the ground (1586, 1668 and 1702) and twice besieged it (1702 and 1740). Continental America's oldest masonry fort – Castillo de San Marcos – was started in 1672 in response to British arson and completed in 1695. The Castillo survived two British sieges and cannonballs with its its unique porous coquina shell construction and artisans' nightly masonry work restoring sections blown away by day. Great Britain owned St. Augustine for twenty years under the two Treaties of Paris, with two peaceful transition to British and back to Spanish rule in 1763 and 1784. Likewise, St. Augustine survived the Civil War without a single shot – in 1861, an Army sergeant turned over the Castillo's keys (Fort Marion), obtaining a receipt from the Confederates. In 1862, Confederates left peaceably when the U.S. Navy (with U.S. Marines) were sighted offshore. The fort was used as a military prison until the Spanish-American War in 1898 – it was a prison for selected American Revolutionary War patriots during the British period, and then for selected Native Americans (Osceola and fellow Seminole warriors; Kiowa; Apaches, including members of Geronimo's band and several of his wives) under the U.S. Army. The U.S. Government's controversial system of Indian boarding schools began right here at the Castillo, and was expanded to dozens of other sites around America. These schools are rightly deserving of NPS interpretation beyond that which was traditionally available at the Castillo.

Slavery began in St. Augustine, Florida on September 8, 1565 – not in Virginia in 1607, as often misreported. Jim Crow segregation was ended by what happened here in 1964, through the courage of local residents and visiting supporters -- the “St. Augustine Movement.” This history deserves NPS interpretation.
In 1964, St. Augustine's 400th anniversary was marred by KKK segregationists, allied with local law enforcement: their fury at peaceful Civil Rights protesters helped President Johnson break the U.S. Senate filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.   The “St. Augustine Movement” was led by local African-American dentist Dr. Robert B. Hayling. Dr. Hayling brought Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jackie Robinson. Here. The “St. Augustine Movement” saw the largest arrest of rabbis in American history, the Monson Motel swim-ins, St. Augustine Beach ocean wade-ins, the beating of Rev. Andrew Young and the arrest of Dr. King and the mother of Massachusetts' Governor Endicott Peabody. This was all daily national news.

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

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

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

Next year, in 2014, America and St. Augustine will honor the 50th anniversary of our1964 Civil Rights Act. Would this be the first National Seashore with a Civil Rights component? Under Florida laws at the time, the Atlantic Ocean was segregated under Jim Crow segregation.  Protest wade-ins at St. Augustine Beach pier were international news.  Today, formerly segregated African-American beaches statewide are in need of protection, including Bethune-Volusia Beach (near New Smyrna Beach), Virginia Key (Miami) and Bunche Beach (near Fort Myers). DOI must appreciate the urgency of preserving this history, including potential NPS status and protection and possible sequential referral legislation denying flood insurance to anyone destroying their historic homes?

St. Augustine's Native American, Hispanic, Roman Catholic, Jewish, African-American and Civil Rights history deserves greater respect from DoI. As Admiral Hyman Rickover once said to President Jimmy Carter (then a recent Naval Academy graduate: “Why not the best?” Why not a public-private partnership to present St. Augustine's diverse history to the world? How about planning with Hispanic-Americans, Native Americans, African-Americans and other diverse groups with NPS for the 450th? .

A much better location for an NPS Visitor Center might be the abandoned “Sebastian Inner Harbor” project, where boat docks have already been built before the project was abandoned. This property is in foreclosure. Imagine a DOI-staffed public-private partnership – a National Civil Rights Museum – bordering on the San Sebastian River, site a currently bankrupt development, symbolizing “waters that run like justice” working waterfront, with shrimp boats (not unlike Tarpon Springs' sponge docks), with artists and entertainers (buskers) as in Key West's Mallory Square, with outdoor restaurants.

Currently, Native American, Hispanic, African-American and Civil Rights history is not given nearly enough attention in St. Augustine, either by NPS, or by anyone else.

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

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

The King and Queen of Spain are coming to St. Augustine in 2014. Now, more than ever, St. Augustine's key role in U.S. and world history deserves greater National Park Service attention.
St. Augustine's wonderful natural beauty likewise deserves National Park Service protection.

With all this history and beauty, St. Augustine currently has two relatively small National Park Service installations – Castillo de San Marco National Monument (20.5 acres) and Fort Matanzas National Monument (some 300 acres). We can do better for future generations. With wise gifts of state and local public lands and wise stewardship by NPS and local residents, we will create a St. Augustine National Seashore. We will help protect against beach erosion and flooding, protecting glorious wetlands and beaches and private property.

We will protect the winter calving (baby-rearing) grounds of the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale (some 300 survive), endangered turtles' nesting grounds, and habitats of bald eagles, beach mice, butterflies and other endangered and threatened wildlife for future generations to enjoy. We will rescue historic lands threatened by “Temple Destroyers” (in John Muir's words).

Wrecking balls have already destroyed some of our history, including a 3000-4000 year old Native American Indian archaeological site just south of St. Augustine (destroyed to build a strip malls and condominiums). Florida is already blessed with some 500,000 unsold condominiums. St. Augustine is a national treasure, which must not be destroyed by mindless speculation and endless high rises, like South Florida.

These lands must be protected and not neglected – state parks and forests, water management district land, and county beaches, including Anastasia State Park and the Guana-Tolomato-Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTM-NERR) – will be combined into a National Historical Park and National Seashore in two counties, one that will preserve at least 130,000 acres of beach and uplands, rescuing them from threats: closing or privatizing of our parks, e.g., with golf courses (Florida is already blessed with some 1200 golf courses, thank you, and some of those are failing financially). Every year since 2006, our St. Johns County Legislative Delegation has heard us, and talked about the St. Augustine National Historical Park and Seashore – our state legislators now know that we can save tens of millions of dollars by giving selected state lands to the National Park Service. Please see attached 2011 column from St. Augustine Underground (formerly published by Milwaukee Journal).

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

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

Our local economy is still in the ditch. People are still hurting. Stores and restaurants are vacant. Several popular chain and local restaurants have closed their doors forever. Tourism is the engine of our economy. Environmental and historic tourists stay twice as long and spend twice as much, and they teach future generations of Americans to appreciate nature and understand our history. St. Augustine is rated as one of the best places to live, with the best schools, one of the best places to to retire, one of the most cultured places in Florida (Women's Day), hosts one of the ten best Christmas light displays in the world (National Geographic), and is one of 20 places in the world to see in 2013 (National Geographic).

With National Park Service branding, our City can recover from the Great Recession, just as recovered in past centuries, after hurricanes, British sieges, cannonballs and city-wide arson.
U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ronald Chairman Wyden said February 19, 2013 at Hanford, Washington's “B” Reactor, “there is an old saying that those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it.... My own view is that history isn't always ideal .... it is important to look deep into the well of history to get a clearer understanding of what lies ahead." Sen. Wyden said Hanford and other Manhattan Project sites “must be preserved so future generations understand what went on here.” He said last year was the first in decades Congress hadn't protected our “special places.”

