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Saturday, March 3, 2018 Menorcan Heritage Celebration -- 241st Anniversary of Arrival of the Menorcans in St. Augustine, Florida

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Celebrate the epic history of some 700 Menorcans, Italians, Greeks, et al., who escaped British colonial "indentured servitude" (read: slavery by contract) tyranny and "voted with their feet," empowered by Fr. Pedro Camps, most walking 70 miles, walking from New Smyrna to St. Augustine.

The Menorcans escaped from Andrew Turnbull's failed indigo plantation in what is now New Smyra Beach, Florida, where hundreds perished from disease and starvation.

There are some 25,000 Menorcans living in St. Johns County today -- they helped preserve and protect our village of St. Augustine from the ravages of "development" seen elsewhere in Florida. Menorcan history is neglected in St. Augustine tourism.

Menorcan history must be now told as part of the visitor center for the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, first proposed in 1939 by then-Mayor Walter Fraser, Senators Claude Pepper, Charles Andrews and Rep. Joseph Hendricks.

 What do you reckon?


Freshman legislator FRANK HENRY WHITE Endorsed For Florida Attorney General by Corrupt St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR (Sunshine State News)

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Controversial St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR has endorsed a 39-year old first-term state representative from Pensacola for Attorney General.


Why it matters:
  • FRANK HENRY WHITE is General Counsel and CFO of a chain of nine car dealerships owned by his wife's family in Pensacola.  
  • FRANK WHITE calls himself a "conservative" who will defend Florida from "attacks (sic) by liberals." FRANK WHITE moved to Florida in 2010. 
  • FRANK WHITE  graduated from Southern Methodist Law School in 2006, passed the Texas Bar in 2007 and passed the Florida Bar in 2010.  Slim resume. 
  • Sheriff DAVID SHOAR is most noted for the coverup of the September 2, 2010 shooting of Michelle O'Connell in the home of Deputy JEREMY BANKS with BANKS' service weapon.  The case has been reported by The New York Times and PBS Frontline, et al. 
  • Sheriff SHOAR retaliated against FDLE Special Agent Rusty Ray Rodgers by attempting to have him fired and prosecuted for doing his job.

The September 2, 2010 shooting of Michelle O'Connell in Deputy BANKS' home was never presented to a grand jury by State's Attorney RALPH JOSEPH LARIZZA and two special prosecutors appointed by Governor RICHARD LYNN SCOTT:
  • Orlando State's Attorney JEFFREY ASHTON, the second of the two special prosecutors was defeated for re-election in 2016.
  • Ocala State's Attorney BRADLEY KING, the other special prosecutor, actually applied for a Supreme Court vacancy and was rejected amid televised questions about his handling of the Michelle O'Connell case.  The New York Times revealed in 2017 that SHOAR was the very first reference listed by KING in his application, and that SHOAR hired KING's nineteen year old son as a Deputy.
Now, SHOAR is recommending an inexperienced rich young "conservative" lawyer for Florida State Attorney General.  SHOAR says, "“I am proud to stand with Frank White because I know he will stand with Florida’s men and women in blue to enforce the rule of law ... Frank has proven he will defend our conservative values and protect taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”

Oh, really? In fact and in reality:
  • SHERIFF SHOAR does NOT "stand with Florida’s men and women in blue to enforce the rule of law." 
  • SHERIFF SHOAR retaliates against ethical officers.
  • SHERIFF SHOAR allowed ten spouse abusers to stay on the payroll.
  • SHERIFF SHOAR is St. Johns County political boss.
  • SHERIFF SHOAR works with developers to promote clearcutting and unsustainable projects.
  • SHERIFF HOAR shows contempt for the law and the rights of citizens, including habitual Fourth Amendment violations eavesdropping on lawyers and clients at the Sheriff's office, found unconstitutional by four federal judges at trial and on appeal.
  • SHERIFF SHOAR does NOT "defend our conservative values" OR protect taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”


Here's the article on corrupt Sheriff DAVID SHOAR's endorsement of DAVID WHITE:


Frank White Nabs Two Sheriffs' Endorsements for Attorney General Bid














February 9, 2018 - 10:15am
Frank White












Frank White 
State Rep. and Attorney General hopeful Frank White rolled out two new endorsements in his bid for the Florida Cabinet on Thursday.
Two county sheriffs announced their support for the Pensacola Republican, saying he’s the best bet to lead the legal system in the Sunshine State.
“I am proud to stand with Frank White because I know he will stand with Florida’s men and women in blue to enforce the rule of law,” said St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar. “Frank has proven he will defend our conservative values and protect taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”
Shoar has a lengthy career in law enforcement, serving in the field for over 30 years. He was first elected to the office in 2004 and wasn’t the only law enforcement professional to give his stamp of approval to White. 
“Frank will be a staunch defender of our Second Amendment rights, will help law enforcement keep our families safe and will protect the constitution at all times,” said Putnam County Sheriff Homer Deloach.
Deloach was elected sheriff in 2016 but has been with the department since 2001. 
White jumped into the Republican field for the job late last year but has already showed he’s serious about the race, already putting $1.5 million of his own money into his campaign. 
He is currently matched up against fellow state Reps. Jay Fant and Ross Spano for Republican nomination as well as former Hillsborough County judge Ashley Moody.
White surpassed the $2 million fundraising mark at the end of 2017, raising over $100,000 for his campaign in December.
White’s Republican opponents Jay Fant and Ashley Moody have both raised over $1 million for their campaigns but haven’t yet reached the $2 million mark. State Rep. Ross Spano has $99,000 in his campaign and committee accounts. 
Tampa lawyer Ryan Torrens entered the Democratic race for the Attorney General nomination in June. Rep. Sean Shaw, D-Tampa, announced he'd also be running for the job as a Democrat last month. 
Recent polling suggests the race is anyone’s game at this point, with no clear frontrunner among the candidates, but White’s financial situation puts him in a strong position to make a mark in the crowded field.
White says his ability to connect with voters from all walks of life will be another boon to his AG bid and thanked the sheriffs for their endorsements on Thursday. 
“As momentum grows for our campaign, my proven record as a consistent conservative is resonating with folks from across the state and I am honored to have the support of these great Sheriffs who share my conservative values and commitment to both our constitution and the rule of law,” he said. 

Reach reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen.

Here's an article from the Pensacola News-Journal:


Marlette: Pensacola’s anti-liberal for attorney general!


LINKEDIN 1COMMENTMORE
Attention Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville and all you gun-clinging Viagra-poppers down there in The Villages — if you or a loved one has ever been persecuted for your conservative values, then Pensacola is here to help.
Dum-da-dum! Never fear, Frank White is here! And he’s on a statewide mission to protect you from “liberal attacks.”
What kind of “liberal attacks?” Communists? Hippies? Transgender vegan atheists with psychic mind control powers to induce political correctness?
Yep. You can count on Frank to protect you from all that and more — if you elect him as Florida’s next attorney general.
Pensacola’s first-term state representative and Sandy Sansing’s son-in-law made it official on Friday, with a campaign announcement basically promising to be the biggest conservative and fiercest fighter of those aforementioned “liberal attacks.” But the Tampa Bay Times’ all-knowing, all-seeing Steve Bousquet called it a day before, noting that “White would enter a race that includes Rep. Jay Fant of Jacksonville and Ashley Moody, a former circuit judge in Tampa who has raised a total of more than $1 million through her campaign and a political committee.”\
It ain’t cheap to compete in a high-powered statewide race to replace Florida’s most Trump-trusted bombshell, Pam Bondi. News Journal reporter Jim Little pointed out that White has almost $76,000 sitting in his District 2 campaign account. But still, the Sansing family may need to sell a few extra Chevrolets this year if they want to help Frank get the cash to compete with those big-city Republicans from more populous parts of the state.
Besides, no price is too high to pay for protection from “liberal attacks.” Illegals? Reefer? Solar energy?
All of those! But don’t worry, Florida, Frank promises to be the man to save the Sunshine State. We shall see.
What’s not clear is who might swoop in to protect his vacated House district when he’s off fighting “liberal attacks” in subtropical dens of iniquity like Winter Park, Delray Beach and Islamorada.
Could it be the long-awaited opportunity for Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward to fulfill his golden political destiny in Tallahassee? The Sunshine State’s best looking municipal executive probably knows half the lobbyists in Tally from his tomahawk-chopping days back at FSU. And Gov. Rick Scott would be maniacally thrilled to have a loyal new House member who sides with him rather than the ever-growing cult of Corcoran.
And it would give Hayward a timely escape from the looney local politics that he simply seems to have grown sick of. A city council he loathes. Rabble-rousing North Hillers who annoy him at every turn. An idiot cartoonist who draws him with legs that are too skinny.
Plus, the job may be more suited to Hayward’s desired level of engagement. Less detail-oriented chief executive; more salesman, hype-master and cheerleader. If nothing else, he’d enhance our appearance around the Capitol. “Pensacola: They ain’t got clout, but they sure look good doing it!”
Who knows if the mayor would actually want to run, but there are always a few folks around here with perpetually feverish dreams of returning to Tallahassee, amassing obscene amounts of political power, and arguing for more guns on Fox News the next time there’s a mass shooting. And speaking of former state Rep. Mike Hill…
Hill is currently filed to run against former Cantonment resident Rebekah Bydlak for Clay Ingram’s House seat next year. Bydlak made a name for herself competing against U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz last year and she has raised more than $60,000 from many of the same Pensacola power-brokers who backed Gaetz for Congress, giving her a huge financial advantage over Hill.
But unlike other candidates and most citizens, Mike Hill has homes in multiple districts. So it’s totally possible that he could just move on down to run in District 2 and avoid getting trounced by Bydlak up in Clay Ingram country.
Hill’s political stylings have transitioned from Tea Party to televangelist in recent years, most recently emerging to tag-along with the late, great Sen. Greg Evers in Holy-rolling, media-seeking defense of East Hill’s Bayview Cross. Hill is pro-cross, of course, and presumably eager to defend against “liberal attacks” as much as Frank White is. Which is why Hill also spoke up for a pagan obelisk adorned with a frail, effeminate boy holding his hat in hand — also known as Pensacola’s Confederate monument.
Protested pagan obelisks. Embattled ancient Roman torture devices. We’ve got ‘em all here in District 2, which could mean a state House campaign built on fighting for symbols — as opposed to reason, policies, economic ideas or community needs. Lord, help us.
If that becomes the case, we’re going to need a whole lot more than protection from “liberal attacks” to cope with it. Maybe Frank can ask Sandy to ship over a couple Chevy Silverados filled with Early Times whiskey. We’ll just mark it up as a campaign contribution.


Here is FRANK WHITE's profile from the website LOBBY TOOLS:


Legislator Profile

Florida Representative Frank White (R)
Frank White
CONTACT INFORMATION
District Address:
6th Floor
226 South Palafox
Pensacola, FL   32502-5846
Phone: (850) 595-0467

Capitol Address: 
1401 The Capitol
402 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL   32399-1300
Phone: (850) 717-5002
POLITICAL PROFILE
  • House District:2
  • First Elected:2016
  • Terms Out:2024
  • Party:Republican
  • Delegations:Escambia,Santa Rosa
  • District Information:view District 2 map
  • Legislative Service:
COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
Not yet assigned.
PERSONAL INFO
  • Born:September 20, 1978, Amarillo, TX
  • Moved to Florida:2010 
  • Religious Affiliation:Baptist
  • Education:Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX), BA in History, Honors in the Liberal Arts & BBA in Organizational Behavior/Business Politics, Mock Trial, Moot Court, Student Bar Association, Christian Legal Society, Student Body President, Student Representative to the Board of Trustees, Peruna Handler, JD/MBA, 2003-2006
  • Occupation:General Counsel/CFO
  • Spouse:Stephanie (Sansing) White of Pensacola, Florida
  • Children:Henry, Clayton, Wesley
  • Affiliations:FDFC, Chair, 2015-2016 Pensacola State College Board of Trustees, Vice Chair, 2016 Baptist Hospital, past Board member FBC Pensacola 
  • Highlights:Sandy Sansing Dealerships, CFO/General Counsel 2010-Present













































FPL CORPORATE HOMICIDE? FPL was warned people would die at a sweltering nursing home. But the utility had other priorities. (Sun Sentinel)

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This is the face of corporate homicide -- an investor-owned utility and a Governor who were warned that old people would die in a nursing home, which only needed an easy repair that could have saved lives. It looks like the State's Attorney in Broward County may be faced with a choice of whether to present a grand jury with evidence of manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide against FPL and its managers.



FPL CEO ERIC SILAGY





FPL CEO ERIC SILAGY, Governor RICHARD LYNN SCOTT, with human shields










FPL was warned people would die at a sweltering nursing home. But the utility had other priorities.

Listen to phone calls here.