It is time to discuss the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. Our draft legislation was called “perfect” by one of our former City Commissioners, who worked at the CEQ and DoI under Presidents Clinton and Bush. This was after a NPS attorney in 2009 refused to read our draft, while inaccurately writing that this would be criminal, misciting 18 U.S.C. 1913.

In 2011, the DoI Solicitor's office incorrectly took the position that the 450th Commission is an “operating committee,” which is not true. The Commission is not operating anything. A junior DoI attorney wrote the letter at the behest of Deanna Archuletta, then a DoI political appointee, who was attempting to justify her desire for secrecy with a slogan. Since that time, DoI has been violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) by having the 450th Commission conduct h conference calls and a secret meeting in South Florida. Enough secrecy. Enough delay. Government openness and accountability are essential in our democracy, and DoI must appreciate that fact.

Please ask DOI to agree to full FACA compliance for the 450th Commission, including public meetings announced in advance with meaningful public participation and court reporter transcription (as took place at the first and only public 450th Commission meeting in St. Augustine on July 18, 2011). During that meeting, I requested that the Commission hear a presentation on the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. The audience applauded. The presentation has not yet been scheduled. The 450th Commission needs to get moving. Again, what are we waiting for?

From now on, DoI staff must open their hearts to our community, end their FACA violations and start helping St. Augustine plan for 2014 and 2015 and beyond – public participation is essential, as one of our former mayors has urged. Please ask Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell about public participation, and revive the moribund federal 450th Commission.

CONCLUSION

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

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

StAugustGreenTM respectfully urges you to support St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. www.staugustgreen.com By enacting the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore legislation, we will conserve, preserve and protect nature, property and history, right wrongs, promote healing and teach tolerance.  Our work is bipartisan, and will create another “public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” as Congress wrote in establishing Yellowstone National Park on March 1, 1872 – 131 years ago.

Will you please support “America's Best Idea” – a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore – the best “legacy project” for the 500th anniversary of Spanish Florida (2013), 450th anniversary of St. Augustine (2015) and 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (2014)?What can you do? Floridians are prepared to offer up some of our current state parks, forests and water management district lands for the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore
“Why not the best?” Let us invest in “America's Best Idea.”
Thank you.

Respectfully submitted,
ED SLAVIN
StAugustGreenTM.
www.staugustgreen.com
PO. Box 3084, St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
EASlavin@aol.com

One Attachment:(St. Augustine Underground column, formerly published by Milwaukee Journal).

The Unwelcome Wagon, I: U.S. Postal Sevice Unveils Ray Charles Stamp in Tiny Hall on Closed Campus

Blind musician Ray Charles Robinson, a/k/a "Ray Charles," went to school in St. Augustine, at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, from 1937-1945. Ray Charles learned to play music here in St. Augustine, Florida.

Ray Charles is getting a United States postage stamp. It will be unveiled Monday, November 18, 2013, at the closed, gated, security-patrolled campus of the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, by invitation only, in a tiny hall. You will have to watch it all on streaming video, unless you are invited.

Billy Joel said Ray Charles was "more important than Elvis Presley." Ray Charles helped to desegregate the music industry. Frank Sinatra said Ray Charles was "the only true genius in show business." At Monday's stamp unveiling, blind student musicians in the acclaimed FSDB group called "Outta Sight" will perform Ray Charles' music, including "Georgia on my mind," "Hit the road Jack" and Charles' arrangement of "America the beautiful," before a nearly all-white invited audience.

Pitiful. Embarassing. What a travesty

Among the uninvited are local African-American leaders and average citizens, who were welcomed at an April 3, 2013 postage stamp unveiling for the 500th anniversary of Spanish Florida. Why?

Ask African-American U.S. Representative Corinne Brown (D-Jacksonville), or Flagler College Chancellor and former FSDB Chair William L. Proctor(our former Republican State Representative), who are among those who are invited. The rest can watch on streaming video. On the Internet. In front of your computer. How heart-warming.

Unable to attend the 10 AM unveiling will be five (5) St. Augustine City Commissioners and five (5) St. Johns County Commissioners. Why? They will be, at the precise hour of the unveiling, working on the people's business at a joint city-county workshop being held in the St. Augustine City Commission chambers, 75 King Street.

This is lousy advance work on the part of the U.S. Postal Service. Utterly inept and inane. Bigoted, eltist and wrong.

The late Attorney General and U.S. Senator Robert Francis Kennedy would sometimes ask his best advance man, Jerry Bruno, in the face of inept scheduling, "Who advanced this trip, Bruno?" I have called the Congressional affairs officer of the Inspector General, U.S. Postal Service, and asked essentially that question.

Robert Kennedy would often say to his staff, whenever he screwed up: "Don't tell me what I should have done, tell me what I should do NOW."

TO USPS: USPS must NOW schedule a second Ray Charles postage stamp unveiling here in St. Augustine, make it a public event, hold it at Flagler College Auditorium, if available, and do it on the afternoon of Monday November 18, 2013. Otherwise, a Civil Rights complaint may be filed with the U.S. Postal Service and Florida Human Relations Commission.

As you can see, the Apartheid-style unveiling of the Ray Charles postage stamp here in St. Augustinne is a Public Relations Disaster, a possible civil rights violation, and a slap in the face and a heavy-handed insult to the people and public officials of St. Augustine, Florida and St. Johns County.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once called St. Augustine "the most lawless city in America." We're recovering from that. We're trying to heal ancient wounds here. We don't need bad PR from the Postal Service to rub salt in those wounds, do we?

Postscript: Spoke to the USPS Congressional Affairs officer, who referred me to the Postmaster General's office -- working to have a second stamp unveiling Monday where our citizens and City and County Commissioners can attend.

The Unwelcome Wagon, II: St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners, Visitory and Convention Bureau (VCB) and Tourist Development Council (TDC)

The non-bid contract of the St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau, Inc. (VCB) with St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners SJC BCC) expired September 30, 2013. Good riddance. The Contract must be re-bid.

Meanwhile, bigoted, provincial VCB is still in business, and apparently still purporting to "represent" St. Johns County. It and its putative "partner," the St. Johns County Tourist Development Council (TDC), adamantly refuse to provide a list of GLBT-friendly accomodations to tourists (or me). There is no friendliness to GLBT people expressed by our Board of County Commissioners, which has no nondiscrimination policy.

Meanwhile, outside of our bigoted BCC, the following local government entities have non-discrimination policies:

1. Anastasia Mosquito Control District of St. Johns County (employment).
2. Sheriff David Shoar (employment)
3. State's Attorney Ralph Joseph Larizza (employment)
4. City of St. Augustine Beach (employment and housing)
5. City of St. Augustine (housing)
6. St. Johns County Schools (harassment, bullying and civility)

Meanwhile, the following entities are considering changes:
7. Town of Hastings
8. Supervisor of Elections
9. Tax Collector

On Monday, November 18th, the St. Johns County Commission will hold a joint workship, with public comment, with the St. Augustine City Commission. Ask questions. Demand answers. Ask County Commissioners why we're not advancing GLBT tourism. Bigotry is bad for business. Does the Ku Klux Klan still run St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners? Or do they need spinal and testicular implants to overcome their strange romance with the Tea Party and KKK?