Florida Power & Light Co. received numerous phone calls urging for the air conditioning to be fixed at The Rehabilitation Center in Hollywood Hills after Hurricane Irma.
By Megan O'Matz
Sun Sentinel
An account supervisor for the power company was concerned by the words of the woman on the phone. The electricity was out at her mother’s nursing home, the temperature felt like 110 degrees and elderly people couldn’t breathe.
The supervisor turned to one of the company’s emergency specialists for advice, saying a caller feared the Hollywood nursing home could have “customers literally passing away because of the heat.”
The co-worker’s response: tell the nursing home to evacuate. “We can’t expedite any outages. So tell ’em to make plans. It’s going to be a long time, to be honest with you … at least a week.”
The next day, on Sept. 13, eight nursing home residents died of the heat. Another four died in later days.
How Florida Power & Light responded to desperate pleas from the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills after Hurricane Irma is revealed in depositions, audio files, and internal FPL records obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel under Florida’s public records law. They include recordings of calls to the utility over the three days the nursing home was without power to its air conditioning.
FPL is one the nation’s largest electric utilities and serves about half of the state. After hurricanes strike, it is a critical lifeline for millions of people and demands on it are extraordinary.
The records reviewed by the Sun Sentinel show FPL workers’ inability to grasp the gravity of the nursing home’s situation, confusion over whether it qualified for “priority” service, and efforts to mollify callers without actually mustering a crew to the scene for what ultimately was a minor repair.
The utility -- which works alongside state and local officials after a storm to address pressing problems -- even failed to respond to an urgent request the evening of Sept. 12 from Broward County’s emergency operations center.









Officials at about 7:30 p.m. appealed to FPL to restore power to the air conditioning at the nursing home and included a hard time frame to get the job done: within two to six hours.
FPL did not comply. About seven and a half hours later, nursing home residents began to die.
Anyone who has ever called a large company for assistance or to register a complaint can relate to the experience of those at the nursing home who tried to convey to FPL the seriousness of the matter and get some extra consideration.
Calls went to customer care center representatives in Miami, West Palm Beach or El Paso, Texas. Those who called numerous times got different FPL agents. Calls were inadvertently dropped and people put on hold. Despite being issued “trouble ticket” numbers, callers had to give the address of the nursing home over and over and continuously restate the nature of the problem.
The customer care representatives dutifully took down the reports, updated notes in the files, and apologized.
“Oh goodness, so sorry!” an operator told James Williams, nursing home engineer, who called Sept. 10, the day the storm hit, to report that the building lost power to the A/C.
He’d explained that it looked like the fuse “just popped out.” He said he could see it hanging on the electric pole outdoors.
The woman entered Williams’ comments into a computer, then appeared to read from a script, saying:
“Unfortunately due to the impact of Hurricane Irma we’re unable to provide an estimate as to when the power will be restored. Currently we have more than 2 million customers out and we have 16,000 workers ready to restore the power. We’re also working with partner utilities, and their workers to restore everyone as quickly and as safely as they can.”
The representative told Williams: “I reported it. I just hope it doesn’t take too much more for you.”

Priority status unclear

FPL spokesman Chris McGrath declined to comment or answer questions from the Sun Sentinel about the utility’s actions or processes in response to Hurricane Irma.
Before hurricane season, FPL and local officials designated which facilities would receive the highest priority for power restoration in each county. In Broward County, they included major hospitals, police and fire stations, 911 centers and other critical sites, but not nursing homes.







Employees and relatives of residents of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills believed the nursing home had some priority status as a medical facility – given that it served sick, elderly, bed-ridden people – and was under the same roof as a small psychiatric hospital.
In reporting the outage, Williams urged the FPL representative to “keep in mind that we are a hospital, we’re actually a double hospital: we are a rehabilitation center, and we’re a behavioral hospital.”
Within FPL, there seemed to be confusion over just what that meant.
An FPL agent told Williams that someone at the utility was “personally assigned” to restore power to the nursing home’s chiller account “because we do know it’s a high priority.” The woman put him on hold to get the person’s name and phone number but when she returned Williams had been disconnected. When he called back he got another agent, who didn’t know of any such contact.
In another instance, FPL reassured a caller: “We do recognize it is a nursing home location. It is a priority to us, ma’am.”
Yet when that agent called an emergency specialist about the problem, the agent was told there was no expedited push. “We’ll just let dispatch know, and they’ll work it as soon as they can.”
After a storm, FPL can juggle who gets faster attention, based on the nature of the circumstances.
In a deposition, Gregory Jones, operations lead in FPL’s Gulfstream Service Center covering south Broward County, said the utility gives priority in restoring power to police stations, hospitals, and other facilities, including those that service major customer accounts. The process, he said, consists of “getting the largest number of customers on at any given time, first, then working our way down by customer account.”
Typically, if there is an urgent need, he said, FPL would send the request through to upper management, which would funnel it down to the local service center.
Asked if there was ever a specific request made to him or his operations center to prioritize restoring power at the nursing home, he said: “To my knowledge, no.” If it was deemed a priority, he said, he would have been told.
Records show a service request was sent electronically – in bulk with others -- to the Gulfstream Service Center on Sept. 11, one day after the storm and two days before the deaths.
The “ticket” was labeled Priority 3A, Jones said, meaning the nursing home did not have a full loss of service -- it had electricity for items such as lights, computers and kitchen, but not the air conditioning. And there were no reports of injuries or police or fire calls in the ticket’s “event log,” he said in the deposition.
Asked if someone at the service center noticed the request on a computer screen, Jones indicated that it just sat there while the service workers “dealt with the larger customer accounts and higher priority tickets.”

UNF POLL: SENATOR BILL NELSON LEADS FLORIDA GOVERNOR RICHARD LYNN SCOTT BY SIX PERCENTAGE POINTS

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Florida U.S. Senator Bill Nelson is leading Gov. RICHARD LYNN SCOTT 
48-42 in latest University of North Florida poll.   

Based on current committee assignments, IF the Democrats take the Senate and Senator Nelson is re-elected, it looks like Senator Nelson might become Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which has suzerainty over NASA.  Senator Nelson was a Space Shuttle astronaut.  

The Committee also has jurisdiction over:
  • Coast Guard.
  • Coastal zone management.
  • Communications.
  • Highway safety.
  • Inland waterways, except construction.
  • Interstate commerce.
  • Marine and ocean navigation, safety, and transportation, including navigational aspects of deepwater ports.
  • Marine fisheries.
  • Merchant marine and navigation.
  • Nonmilitary aeronautical and space sciences.
  • Oceans, weather, and atmospheric activities.
  • Panama Canal and interoceanic canals generally, except as provided in subparagraph (c).
  • Regulation of consumer products and services, including testing related to toxic substances, other than pesticides, and except for credit, financial services, and housing.
  • Regulation of interstate common carriers, including railroads, buses, trucks, vessels, pipelines, and civil aviation.
  • Science, engineering, and technology research and development and policy.
  • Sports.
  • Standards and measurement.
  • Transportation.
  • Transportation and commerce aspects of Outer Continental Shelf lands.
{It is also required] to study and review, on a comprehensive basis, all matters relating to science and technology, oceans policy, transportation, communications, and consumer affairs, and report thereon from time to time.

If re-elected with a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, Senator Bill Nelson is in a position to help protect our coasts and oceans from global warming and global ocean level rise and from the depredations of offshore oil drilling, Big Oil and the perfidy of the DONALD TRUMP administration, of which Governor RICHARD LYNN SCOTT is a fawning supporter.  I strongly support Senator Bill Nelson's re-election -- he's earned it.










Media Contact: Joanna Norris, Director
Department of Public Relations
(904) 620-2102
                     
Methodology Results Contact: Dr. Michael Binder
Public Opinion Research Lab Director
 (904) 620-2784 


 New UNF Poll Shows Sen. Bill Nelson Leading Gov. Rick Scott in 2018 Senate Election
President Donald Trump’s Job Approval Rating Low But Improving

The Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida has a new poll that reveals Sen. Bill Nelson in the lead for the upcoming Senate election, with Gov. Rick Scott trailing close behind. The survey also shows that President Trump’s job approval rating has risen some since last fall.

The poll, comprised of Florida registered voters, shows that of likely voters in 2018, 48 percent plan to vote for Nelson, the Democratic candidate in the upcoming election for U.S. Senate, while 42 percent plan to vote for Scott, the Republican. Of those likely voters, 7 percent don’t know who their choice will be. 

Regarding the U.S. House of Representatives, when asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, 42 percent of likely voters indicated they would vote for the Democratic candidate, 40 percent would plan to vote for the Republican candidate and 14 percent didn’t know.  

 “Even though it appears Nelson has a reasonable lead in the poll, the election results will ultimately get determined by who shows up in November,” said Michael Binder, faculty director of the Public Opinion Research Lab at UNF. “Historically, Republicans have enjoyed a turnout advantage in midterms, but with the current mood of the country, and a large number of Republican retirements, Democrats are optimistic about an impending blue wave.” 
            
Of registered voters who were asked whether they approve or disapprove of the way Nelson is handling his job as senator, 52 percent of registered voters claim to somewhat or strongly approve, with only 20 percent somewhat or strongly disapproving. Notably, 26 percent of voters expressed they don’t know how Nelson is handling his job. When asked about the way Scott is handling his job as Florida governor, 63 percent reported to strongly or somewhat approve, with 31 percent disapproving either somewhat or strongly. 

“Both senate candidates have net positive job approval ratings of 32 percentage points,” said Binder. “This high level of job approval is very unusual and is going to lead to a hotly contested election.” 

When asked about how Sen. Marco Rubio is handling his job, 55 percent strongly or somewhat approve, compared to the 35 percent who reported to somewhat or strongly disapprove. 

When asked about President Donald Trump’s job approval rating, 43 percent of the overall sample strongly or somewhat approve of how he’s handling his job, with 53 percent disapproving somewhat or strongly. A large amount of registered Democrats—87 percent—disapprove of Trump, while only 16 percent of registered Republicans disapprove. On the contrary, Trump held 81 percent job approval among registered Republicans, compared to 40 percent approval among nonpartisans and a dismal 10 percent job approval among registered Democrats. 

“Most presidents would consider 43 percent approval and net negative 10 percentage points a troubling number, but Trump’s approval is up 6 percentage points from his approval level in October, and his net negatives have improved by 12 percentage points,” noted Binder.  

In light of the recent investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election, when asked about the way Robert Mueller is handling his job as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice, 40 percent of registered voters somewhat or strongly approve, 28 percent of voters somewhat or strongly disapprove and 29 percent of voters don’t know how he’s handling his job. 

“Even though Mueller is acting in a legal capacity, and has a 12-percentage point net positive job approval, there are partisan divisions as Democrats are much more supportive than Republicans in their views on Mueller,” said Binder.  
Survey Results 

If the 2018 election for U.S. senator from Florida were being held today, how would you vote if the candidates were… 
Answer Options

February 2018
Florida Likely Voters
n=429**
October 2017
Florida Likely Voters n=706*
February 2017
Florida Registered Voters
n=957
Bill Nelson, the Democrat
48%
37%
44%
Rick Scott, the Republican
42%
36%
38%
Someone else
2%
7%
3%
Don’t Know
7%
20%
12%
Refusal
-
-
-
*Respondents that indicated that they would vote in the upcoming senatorial election 
** Respondents that indicated active voting and/or enthusiasm for the upcoming midterm election

Answer Options

Democrats
Republicans
NPA/Others
Bill Nelson, the Democrat
86%
14%
42%
Rick Scott, the Republican
7%
79%
42%
Someone else
2%
1%
6%
Don’t Know
5%
7%
10%
Refusal
-
-


If the election for the U.S. House of Representatives were being held today, would you vote for (the Democratic candidate) or (the Republican candidate) in your congressional district?
Answer Options

February 2018
Florida Likely Voters
n=429**
The Democratic candidate
42%
The Republican candidate
40%
Other
5%
Don’t Know
13%
Refusal
-

Answer Options

Democrats
Republicans
NPA/Others
The Democratic candidate
82%
6%
35%
The Republican candidate
6%
82%
26%
Other
2%
2%
13%
Don’t Know
10%
10%
26%
Refusal
-
-
-


Do you approve or disapprove of the way that Bill Nelson is handling his job as United States senator? 
Answer Options

February 2018
Florida Registered Voters
n=619
October 2017
Florida Registered Voters n=834
February 2017
Florida Registered Voters
n=945
Strongly Approve
19%
12%
13%
Somewhat Approve
33%
23%
29%
Somewhat Disapprove
8%
9%
16%
Strongly Disapprove
12%
6%
12%
Don’t Know
26%
49%
29%
Refusal
2%
1%
-

Answer Options

Democrats
Republicans
NPA/Others
Strongly Approve
28%
12%
14%
Somewhat Approve
41%
22%
38%
Somewhat Disapprove
5%
14%
3%
Strongly Disapprove
7%
22%
8%
Don’t Know
19%
28%
35%
Refusal
-
2%
2%


Do you approve or disapprove of the way that Rick Scott is handling his job as governor of Florida?
Answer Options