Notably, VCB's inept tourism marketing is not doing enough to recruit Hispanic, African-American, Civil Rights, Historic, Environmental, Youth and GLBT tourists.

It's our money.

Let's cross-examine the bigoted burghers who won't protect GLBT rights and show ineptitude and decrepitude in tourism marketing, preferring to waste money on advertising in Reader's Digest and Better Homes and Garden, and eschewing advertisements in Miami, in African-American and GLBT publications.

St. Augustine is a cool hip place, which one would never figure out reading the dull-as-dishwater tourism brochures from the all-white VCB and TDC, which have no civil rights and antitrust compliance policies and produce tourist brochers unadorned by Rainbow flags, African-American history, Native Americans and any acknowledgement that this is the place where the first Hispanics, Catholics, Africans, Jews and families from Europe founded the first colony.

Why? It appears that the legacy of bigotry -- being extirpated in St. Augustine -- lives on in St. Johns County.

Veterans Day

On Veterans Day, we honor veterans, including my late father. My father volunteered the Army the day after Pearl Harbor, joining the 82nd Airborne Division, making three combat jumps, the last in Normandy at 1 AM on D-Day. He was wounded in the knee with Nazi shrapnel, hospitalized, with shrpnel in his knee until he died.

Today on Veterans' Day we remember our veterans' sacrifices, hoping and praying they were not in vain.

My dad never believed the Warren Commission report on the JFK murder. In 1964, he asked the eight top marksmen in the 82nd if they could have made the shot Oswald allegedly made -- every one of them said no. Dad read all of the books he could on the JFK murder, and often spoke on radio about the fact that there had to have been a conspiracy, it being impossible for one man to have fired those bullets.

Today, only a quarter of Americans believe the Warren Commission report, and some 75% agree with my dad that there was a conspiracy to murder JFK.

To honor my dad,who was relentless in pursuit of truth, the South Jersey Chapter of the 82nd Airborne Divn. Assn. is named for my dad, the Edward A. Slavin Chapter.

Today, documents on the JFK murder are still being held, while our government spies on us in violation of our Fourteenth Amendment rights. Enough.

In the words of Senator Albert Gore, Sr. on Election Night 1970, "The truth shall rise again."

75 Years After Kristallnacht

In Nazi Germany, 75 years ago tonight, the Nazis aimed coordinated attacks at Jewish synagogues, schools, homes and businesses, setting fires and breaking glass and killing and rounding up people to be imprisoned. No fire trucks came -- this Kristallnacht was an instrument of national policy. The world said little. Millions died as a result.

In his book, "Earth in the Balance," Al Gore in 1992 compared the world's silence in the face of environmental problems to both a dysfunctional family and Kristallnacht, quoting Sir Winston Spencer Churchill about entering a "period of consequences."

We're fixin' to enter a "period of consquences."

Tonight, we contemplate a world in which too many good people still do little to nothing in the face of oppression, where good people are afraid to speak out against evil, where they fear "I will get in trouble." Such is the root of madnnes, and oppression. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is ---fear itself."

We must do better, we can do better nad we will do better.

Avoiding Conflicts of Interest in the City of St. Augustine Beach, Florida

City of St. Augustine Beach City Commissioners need to learn from their sister ciCity about avoiding conflicts of interests. Where there's a conflict of interest or an appearance of imropriety, they need to recuse themselves from voting or speaking. Some of them understand -- Commissioner Andrea Samuels recused herself on an a request for $5000 for the A1A Scenic Highway nonprofit (her husband is board chair).

Some of them don't get it though.


On Monday, November 4, 2013, DOUGLAS BURNETT, the City of St. Augustine Beach Ciy Attorney, sat silently while two (2) of five (5) City Commissioners engaged in a colloquy about a proposed alcohol control ordinance affecting their businesses. BRUD HELHOSKI and Vice Mayor RICHARD O'BRIEN are directly affected. HELHOSKI owns Jacks's Barbeque and O'BRIEN et ux own motels.

On final passage next month, neither HELHOSKI nor O'BRIEN should vote.
The City Attorney (a developer lawyer and son of the former Commanding General of the Florida National Guard) needs to speak out and tell them to leave the dais when discussing an ordinance that affects their own pecuniary interests.

Never again!

By he way, the City Manager of St. Augustine Beach, Max Royle, was asleep at Monday's meeting. He often dozes off.

This is symbolic of St. Augustine Beach's management often being "asleep at the switch" too often -- gulled, cullied and diddled ty St. Johns County, by developers, and by any schlemiel or schemer who comes along, it seems at times,

We can do better, we must do better and we will do better.

St. Augustine City Commissioners Wise to Reject Bad Advice from Flagler Hospital President JOSEPH GORDY re: Sunshine Law Compliance on Our Nation's Oldest City's "Visioning" Process

St. Augustine City Commissioners held a construtive workshop Monday, November 4 concerning the "visioning" process for the future of St. Augustine. Former Mayor Greg Baker led off by describing the trip to Charleston, S.C. and the process followed in 1995. Mayor Baker and Flagler College President William Abare offered their wisdom about planning and the fture of our City. Four local residents spoke (including me, invoking the wisdom of former Mayor Walter Fraser, two U.S. Senators and our then-Congressman, who introduced legislation for a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore in 1939 -- legislation supported by Mrs. Maurine Boles, our Mayor's mother, which Sheriff David Shoar in 2011 rightly called a "no-brainer.") See www.staugustgreen.com

The only discordant note was from FLAGLER HOSPITAL CEO & President JOSEPH GORDY, who called Sunshine law compliance "stultifying," and advised against it, while saying that in 1995 St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce trained "facilitators" were trained to "shut down" people who spoke at visioning meetings. How gauche. What errant nonsense.

"We the People" -- and our Commmissioners, City Manager and City staff -- all reject JOSEPH GORDY's unwise advice. Our Mayor, Commissioners and City Attorney all agree: this process will comply with Article I, Section 24 of our Florida Constitution, adopted by 83% of Florida voters in November 1992 (3.8 million voted in favor). There are no votes at the table in 2013 for GORDY's backward views, which are antithetical to democracy.

Mossback JOSEPH GORDY's views are a throwback to the "bad 'ole days." Dr. King called St. Augustine the "most lawless" city in America in 1964. In the words of President Lyndon Johnson to a Joint Session of Congress after Selma, "We SHALL overcome!"

JOSEPH GORDY's smarmy, snobby, snooty elitism -- preferring a Chamber of Commerce driven process -- reminds me of Florida Governor RICHARD SCOTT or President RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON.

In the words of Colorado U.S. Senator Gary Warren Hart's 1974 campaign ad, "They've had their turn -- now it's our turn."

64-32 GLBT Rights Wins in United States Senate

An historic day for America. Three cheers for the 64 Senators who voted for equality. God forgive Mario Rubio and the 31 other Senators who voted for bigotry (Rubio is set to speak to an anti-Gay group in Orlando later this month).

Thanks to all 54 Democrats and to 10 Republicans in the Senate, GBLT rights in employment could soon be the law of the land. Let's hope that Speaker of the House John Boehner does not keep it from coming to a vote, as he has threatened.

Enactment of ENDA would mean that 29 states (including Florida) that now allow employment discrimnation would see it ended (at least for employers of 15 or more employees).

I am proud that the City of St. Augustine Beach, Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission of St. Johns County and Sheriff David Shoar all ban sexual orientation discrimination in employment.

I am proud that both the City of St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach ban anti-Gay discrimination in housing (which City Manager John Regan says helped persuade Grammy-winning Mumford & Sons to play here, showing the way to a new day of diversity). Since John Regan became City Manzger, St. Augustine is no longer what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called it -- the "most lawless" city in America -- and we thank him.

But St. Johns County, outside the Sheriff's office, has no GLBT anti-discrimination policies yet.

In 2008, then-Chairman THOMAS G. MANUEL and the County Commission unamimously voted (twice) to recommend voters approve a Charter, with an anti-discrimnation provision (10.06) that intentionally left out sexual orientation discrimination. Before they voted, I presented them with five pages of strengthening amendments, including adding "sexual orientation" into the non-discrimination policy. There was not even a mention, let alone a motion, from these five pachyderms to protect GLBT rights in their starter Charter. How insulting.

Thus, we defeated that Charter twice, once on the primary ballot and once on the general election ballot.
The lack of GLBT protections was one of the reasons I spoke out against the Charter, which was not a Charter for limited government, and thus not in the spirit of James Madison and our American founders.

Last year, the City of Jacksonville City Council infamously voted in favor of anti-Gay discrimination, with Mayor Alvin Brown (a putative Democrat and an African-American) refusing to lift a finger, make a telephone call or lobby his City Council to support GLBT rights, indulging KKK prejudices with his inculpatory silence. (You have the right to remain silent, Mayor Brown, but we wish you wouldn't: what deals did you make to sell out "our Gay brothers and sisters," as President Obama referred to us in his Second Inaugural Address?)

Yesterday, ENDA passed the Senate, overcoming a filibuster, with cloture invoked and final passage voted by 64-32. We remember the words of President George Herbert Walker Bush in signing the ADA: "Let the shameful walls of discrimination come down." (Even Bush matured: he once voted against the Fair Housing Act as a member of the House of Representatives).

Today, we pray for St. Johns County leaders: despite seven unnanimous 5-0 votes by eleven (11) City Commissioners in both the City of St. Augustine and the City of St. Augustine Beach, St. Johns County has not yet legislated against anti-Gay discrimination.

Worse, the St. Johns County Tourist Development Council (and the Visitor and Convention Bureau and its contractors) have for years now shown hostility toward GLBT people, including:
(a) telling a friend in Texas that he should "go elsewhere" on vacation; and
(b) still refusing to compile or distribute a list of Gay-friendly lodgings, even though there is a growing number of them here in St. Augusine and St. Johns County.

The message of yesterday's United States Senate vote - strongly supported by Fortune 500 companies -- is that bigotry is bad for business. But as JFK said during the Cuban Missile Crisis, "There's always some poor SOB who doesn't get the word."

ENDA was first proposed in 1984 by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, my first boss (1974-76) when I was a Georgetown undergraduate. Before he died, EMK passed the torch to Senator Jeff Merkley, who worked to bring about yesterday's U.S. Senate victory.

Thanks to everyone involved for making this possible.

Progress: S. 815, Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013

The United States Senate Democratc Cloakroom floor information recording reports that S. 815, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013, is likely to be voted upon tomorrow in an historic Senate roll call vote at 1:45 PM.

ENDA would forbid discrimination against GLBT people in employment, but not housing, public accomodations or education. That's progress, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

Yet blinkered Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner (R-Ohio) has already announced he won't allow a vote. That's crass, crude and undemocratic, running the People's House like a dictatorship.

Meanwhile, closer to home, our City of St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach both easily banned housing discrimination, both unanimously, during the past eleven months. Yet ENDA does not even cover housing, public accomodations or education, only employment. And why not?

The problem lies with our timid, timorous, tendentious Democratic friends in Congress: they too often "make their deals on the front end," instead of proposing synoptic legislation -- settling in advance for "half a loaf," or less, instead of the whole "enchilada." They need spinal and testicular implants. They need more adviserswho are seasoned legal scholars and litigators, instead of dull apparatchik arachnids fresh out of law schools, corporate law firms (or turkey farms), lugubrious goobers who don't know peaturkey about a durn thing.

When GLBT people buy or rent real estate, stay at a motel, dine in a restaurant or apply to a graduate program, should it be legal under federal law to discrimination against us? Nope.

But, for federal purposes, the Civil Rights housing and public accommodations victories of 1968 and 1964, respectivey, are somehow deemed "a bridge too far."

Some day we'll elect more courageous leaders, but for now, tomorrow's victory will be sweet enough for now. Meanwhile, we await St. Johns County's Tourist Development Council answering our request to provide lists of GLBT-friendly accomodations for our visitors, and stop violating our Fair Housing ordinances in the cities of S. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach. What do y'all reckon? (This reckon's for you).

Progress 101 (Preserving and Protecting St. Augustine, Florida)

I fell in love with St. Augustine, Florida in August 1992, visiting here on the way to and from South Florida after the trial of Varnadore v. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, discussed in an eloquent New York Times obituary back in August.

We moved here on November 5, 1999 -- fourteen (14) years ago yesterday.

During that time (25% of my life), there has been a great deal of progress here in St. Augustine, our Nation's Oldest City -- progress on Environmental Justice, Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, Economic Development and Diversity -- progress documented on this blog since 2006. As I told our City Commissioners at Monday's visioning workshop, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said this was the "most lawless" city in America -- that reality has changed before our eyes, particularly since 2010, when John Patrick Regan, P.E. became our City Manager.

We love this town, and are proud to be a part of preserving and protecting it.

To paraphrase the words of United States Senator Daniel Webster before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dartmouth College Case, "It's a small [town], but there are those who love it." We commemorate our 450th annversary in 2015, and the 50th anniversary of our 1964 Civil Rights Act next year.

We look forward to Congress and the President adopting a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, to preserve and protect what we love, forever. www.staugustgreen.com

From the Mayor's mother (Mrs. Maurine Boles) to Ambassador Andrew Young to St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar (who called it a "no brainer" back in 2011), virtually everyone who appreciates our nature and beauty wants to make it happen. The idea was first proposed by Mayor Walter Fraser in 1939, supported by both of Florida's U.S. Senators and our then-Congressman -- nearly 75 years ago.

Yes we can!

Progress 102 (Preserving and Protecting Parental Rights to Opt-Out of Military Recruiter Contact With St. Johns County Secondary School Students)

I had a very constructive discussion earlier today with St. Johns County School Board attorney Frank Upchurch, et al. today concerning pending document records requests and my request to send to parents military recruiting opt-out forms, as contemplated in 2005 discussions with Grandmothers for Peace.
As a result, I shall wait for a few days before sending a formal, signed complaint to the Department of Education.