February 2018
Florida Registered Voters
n=619
October 2017
Florida Registered Voters n=834
February 2017
Florida Registered Voters
n=957
Strongly Approve
29%
26%
17%
Somewhat Approve
34%
33%
29%
Somewhat Disapprove
14%
15%
14%
Strongly Disapprove
17%
13%
26%
Don’t Know
5%
11%
14%
Refusal
1%
1%
-

Answer Options

Democrats
Republicans
NPA/Others
Strongly Approve
12%
51%
25%
Somewhat Approve
30%
31%
41%
Somewhat Disapprove
19%
8%
14%
Strongly Disapprove
32%
3%
14%
Don’t Know
6%
6%
5%
Refusal
-
1%
1%


Do you approve or disapprove of the way that Marco Rubio is handling his job as United States Senator?
Answer Options

February 2018
Florida Registered Voters
n=619
October 2017
Florida Registered Voters n=834
February 2017
Florida Registered Voters
n=956
Strongly Approve
17%
13%
15%
Somewhat Approve
38%
29%
25%
Somewhat Disapprove
14%
18%
17%
Strongly Disapprove
22%
19%
31%
Don’t Know
9%
20%
12%
Refusal
1%
1%
-

Answer Options

Democrats
Republicans
NPA/Others
Strongly Approve
7%
31%
13%
Somewhat Approve
29%
41%
46%
Somewhat Disapprove
21%
11%
9%
Strongly Disapprove
36%
9%
18%
Don’t Know
8%
7%
12%
Refusal
-
2%
1%


Do you approve or disapprove of the way that Donald Trump is handling his job as president of the United States?
Answer Options

February 2018
Florida Registered Voters
n=619
October 2017 
Florida Registered Voters n=834
February 2017
Florida Registered Voters
n=957
Strongly Approve
30%
19%
28%
Somewhat Approve
13%
18%
16%
Somewhat Disapprove
9%
9%
7%
Strongly Disapprove
44%
50%
44%
Don’t Know
2%
2%
4%
Refusal
2%
1%
-

Answer Options

Democrats
Republicans
NPA/Others
Strongly Approve
4%
64%
22%
Somewhat Approve
6%
17%
18%
Somewhat Disapprove
11%
4%
13%
Strongly Disapprove
76%
12%
44%
Don’t Know
2%
2%
1%
Refusal
1%
1%
3%


Do you approve or disapprove of the way that Robert Mueller is handling his job as Special Counsel for the United States Department of justice?
Answer Options

February 2018
Florida Registered Voters
n=619
Strongly Approve
19%
Somewhat Approve
21%
Somewhat Disapprove
11%
Strongly Disapprove
17%
Don’t Know
29%
Refusal
3%

Answer Options

Democrats
Republicans
NPA/Others
Strongly Approve
33%
7%
13%
Somewhat Approve
22%
21%
21%
Somewhat Disapprove
9%
16%
7%
Strongly Disapprove
11%
25%
16%
Don’t Know
24%
28%
39%
Refusal
1%
3%
4%


How often do you vote in non-presidential elections? Rate your involvement on a scale of one to five, where one is never and five is always.
Answer Options

February 2018
Florida Registered Voters
n=619
One (never)
17%
Two
9%
Three
17%
Four
14%
Five (always)
43%
Don’t Know
1%
Refusal
<1 p="">1>


Thinking about the upcoming Florida midterm election in November, overall, would you say you are:
Answer Options

February 2018
Florida Registered Voters
n=619
Not at all enthusiastic 
27%
Somewhat enthusiastic
44%
Very enthusiastic
25%
Don’t Know
3%
Refusal
1%

Survey Demographics 

Party Registration
Florida Registered Voters n=619
Republican
35%
Democrat
38%
NPA and other
27%

Age
Florida Registered Voters n=619
18 to 24
9%
25 to 34
15%
35 to 44
14%
45 to 55
16%
56 to 64
18%
65 and older
28%

Race
Florida Registered Voters n=619
White (not Hispanic)
64%
Black (not Hispanic)
13%
Hispanic
16%
Other
7%

Sex
Florida Registered Voters n=619
Male
46%
Female
54%

Telephone
Florida Registered Voters n=619
Landline
14%
Cell phone
85%
Don’t Know
-
Refusal
1%

Education
Florida Registered Voters n=619
Less than high school
3%
High school graduate
14%
Some college
51%
College graduate
19%
Post graduate degree
13%
Don’t Know
-
Refusal
-

Income
Florida Registered Voters n=619
Less than $25,000
11%
$25,000 to $50,000
21%
$50,000 to $75,000
21%
$75,000 to $100,000
13%
Above $100,000
21%
Don’t Know
5%
Refusal
9%

Survey language completed in…
Florida Registered Voters n=619
English
98%
Spanish
2%


Methodology  


The University of North Florida (UNF), Florida Statewide Poll was conducted by the Public Opinion Research Lab (PORL) at UNF Monday, January 29, through Sunday, February 4, by live callers via the telephone, and calls were made from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sunday. The sample of phone numbers was created through the voter file provided by Florida’s Division of Elections September 2017 update and selected through the use of probability sampling among Florida registered voters in the Florida voter file. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by UNF undergraduate and graduate students. Overall, there were 619 completed surveys of Florida registered voters, 18 years of age or older. 

To determine likely voters, respondents were asked two questions related to the upcoming midterm elections. First, they were asked on a scale of one (never) to five (always), how often do they vote in non-presidential elections. Second, respondents were asked about their enthusiasm for the upcoming election (not at all, somewhat or very enthusiastic).  Respondents who answered four or five for the frequency of voting question, or answered a three to the frequency of voting question and also answered somewhat or very enthused about the upcoming midterm elections were included as likely voters.    

The margin of sampling error for the total sample is +/- 3.9 percentage points.The margin of error for likely voters in the November 2018 midterm election is +/- 4.7 percentage points. This study had a 13.8% response rate. The American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Response Rate 3 (RR3) calculation was used which consists of an estimate of what proportion of cases of unknown eligibility are actually eligible. The breakdown of completed responses on a landline phone to a cell phone was 27 to 73 percent. A single interviewer, through hand dialing, upon reaching the specific registered voter as identified in the Florida voter file, asked the respondent to participate, regardless of landline telephone or cell phone. 

To ensure a representative sample being collected, the state was stratified using the 10 Florida designated market areas (DMA). DMAs are defined as regions where the population can receive the same or similar television and radio station offerings, as well as other types of media including newspapers and Internet content. In addition, because of Miami-Dade County’s unique population, it was separately accounted for in its own strata, creating 11 strata from the 10 DMAs. Quotas were placed on each of these stratified areas to ensure a proportionate amount of completed surveys from across the state. Data were then weighted by partisan registration, gender, race, age, and education. Education weights were created from the 2016 American Community Survey (ACS). Partisan registration, gender, race, and age weights were created from the September 2017 update of the Florida voter file to match the active registered voters in the state of Florida. These demographic characteristics were pulled from the voter file list.  All weighted demographic variables were applied using the SPSS version 23 rake weighting function. There were no statistical adjustments made due to design effects. This survey was sponsored by the UNF PORL and directed by Dr. Michael Binder, UNF associate professor of political science.  


The PORL is a full-service survey research facility that provides tailored research to fulfill each client’s individual needs from political, economic, social and cultural projects. The PORL opened in 2001 and is an independent, non-partisan center, a charter member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research Transparency Initiative and a member of the Association of Academic Survey Research Organization. For more information about methodology, contact Dr. Binder at porl@unf.edu or at (904) 620-2784. 


Sinclair asks its news directors for political contributions (AXIOS)

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Why this matters: Monopolistic, right-wing SINCLAIR controls Florida TV stations in Tallahassee, Gainesville, Tampa, West Palm Beach and Fort Pierce. SINCLAIR is a right-wing media powerhouse. Read more here.


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Shane Savitsky 18 hours ago
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Sinclair asks its news directors for political contributions
WJLA DC screenshot
WJLA is a Sinclair-owned station in the Washington market. Photo: ABC 7 / WJLA.com
Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the largest owner of local television stations in the United States, has asked its executive staff to contribute to the broadcasting giant's political action committee in order to support the conglomerate's push for deregulation in local media markets, per The Washington Post. Sinclair's executive staff includes the company's news directors at local stations — who hold important editorial roles.
Why it matters: As The Post writes, "[E]ncouraging the news directors of its many stations to contribute to its political effort, in the view of some experts, breaches a long-standing ethical obligation among journalists."
Sinclair's ask to its executive team: "Please take the time to evaluate the importance that the Sinclair PAC can have towards benefiting our company and the needs of the industry as a whole."
  • Their defense: News directors were included in the ask because of their executive — not editorial — status, and Sinclair told the post that reporters, anchors, or other editorial employees were not similarly solicited.
The problem: If news directors did contribute to Sinclair's PAC, it could create valid questions about local stations' impartiality, especially when reporting on topics like the state of their local media market or deregulation more generally.
This isn't the first time that conservative-leaning Sinclair has waded into politically sensitive territory:

Tampa Bay Times exclusive: Faulty jury instructions force do-overs in more than 100 murder and attempted murder cases

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Why this matters: Corporations that kill -- like FPL's killing Broward County) nursing home patients after Hurricane Irma -- must face manslaughter charges. Until the Florida Supreme Court corrected its erroneous pattern jury instructions, it would have been almost impossible to convict a corporation or its executives and managers of the corporate homicides they commit. This includes pollution, unsafe products and workplace deaths.






Tampa Bay Times exclusive: Faulty jury instructions force do-overs in more than 100 murder and attempted murder cases
Max Jasper was granted another trial but was again convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. David Delvalle was riginally convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Edward Stoddard was sentenced to life on Feb. 18 at the Robert D. Sumner Judicial Center in Dade City for the 2008 shooting death of Doug Abrams following a dispute over stolen property. Doug Abrams' mother, Rebecca Almendariz, from left, and sisters, Felicia Abrams and Alexis Abrams, watch as Edward Stoddard is fingerprinted and led away. Stoddard Florence Lago spoke at the sentencing for Aaron T. Daniels on May 15 at the Pinellas County Courthouse in Largo. Lago's daughter Amanda Fanter was murdered by Daniels in 2009. Aaron T. Daniels, center, listens to the proceedings during his sentencing on May 15th at the Pinellas County Courthouse in Largo.
By Curtis Krueger, Times Staff Writer
Published: June 27, 2015Updated: June 27, 2015 at 09:38 PM

Rodrigo Bonilla knifed a man for asking if he could spare some change. The bloodied victim staggered into a Homestead discount store and begged a clerk to call police, but he soon collapsed and died. Bonilla was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. A few years later, his sentence was reduced to just 15 years. Why did he get the break? The jury instructions read during his trial contained one faulty phrase.

Bonilla's case is no aberration. The bad wording has forced Florida judges to throw out more than 100 murder and attempted murder convictions, a Tampa Bay Times examination of state records found.

Dozens of killers and would-be killers have received new trials or the chance to make plea agreements. More than a quarter have received shorter prison sentences, sometimes dramatically shorter:

An Orlando man, serving life in prison for killing a longtime friend, had his sentence reduced to 18 years. A man who shot and permanently disabled a retiree in Sanford had his 30-year sentence reduced to 12 years plus probation. And in Tampa, a man who stabbed someone repeatedly at a halfway house had his life sentence reduced to 20 years.

The faulty phrase, which remained in jury instructions for 16 years, forced many victims and their family members back into court to relive the worst tragedies of their lives.

Attorney Richard Summa, who filed the original appeal over the problematic wording, said, "It's absolutely frightening that something like that can go on and on and on."

To understand why more than a hundred defendants got the right to new trials, it helps to understand the crime of manslaughter, specifically the kind called "manslaughter by act."

Here's an example: Two men meet in a bar and start arguing over something trivial. The first guy punches the second guy, who falls down, hits his head and dies.

The first guy didn't intend to kill anyone, but he did intentionally throw a punch and someone died as a result. Under Florida law, that's most likely "manslaughter by act," the act being the punch.

But from 1994 to 2010, Florida's standard instructions stated that jurors could only convict someone of "manslaughter by act" if the suspect "intentionally caused the death of" the victim.

That phrase — "intentionally caused the death"— created the problem. Contrary to Florida law, it said jurors could only find defendants guilty of manslaughter if they actually intended to kill their victims.

In Florida, second-degree murder doesn't even require an explicit intent to kill. Prosecutors have to show that a defendant demonstrated a depraved indifference toward human life and committed an imminently dangerous act. But they don't have to prove the defendant intended to kill anyone.

So the faulty jury instructions effectively made it harder to convict someone of manslaughter than of the much more serious crime of second-degree murder, which can carry a life sentence.

Occasionally, attorneys mused over this apparent contradiction.

But it wasn't until 2009 that Summa, a Tallahassee public defender, attacked it in hope of winning his client a new trial.

• • •

Summa had never even met Steven Montgomery, a Jacksonville man sentenced to 45 years in prison for using a metal bar, a broomstick and a DVD player to beat his girlfriend to death.

He was poring over trial transcripts, looking for mistakes that might help him appeal Montgomery's second-degree murder conviction. Then he got to the jury instructions.