U.S. Department of Education Will Investigate St. Johns County Schools

I spoke with the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. today, which will be investigating St. Johns County Schools and whether it has failed to give adequate notice students personal information is being shared with military recruiters. SJC School Board has apparently been breaching the promise that Superintendnet Dr. JOSEPH JOYNER made to the late Peg McIntire, the late Robin Nadeau, and Grandmothers for Peace, and which he affirmed to me by telephone at the time. See below.

Interestingly, yesterday's St. Augustine Record carried letter from Eric West, St. Johns County Republican Assembly Chair and Tea Party faction leader, opposing Common Core Standards (supported by our School Board, Superintendent and former Governors). Eric West's letter states in pertinent part, inter alia, "we oppose the collection of student data and the sharing of specific student data without parental consent or knowledge."

In fact, it strongly appears that "sharing of specific student data without parental consent or knowledge" is exactly what St. Johns County School Board has done, sharing students' personal information with military recruiters while hiding the opt-out form on page 59 of the Student Conduct Handbook -- never sending forms home (as was done when President Obama spoke to school children).

Thus, we look forward to Eric West, the St. Johns County Republican Assembly and the Tea Party supporting the request for investigation of St. Johns County Schools.

U.S. Department of Education investigators will communicate with Joyner. They need to take sworn depositions under oath. Our U.S. Department of Education will see that no further promiscuous privacy violations occur by the St. Johns County School Board. All St. Johns County School parents must be advised annually, in a separate mailing, that they have the right to "opt-out" of their childrens' personal information being handed over to the Defense Department (formerly the War Department), pursuant to a 2002 law.

What do you reckon?

CHARACTER COUNTS: St. Johns County School Superintendent Dr. JOSEPH JOYNER, Ed.D. Has Some Explaining to Do About his Breach of Promise to Grandmothers for Peace on Military Recruiting Opt-Out Forms

"Character counts!" is the motto of the St. Johns County School Board.

Buried at the back ot the St. Johns County Student Conduct Handbook, at page 59, is a vague notice -- either insufficent as a matter of law or the minimum legally possible -- that parents may "opt out" of giving children's personal information to the military (and military recruiters contacting their children). Journalists have documented military recruiters under heavy-handed pressure from the Defense Department, targetting at-risk students, promising them anything to give a life, an arm or a legal for foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Parents have a legal right to spare their children's personal information being shared with the Defense Department (formerly known as the "War Department").

Thus, in 2005, St. Johns County School Superintendent Dr. JOSPEH JOYNER, Ed.D., promised Grandmothers for Penace some seven years ago to send home opt out forms each year, which is his legal duty. Dr. JOSEPH JOYNER has hidden them well -- Page 59, at the back of the book!

"Character Counts!"

When Peg McIntire, Laura Braly, and Anne Galloway from People for Peace and Justice and Grandmothers for Peace brought this issue to the attention of our School Board in 2005, School Board member Tommy Allen did not want to comply, treating the Grandmothers for Peace ladies disdainfully and disrespectfully. The St. Augustine Record quoted Allen stating, "Without a strong standing mlitary, our nation cannot survive.... We need a strong force to recruit the military. I can't bite my tongue always."

"Character Counts!"

Consistent with Allen's views, our St. Johns County School Board is hiding the military recruiting "opt out" form on page 59 of the Student Handbook and does not explain it articulately, as it does every other policy. That's apparently why recent graduates and parents have told me they have NEVER seen the form and did not know of their rights.

"Character Counts!"

The same St. Johns County School Board that buried the military recruiting "opt out" form in 2005 then ordered 30,000 copies of a biogted "opt out" form in 2009 (six boxes of copy paper and lots of toner) to be sent home to parents.

It's our money.

It happened in America, back in September 2009 when President Barack Obama was scheduled to speak to elementary and secondary school students about staying in school. The School Board also fomented junk robotic phone calls lobbying parents (and anyone with a land line telephone) for "opt out" signatures, misstating facts with flyspecking nitpicking, criticizing the lack of advance materials, doing so in the voice of St. Johns County School principals, one of whom said that the Secretary of Education's name was "Anne Duncan." (It's Arne, and he is the former Chicago School Superindent).

"Character Counts!"

This bigots' "opt-out" scheme was not to protect students' personal information, but to allow bigots -- in what former County Commission Chairman Ben Eich called "one of the last bastions of the Ku Klux Klan" --- to preven their children from hearing our first African-American President speak about the need to study and stay in school. (President George W. Bush gave such a speech without such partisan attacks).

Why did St. Johns County's Republican-dominated School Board commit this hate crime, with 30,000 pages of "opt-out" forms sent home? THey are other-directed rightist knee-jerks. Then-Republican Party of Florida Chair JAMES GREER denounced President Barack Obama's stay-in-school speech before it was delivered, saying it was to "indoctrinate socialism." Again, President Bush spoke to students without trouble. But St. Johns County's robotic School Board dutifully sent out not only "opt out" forms but robotic phone calls!

"Character Counts!"

By the way, the man who was responsible for the "opt out" forms, then-Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) Chair JAMES GREER was sentenced to prison in March 2013 to eighteen (18) months in a Florida prison and one year of probation for stealing some $125,000 from the Republican Party of Florida -- four counts of theft and one of money laundering involving VICTORY STRATEGIES LLC, the shell company GREER established to steal from RPOF. GREER was a former Tallahassee lobbyists for bars and restaurants, who advised businesses on regulatory compliance. In sentencing JAMES GREER to prison, Orlando Circuit Judge Marc Lubet ruled that GREER "egregiously violated a position of trust." http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-03-27/news/os-jim-greer-sentence-20130327_1_victory-strategies-llc-defense-attorney-damon-chase-jim-greer

JAMES GREER,whose family lives in his Oveido mansion while he serves his prison term, was part of the inner circle of former Republican Governor CHARLES CRIST, now running for Governor as a Democrat. CRIST was scheduled to be a witness at trial. At the time of sentencing on September 27, 2012, GREER's lawyer bragged he would be "out by next summer," refusing to disclose to reporters who paid GREER's fine and who was employing GREER's previously stay-at-home wife while he serves his prison sentence for theft and money-laundering. Sounds like "hush money."

"Character Counts!"

So make no mistake -- St. Johns County Schools:
(a) followed the advice of a now-convicted thief -- corrupt Republican Party of Florida Chair JAMES GREER -- in requiring "opt out" forms for President Obama's September 2009 speech; BUT
(b) won't provide documents on the etiology of its burying the military recruiting "opt out" form on page 59 of its Student Conduct Handbook.

"Character Counts!"

Again, "Character Counts" is the motto of St. Johns County Schools. School Superintendent JOSEPH JOYNER, Ph.D. made a solemn personal promise to Grandmothers for Peace and my late friends and mentors Peg McIntire and Robin Nadeau. JOYNER promised to send home military recruiting "opt out" forms.

St. Johns County School Superintendent JOSEPH JOYNER must keep his promise to Grandmothers for Peace, Peg McIntire and Robin Nadeau -- which is NOT kept by his burying a vaguely worded form on page 59 of the Student Conduct Handbook.

I wrote Dr. JOSEPH JOYNER, Ed.D., some 29 days ago about his promise. He passed it off to another Ph.D., Assistant School Superintendent PAUL ABBATINOZZI, who wrote me a snooty E-mail about page 59. Assistant School Superintendent ABBATINOZZI evidently doesn't know enough manners to thank Open Records requesters and respond to their requests, or to use a proper salutation (no "Dear" here).

I also spoke with a School Board member, who promised to look into the matter, but has not yet called back. He is out of the office today.

To be continued.....

ST. JOHNS COUNTY TOURIST DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (TDC) CHAIR WILLIAM HUGHES, MEMBER FRED COZBY, REAPPOINTED WITHOUT CONSIDERING ANY OTHER APPLICANTS

Controversial St. Johns County Tourist Development Council Chairman WILLIAM HUGHES, Manager of the Players Championship Golf Course at Sawgrass (and TDC member Fred Cozby, Manager of the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club) were both possibly reappointed to four year terms without any other candidates being considered.
I asked our County for all documents on the reappointment, and received only two E-mails and applications from these two men.
The response was unadorned by any evidence of "advertisement or solictation" of others to apply.
This may violate SJC BCC Rule 2.202C, which requires enough time for "advetisment and solitication of applications."
It may also violate putative TDC "policies" that are listed on TDC's website, stating that "members may serve only one four-year term" but "in the event the member is appointed chair, the member may serve up to six years."
That TDC website also suggests the etiology of the non-competitive reappointment (possibly illegal) of Messrs HUGHES and Cozby: it states that invitations are to be sent to "local tourism industry groups."
That's not exacty Sunshine public notice of a vacancy, is it?
We call that corporativism, and Chairman HUGHES' reappointment (and Mr. Cozby's) may not only violate BCC rules, it may be illegal and unconstitutional, in violation of the Delegation Doctrine.
That's the cozy way that business is done in St. Johns County.
What do you reckon?
I have written the County Attorney and County Administrator to clarify the situation.
To be continued.....

Accuracy of University of Florida "First Colony" Could Be Improved -- IN HAEC VERBA: Letter to UF President Bernard Machen re: Three (3) Inaccuracies in "First Colony" Exhibit

Dear President Machen:
Three things grabbed my attention at the "First Colony" exhibit the University of Florida has at Government House. It is a good exhibit, but it appears they're airbrushing history, contrary to the genius of a free people, the scholarly tradition of UF, and the promise of University of Florida Emeritus History Professor Dr. Michael Gannon that accuracy would be the mallmark of our 450th commemoration:
1. No mention of the first anti-Gay hate crime in North America -- the 1566 garroting murder of the French Gay translator of the Guale Indian language on orders of Floida's First Governor, Adelantado Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the Spanish Admiral who founded St. Augustine on Sepember 8, 1565, subject to a contract that gave him 2% of the proceeds. United States District Chief Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr. ordered June 7, 2005 that the City of St. Augustine must fly Rainbow flags on our Bridge of Lions from June 8-13, 2005 in honor of Gay Pride, forbidding viewpoint discrimination (all others were allowed to fly their flags, including the Broward Yacht Company and Flagler College, which flew its flags 59 days during 2004-2005 with no tie to history, Judge Adams said, other than one old building). The Rainbow flags decision was grounded in the 11,000 year GLBT history, including the 1566 murder, which is res judicata without possibility of appeal, and which is established by Menendez' brother-in-law, who wrote it down (as in "kill him" because he is a "Sodomite and a Lutheran," reportedly the partner of the the Guale Indian cacique's son). Let's not leave out GLBT history in "First Colony," UF.
2. Wrong date: the display uses the date of September 7, 1565. Wrong. That was the date an advance team explored. The 800 settlers arrived, and the First Thanksgiving was here, on September 8, 1565, with America's first Hispanics, first Catholics, first Jews, first Africans having the First Thankgsgiving with Native Americans -- America's original Melting Pot right here in Rainbow City, USA. Let's get the dates right in "First Colony," UF.
3. Menorcans who walked here from New Smyrna in 1777 were slaves by contract, not mere "refugees." Calling the Menorcans refugees, "First Colony" does not clarify what they were fleeing. Our Menorcan neighbors' ancestors were escaping -- voting with their feet -- from oppressive British indentured servitude, or slavery by contract. Indentured servitude was abolished by our Constitution's Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, along with chattel slavery. Our City of St. Augustine makes this same "mistake" about the Menorcans down on St. George Street, where signage says Menorcans were "contract laborers." Let's get the facts about slavery right, UF -- the irony is that in 1965, the sons of former slaves threw bricks at the sons and daughters of former slaves, right here in St. Augustine. Let's promote healing by telling the facts -- the Menorcans were slaves ex contract -- slaves by contract.
Let's explain what "indentured servitude" was, and compare and contrast it with slavery in "First Colony," UF.
CONCLUSON

Dr. Michael Gannon is right -- we need our history here in St. Augustine to be accurate,
UF must make these corrections, and direct that it be done by tomorrow.
Thank you.
With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed Slavin
www.staugustgreen.com
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085
904-377-4998
EASlavin@aol.com

Applause for Gay Marriage at St. Augustine Ciy Commission Meeting

Monday night, there was a round of applause when I called on our St. Augusitne Ciy government to support the wedding business here by: (a) legalizing champaigne on horse and carriage rides; and (b) filing a "me too" amicus curiae brief in Federal Court in support of Gay marriage. The carriage champagne ordinance passed, 3-1. The Gay marriage amicus curiae brief issue remains to be determined.
Fourteen states and D.C. allow Gay marriages. Florida banned them by Constitutional amendment in 2006, persuaded we had to protect the sanctity of marriage.
St. Augustine is losing wedding business to fifteen (15) less bigoted places, but hopefully not for much longer.
Meanwhile, St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach have both voted against sexual orientation discrimination in housing (and SAB has banned employment discrimination, while St. Johns County's Visitor and Convnention Bureau and Tourist Development Council can't even bring themselves to provide a response to a request for a GLBT friendly guide to accomodations here -- thereby probably violating the Fair Housing ordinances of two (2) cities -- St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach. Unlike the wedding business people who applauded me, shook my hand and thanked me Monday night, St. Johns County VCB and TDC evidently lack horse sense.
The TDC and VCB have not yet figured out that bigotry is unpopular and unprofitable.
As President Johnson said, "We SHALL overcome."