After closing arguments in a trial, judges read prewritten instructions to jurors to help them understand the law. The instructions are supposed to explain the law accurately. But Summa realized that, in Montgomery's case, they didn't. There was nothing in Florida's manslaughter law that required proof the defendant "intentionally caused the death" of the victim.

Why did that matter?

In many trials, judges read the instructions for both murder and manslaughter, and juries decide whether either is appropriate given the evidence. The faulty instruction could have made it easier for juries to convict defendants of second-degree murder, instead of the lesser crime of manslaughter.

The Florida Supreme Court eventually said this was such a serious problem that it amounted to "fundamental, reversible error in Montgomery's case and requires that Montgomery receive a new trial."

The old jury instructions were thrown out, and prisoners across the state began filing their own appeals. At first, the ruling applied to defendants convicted of second-degree murder. A later ruling expanded it to attempted second-degree murder.

Since 2010, the faulty jury instructions have led to reversals in at least 103 cases, according to the Times examination. In most cases, the defendants were convicted again, and, in at least 38, the sentences remained the same. Twenty defendants still await their second trials, and the status of 14 other cases is unclear.

But the Times found 31 defendants who received lighter sentences the second time around, usually after plea agreements with prosecutors.

Take Edwin Ivaldi. In 2006, on a sidewalk near a Miami park, Ivaldi killed a 16-year-old boy over his Nikes and a gold neck chain. He received life in prison, but his case was overturned because of the faulty instructions. After a plea agreement, he got just 15 years.

Or take David Delvalle, who repeatedly stabbed a fellow Tampa halfway house resident in 2006. Convicted of second-degree murder, he was originally sentenced to life in prison. In a plea arrangement, he got 20 years.

Or Charles Mendenhall, who in 2004 shot a man in Lake County who had asked him to get his feet off his girlfriend's bed. After a plea deal, his 35-year sentence for attempted second-degree murder was reduced to 15 years.

The prosecutors agreed to the drastic reduction in Mendenhall's sentence because the chances of convicting him again at trial had dropped considerably.

"We had one witness that passed away and another that couldn't be located," said Walter Forgie, a Lake County prosecutor.

Many prosecutors cited similar reasons for agreeing to reduced sentences.

"If it was a tough case to begin with, it usually doesn't get any better with time," said Mark Cox, spokesman for the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office.

And what about Steven Montgomery, whose case launched all the appeals?

He's one of the very few who fared worse. After a second trial, he was convicted again of second-degree murder. This time, instead of 45 years, the judge gave him a life sentence.

So, by winning his appeal, Montgomery lost his chance of ever getting out of prison.

• • •

An obvious question arises: How did the faulty jury instruction stay on the books for 16 years?

It was not simply a mistake, but more of a difference in opinion.

In 1994, a committee of attorneys appointed by the Florida Supreme Court inserted the language requiring proof that the defendant "intentionally caused the death." The move came after attorneys argued that, historically, manslaughter included intentional killings.

But a decade later, the same committee — made up of different lawyers — again looked at the issue. In a 2007 report, it said, "the entire committee struggled to understand why" the previous group of attorneys changed the instruction in 1994. The report also quoted a judge who said proof of intent to kill "was not required by the legislature when the manslaughter statute was enacted."

So the committee recommended changing the manslaughter instruction to something similar to how it read before 1994, which did not require an intent to kill. But the Supreme Court rejected the suggestion and left in the "intentionally caused the death" language.

Yet, less than two years later, the Supreme Court called that very phrase a "fundamental error," and threw out Montgomery's conviction, setting all the appeals in motion.

The problem, said University of Florida Law professor Jennifer Zedalis, was the jury instruction strayed from accurately explaining Florida law.

"The bottom line is, it has to reflect the law," she said.

• • •

The fallout has left many victims and their family members "mad as hell," in the words of Carol Gibbs.

In 2008, Gibbs' mentally disabled brother, Charles "Skipper" Gibbs, was stabbed 11 times in a St. Petersburg park for no apparent reason. The attacker slashed Gibbs in the head and abdomen and nearly cut off a finger.

Now, if something violent comes on television, "He will get very emotional and say, 'They don't really know what it's like to be stabbed,'" his sister said recently from their new home in Alabama.

Defendant Sascha Weber, a German citizen, received 15 years in prison for attempted second-degree murder, but his appeal and plea agreement dropped it to less than nine. Carol Gibbs disliked the shorter sentence, but she decided it was better than forcing her brother back to Pinellas County to relive the stabbing at another trial. She is relieved that Weber will be deported back to Germany after serving his sentence.

Nonetheless, she said, "As far as I'm concerned, this man should be in prison for the rest of his life."

Cora Brown of Sanford feels the same way about the criminal who changed her life forever.

She and her husband were driving to church in 2006 when Blake A. Ward fired a gun, apparently at a rival group of young men. But the bullet went into her husband's head, paralyzing him.

After the first trial, Ward was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempted second-degree murder, and Brown didn't think that was enough.

"Because I got life," she said. "… Life with him being disabled, life with me suffering from stress every day. Can't stand noises, can't stand different things, just two lives ruined."

But four years later, she got a call from prosecutors who told her about Ward's successful appeal. "They were very sympathetic, and they said they knew I wouldn't like it, but it was just one of those things."

After a plea agreement, Ward's sentence dropped from 30 years to 12 years, plus three years' probation.

"It's obvious that it's not right," she said.

The new trials retraumatized some families, even when the sentence didn't change.

When Amanda Fanter was shot and killed in 2007 near Pinellas Park, her mother, Florence Lago, felt an anguish that "will never, ever, ever leave. It's just like somebody maybe sticking a knife in you and just twisting and twisting and twisting."

In 2013, Lago learned from the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office that the killer had won a new trial because of "a technical glitch," as she understood it.

"I'm thinking, what in the world, a technical glitch?" said Lago, who is raising her daughter's three children. "And I have to go through this again, and this will give him a chance to appeal and get less time?"

In April, she attended Aaron T. Daniels' second trial. A jury again found him guilty of second-degree murder. At his sentencing hearing, Daniels apologized for the killing but added that it was an accident. For the second time, he was sentenced to life in prison.

Lago was relieved but still angry she had to endure another trial all these years later.

"I would like to pull on somebody's ears who made that mistake," she said.

• • •

Richard Summa, the lawyer who filed the appeal on behalf of Montgomery, acknowledged the difficulties the Florida Supreme Court's ruling has caused some victims' families.

But he strongly believes the court made the right decision.