St. Johns County Still Needs an Ombuds and an Inspector General

St. Johns County badly needs an Ombuds and an Inspector General, to scrutinize the county government, includig the Sheriff's Department and other Constitutioanl officers. Other notoriously corrupt places, including Miami-Dade County (Florida), Wayne County (Detroit, Michigan) and New Orleans Parish (Louisiana) all have recently added. Inspectors General. Where's ours?
I proposed an Ombuds and Inspector General (among five pages of proposed strengthening amendments) in 2008 when the St. Johns County Commissioners were debating a County Charter.
Yes, I wrote five pages of proposed strengthening amendments to the Charter.
Then-Chairman Tom Manuel of the SJCBCC graciously gave me twelve minutes to speak to them, saying "you have extra time."
But none of these proposed amendments were even discussed Commissioners, not even the modest one to add "sexual orientation" to sec. 10.06, the non-discrimination provision (when Sheriff SHOAR rightly bans such discrimination in his department, see below). Thus, I am proud to have helped defeat that "starter Charter" -- twice -- in 2008 (they actually put it on the ballot twice, once in the Primary and once in the General Election.
That pitiful "starter Charter" for SJC would not have covered any of our five Constitutional officers, including the Sheriff. Everyone (including the Democratic Party) was afraid of the big bad wolves and their Republican Political Machine - mainly the Sheriff, but also including the Property Appraiser, Tax Collector, Supervisor of Elections and Clerk of Courts.
A St. Johns County Charter would be highly desirable, if it one that will be a charter of limited government, protecting civil liberties and civil righs, in the spirit of James Madison (and not Boss William Marcy Tweed, Boss Hogg or Boss DAVID SHOAR).
Speaking of Boss Hogg, Sheriff DAVID SHOAR's extravagant $180 million "wish list" would likely require an increase n the sales tax, the most regressive tax known (and heavily favored in Southern cornpone politics). Sheriff SHOAR and his "Edifice Complex" both "bear watchin'," as they say in East Tennessee. See below.

$180 million, easy come, easy go --- SHERIFF DAVID SHOAR's "Edifice Complex"

St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID B. SHOAR (f/k/a DAVID HOAR) wants some $180,000,000.00 for "projects," this morning's St. Augustine Record repors, including more jail space, a new command center and a new communicatios center.
IF Sheriff Shoar were locking up white collar crminals, we'd be more appreciative of his suggestions. Instead, he employs them, including former St. Augustine Ciy Manager WILLIAM BRUCE HARRISS.

SHOAR called the $180 milion worth of prjoects a "wish list." Sounds like Fanstayland to me. Our County Commissioners and journalists need to examine Sheriff SHOAR's budget with a gimlet eye:
1. No-bid contracts for political cronies.
2. Take-home deputy cars.
3. $1000 per employee bonuses when other county employees were being furloughed.
4. Heavy spending on equipment.
5. Campaign fundraising from developers, for whom SHOAR carries water (listen to the SHOAR-McCLURE FBI tape.
6. Stiffing Open Records requesters and retaliating against them.
7. Relatives on the payroll -- blatant nepotism as a way of life. (DAVID SHOAR's brother-in-law, JAMES MULLIGAN) is SHOAR's press spokesperson/flak. Former Sheriff NEIL PERRY's name is not ony on the "St. Johns County Criminal Justice Complexx," but PERRY's son-in-law (ARTHUR MAY) is one of his SHOAR's apparatchiks.
Call it "The Family Inn" or "All in the Family."
8. Embarassing political deals including his abortive efforts in trying to take over the St. Augustine Beach Police Department in conjunction with SAB Commissioners who wanted to fire officers for reporting alleged misconduct by the Police Chief -- we helped halt the takeover in its tracks, preserving and defending law enforcement officers' First Amendment rights to raise concerns about the Police Chief).

St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR has an "Edifice Complex." $180 million? Let's see the justification (or will Sheriff SHOAR charge the public to read our own records?).
Postscript: A November 6, 2013 St. Augustine editorial asserts the Sheriff's intentions were somehow misunderstood, and that all county officials were asked to provide such capital project wish lists for our children and grandchildren's sake. Perhaps. But such should include less incarceration rather than more, right?

Thank you, Senator Bill Nelson

Senator Bill Nelson has co-cospnsored ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013. Thank you!
See below.

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson Needs To Support ENDA

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is up for a vote next week in the United States Senate Our U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of FLorida is one of only three (3) Democrats who do not yet support this bill, which has bipartisan support. The other two (2) Democrats who have not yet supported the bill are are from Arkansas and West Virginia.

St. Augustine Beach has adopted an employment non-discrimination ordinance, as have many other Florida jurisdictions. Both SAB and St. Augustine have adoped Fair Housing ordinances that protect GLBT people.

Florida Democrats, including most thinking GLBT people, zealously worked to re-elect Senator Nelson. Senator Nelson is now third in seniority on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he chairs the Select Committee on Aging.

Senator Nelson's support for ENDA will be appreciated.

How about that: my former employer, the United States Senate, is about to pass GLBT rights protection for American employees. I worked for three U.S. Senators as an undergraduate, during 1974-1977. GLBT Senate employees were closted then. It hurts to think about it. Our country has matured and grown so much since that time. This is no place for hate and bigotry.

Again, Senator Nelson's vote will be appreciated.

Postscript: Senator Nelson has now cosponsored ENDA.
Thank you, Senator Nelson.

Charles Joseph "Charlie" Crist, Jr.

Former Republican Governor Charles Crist (a/k/a "Sorry Charlie") presented himself to Democrats at this weekend's Democratic State Convention at a Disney resort, saying he's now a Democrat.
Charles Crist was the Republican Governor, who ran for U.S. Senate as a Repubican and lost. He then became an Independent and lost. He now seeks to be elected Governor as a Democrat.
He's constantly changing.
Got that "straight?"
It appears that "Sorry Charlie" Crist has no fixed principles other than getting elected to public office.
Several publications reported that Crist was or is a Gay man. That's a private matter. But then "Sorry Charlie" Crist campaigned for the 2006 state constitutional amendment that bans Gays and Lesbians from ever marrying, seeking to protect "the sanctity of marriage."
With fourteen states now legalizing Gay marriage (Hawaii will be next), GLBT's Constitutional rights are daily violated, while the tourist economy in the State of Florida daily misses out on all of the billion dollar Gay and Lesbian wedding business.
"Sorry Charlie" Crist is how sorry for his anti-Gay ctions, appealing to homophobes, KKK members, TaliBaptists and assorted right-wingnuts and bigots (whose Reichwing anti-Gay propagandists even mailed anti-Gay hate literature to a dead dog, a deceased canine from a Democratic household).
"Sorry Charlie" Crist persuaded his then-fellow Republicans in the Florida legislature to amend the "resign to run" law to exempt only federal elections. Yes, "Sorry Charlie" actually had state law changed in 2008 so that he could be John McCain's Presidential running mate. Crist didn't get the VP nomination, even after he changed state law (and married a woman) in a failed effort to get John McCain's eye for the Republican VP nomination. He did get a few news articles and magazine cover stories.
Naturally, mutatis mutandis, former-Republican, former-Independent, now-Democrat "Sorry Charlie" Crist is now backed by te "usual suspects" -- some gullible corporativist Establishment Democrats and wannabees, peope like Miami lawyer Daniel Saul Gelber (dodgy second generation prosecutor, former State Senator and former white collar criminal defense lawyer at Akerman Senterfitt corporate law firm, who refused to identify a singe one of his clients to me in 2010 when running for AG in the Democratic Primary against Dave Aronberg, now the Palm Beach County State's Attorney).
With advisers like oleaginous Daniel Saul Gelber, "Sorry Charlie" Crist is "about as sharp as a mashed potato sandwich with the crust off," as my mother would say -- his political persona is "Pander Bear."
We see right through "Sorry Charlie, don't we? Or, will we be "fooled again?"
Of course, controversial Governor Richard Scott ("Fifth Amendment Rick") is rightly, deeply unpopular.
Crist is ahead of him by ten percentage points in polls.
But Florida needs "Sorry Charlie" Crist as Governor "like a moose needs a hat rack."
Sorry, Charlie.
Nan Rich is a real Democrat. We like her.

Sheriff David Shoar Turns 52 Today

His apparatchik's faux news website, "Historic City News," reports that Sheriff Shoar turns 52 today. Happy birthday.
We appreciate our Sheriff's standing up for employee GLBT rights and his endorsing the St. Augustine Naional Historical Park and National Seashore, which he told me is a no-brainer for St. Johns Cuonty. www.staugustgreen.com As to GLBT rights, Sheriff Shoar told me two years ago that he had wanted to adopt a sexual orientation nondiscrimination policy as SAPD Chief, but that the City's outside employment lawyer advised him against it. He did it as Sheriff, without fanfare. Apparently no one asked him to adopt a non-discrimination policy at SJCSO: he did it because it was "the right thing to do." Kudos.
We don't appreciate: (a) the Sheriff's serial violation of our FLorida Open Records laws and his waste of public funds, (b) his hostility to scrutiny, refusing to answer St. Augustine Record Editor Peter Ellis' questions about his rash actions in prematurely revealing the FBI's arrest of County Commission Chair Thomas Manuel (c) his failed attempt to work with Mayor Gary Snodgrass and Commissioner Andrea Samuels to take over the St. Augustine Beach Police Deparment (in retaliation for ten officers' First Amendment protected activity), and (d) his cozy ways with large corporations, e.g., with tree-killing, wetland-destrying "developers," a coziness revealed on the FBI surveillance tape of him speaking with developer moutpiece GEORGE McCLURE.
Former County Commission Chairman Ben Rich said years ago that these foreign-funded "developers" are "worse than any carpetbagger." Their "crimes against nature" continue. Enough. We need law enforcement officials who will enforce the law without fear or favor of large corporations.
We hope that Sheriff Shoar matures and grows to respect Constitutional rights.

TDC and VCB Lawbreaking and Lack of Transparency, continued

The St. Johns County Tourist Development Council's lackadaiscal approach to Open Records is to stiff the public and document requesters. Case in point: a week ago, TDC hed a meeting, with 263 pages of backup material. It was never posted on the County's website, and my request for the information were ignored until long after the meeting. This morning, the documents were still not on the TDC website.
Last Monday's TDC meeting inexplicably started twenty minutes late. Now rude.
Call it the "Unwelcome Wagon." The "cognitive misers" who take millions of our bed tax money and squander it each year don't give a fig what "We, the People" think.
That's going to change soon. See more below.

Glenn Greenwald, Tom Wicker and JFK Are Correct, Advocacy Journalism is Honest Journalism

Tom Wicker, the late New York Times columnist and Associate Editor, wrote great books, including the novel, Facing the Lions, in which his Washington Bureau chief character said "anything anybody's got to sell you ain't worth buyin'." I once wrote a college paper calling this the best American political novel.
Today's New York Times carries a dialogue between journalist Glenn Greenwald and former Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in which Keller cops to his tepid response to NSA spying on Americans -- suppressing the story until after the 2004 Presidential election.
Tom Wicker's quote (above) resonates with meaning for the Bill Kellers of the world, politicians masquerading as journalists, smug smartypants who "don't know peaturkey about a durn thing." Keller gave the 2004 Presidential Election to Geroge W. Bush by suppressing the truth about NSA. That is unforgiveable.
Keller's rote incantations of "national security" are, like patriotism, "the last refuge of scoundrels." That's what it was in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where Union Carbide and the U.S. Government kept secret the largest mercury pollution event in world history (until we requested declassification of pollution documents).
Thank God for the Glenn Greenwalds of the world -- the New York Times' heroic Tom Wicker rightly called them "advocacy journalists" -- reporters who have the right "adversarial" relationship with the rich and powerful, their corporations and their governmental toadies. In his book, On Press (1977), Wicker praised advocacy journalists for exposing the truth.
Pretenses to "objectivity" are just that -- pretenses, betraying a smarmy status quo bias and an unwillingness to look under rocks -- "let 'em eat handouts." We've seen that in St. Augustine, where I broke the story of the City of St. Augustine's illegal dumping of 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir in two (2) tiny shoestring, now-defunct newspapers (The Collective Press and the Jacksonville-based GLBT montly Out in the City). Those two tiny publications broke the story of the City's illegal dumping, 2005-2006, but the St. Augustine Record didn't cover it for two (2) months after the State wrote the City and proposed a $46,000 fine. Activists showed up and asked questions on the record, at Commission meetings, on live cable TV, for multiple months, while Commissioners insulted me and praised then City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS, expressing their full trust and confidence of the reactionary rogue. This was obstruction of justice, in the midst of a pending environmenal crimes investigation, even awarding him a plaque to chill, coerce and discourage City employees from blowing the whistle or talking to criminal investigators (and me)
"Fairness" and "accuracy" are both responsible reasonable expectations of probity, Tom Wicker said. But "objectivity" as between polluters and their victims, for example, is an absurd, obscene impossible construct -- a hierarchical authoritarian norm and no substitute for thought and shoe leather.
Bill Keller evidently lacks respect for both himself and his readers, and it shows in his smart-alecky putdowns of Glenn Greenwald today.
Bill Keller should hang his head in shame. He cost our country four more years of George W. Bush. Bill Keller will forever be known as the man who suppressed the news about NSA spying on Amricans -- news that Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden have rightly shared.
JFK once said the country would have been better off if the New York Times had not suppressed what it knew about the Bay of Pigs invasion. It would have saved lives and prevented a disaster. This blog began in 2006 with a quote from JFK about secrecy being "repugnant in a free and open society." Here's the whole speech:
The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association
President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
New York City, April 27, 1961

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:
I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight.
You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession.
You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.
We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest petty bourgeois cheating."
But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.
If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.
I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight "The President and the Press." Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded "The President Versus the Press." But those are not my sentiments tonight.
It is true, however, that when a well-known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our State Department repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was not responsible for the press, for the press had already made it clear that it was not responsible for this Administration.
Nevertheless, my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the so-called one party press. On the contrary, in recent months I have rarely heard any complaints about political bias in the press except from a few Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of Presidential press conferences. I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000 Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe, if I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington correspondents.
Nor, finally, are these remarks intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which the press should allow to any President and his family.
If in the last few months your White House reporters and photographers have been attending church services with regularity, that has surely done them no harm.
On the other hand, I realize that your staff and wire service photographers may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.
It is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing skill in action. But neither on the other hand did he ever bean a Secret Service man.
My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.
I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future--for reducing this threat or living with it--there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security--a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.
This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.
I
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.
Today no war has been declared--and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.
If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.
It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security--and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.
For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.
The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.
The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.
On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers have constantly said--that these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.
I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.
Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: "Is it news?" All I suggest is that you add the question: "Is it in the interest of the national security?" And I hope that every group in America--unions and businessmen and public officials at every level-- will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.
And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.
Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.
II
It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation--an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
This means greater coverage and analysis of international news--for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security--and we intend to do it.
III
It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world's efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.
And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03NewspaperPublishers04271961.htm