"In my opinion, it's a very good thing because the trials are more fair. It's that simple. The effect of the erroneous jury instructions was to handcuff the jury, not allowing them to do what they're supposed to do."

But it should not have happened in the first place, Summa said. Virtually every murder case that came up over those 16 years was an opportunity to remedy the faulty wording, he said.

"(It's) a total failure of the criminal justice system," he said, "including the defense bar, including the prosecutors, including the judges."

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

Environmentalists suspicious of Gov. Scott's deal to block oil drilling off Florida coasts (Tallahassee Democrat)

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Why this matters: Secretary of the Interior RYAN ZINKE flew to Tallahassee for a media event with likely Republican Senate nominee, GOVERNOR RICHARD LYNN SCOTT.  He emitted vague assurances and warm fuzzies that offshore oil drilling off Florida's coast was "off the table." I don't believe him, and neither should anyone else.  More flummery, dupery and nincompoopery from SCOTT and Herr TRUMP.  That's all, folks.






Environmentalists suspicious of Gov. Scott's deal to block oil drilling off Florida coasts



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Environmentalists up in arms over proposal to allow oil and gas drilling off Florida coasts James Call

Gov. Scott said he has the Interior Sec's word that the Florida exemption will remain. Pro drilling forces say 'No does not necessarily mean no'

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Environmentalists are suspicious of a deal between Gov. Rick Scott and the U.S.  Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to exempt Florida from plans to expand offshore oil and gas drilling. Pro-drilling groups said they should be.
Officials from the federal agency held an informational session in Tallahassee Thursday on a draft plan  the Interior Department released in January to open all waters in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic seaboard to drilling.
Before that meeting started though, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection released a letter re-stating Scott’s opposition to the plan. Pro-drilling interests countered with a news conference to encourage the Scott and Trump administration to continue the discussion.
Kevin Doyle of the Consumer Energy Alliance said Scott and Zinke should keep “the conversation” going while Zinke’s staff develops a final draft of the plan . He was backed by Julio Fuentes of the Florida State Hispanic Chamber and Tallahassee businessman Barney Bishop. They said the U.S. needs to explore all avenues of energy development and dismissed Scott’s comments that he expects Zinke to keep his word about the Florida exemption.
“My wife tells me no every day, but I find a way to get around that no by pushing and keep asking the question,” said Bishop. “If you are right, then why are the environmentalists here if no means no?”
Environmentalists from across the state crowded into a meeting room in the hotel where Interior staff was available to answer the public’s questions. The agency has held 23 meetings across the country. The Tallahassee meeting is the only Florida gathering.


The comment period ends March 9.
“The purpose is to get information and receive information in a respectful dialogue,” said John Filostrat, a public affairs officer for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. “The more information, we get the better we can arm the decision maker (Zinke).”
Down the hall from where Interior had set up, more than 70 people gathered to hear a roll call of Florida environmental groups stating opposition to the agency’s proposal to drill off Florida’s coasts.  Members of the Sierra Club, Wildlife Defenders, Rethink Energy, the Florida Association of Counties, business owners, and university professors,  all said the rewards for drilling is not worth the risk.
They came from St. Augustine, Sarasota, Fort Myers, Tampa, Daytona, Pensacola, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee. Speaker after speaker brought up the Deepwater Horizon spill as if it was a mantra that would keep Florida beaches free of oil.
“It’s not just the drilling but also the rules they want to relax that were imposed after the Deepwater Horizon,” said Escambia County Commissioner Grover Robinson.
Robinson is chair of the Gulf Consortium. Florida counties fouled by the Deepwater spill formed the group to allocate Florida’s share of the $1.4 billion settlement to repair the damage.


Robinson was in Tallahassee for a Consortium meeting and attended the protesters’ news conference before heading back to Pensacola.
“What Deepwater showed is you don’t have to drill off of Florida to harm Florida,” Robinson said. "Ninety-seven percent of the oil scooped out of the Gulf after Deepwater was recovered in Escambia County.”
The Deepwater spill was off the Louisiana coast. Scientists say eight years later, oysters and other marine life has not returned to pre-spill levels.
“We need to stand united as Floridians,” said Tampa’s Jerry Difabrizo. He told the group he wants to pass on to his granddaughter the clean beaches and vibrant wildlife he has enjoyed as a native Floridian.
“Let’s stop this before the magic is gone,” said Difabrizo, owner of Tampa Tile.
The Interior Department plans to release a final draft by year end and then adopt the plan by the end of 2019.
If the Florida exemption is lifted, then oil from the Florida Gulf coast could be on the market by 2030.
“That is if there’s not another spill,” said Dave Cullen of the Sierra Club.
Reporter James Call can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com

Thanks to Gatlin Development Company CEO Frank Gatlin III and the headline writer -- "This is another city." (SAR)

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Why this matters: Instead of creating city governments for 30,000 resident Nocatee, or other huge development, our St. Johns County Commission defer to developers to dictate development, rubber-stamping anything, like Republican Lords of All They Survey. Thanks to Gatlin Development Company CEO Frank Gatlin III and the headline writer -- "This is another city." Candor, at last.  Confession is good for the soul.

Enough goofy gooberishness from Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, County Administrator MICHAEL WANCHICK, and their stable of dupey dull Republican Commissioners in bed with developers.

We, the People must be heard and heeded. Now.




Gatlin Development Company CEO Frank Gatlin III





Daddy Warbucks (Notice the resemblance?)
















This is another city
By Stuart Korfhage
Posted Feb 10, 2018 at 3:45 PM
Updated at 7:30 AM
St. Augustine Record

When the first wall goes up at the new Walmart at Durbin Park this week — as is currently scheduled — it’s going to mark a turning point in the growth of this county as a place that’s more than a secondary market for Jacksonville retailers.
Walmart, along with Home Depot, will be anchor tenants at what is planned as a massive development in the northern part of St. Johns County.
Durbin Park is going to be different from anything seen outside of the immediate St. Augustine vicinity in this county. It’s a massive development — 1,600 acres — that is primarily focused around commercial development rather than residential, although it is a mixed-use project.
The reason a development designed to eventually rival Jacksonville’s St. Johns Town Center is viable here now is that the population growth finally warrants massive retail in the northern region.




An aerial photograph shows part of the construction site of the Durbin Park project, located off Race Track Road, that will be the location of a Walmart and Home Depot among other retail businesses spread over 1,600 acres. [FRANKIE GATLIN/CONTRIBUTED]


It’s no secret to longtime residents that newly built neighborhoods are quickly filling the portion of the county. But that hasn’t led to major retail offerings until now.
“I think our residents are tired of driving to Jacksonville for their daily needs,” said Melissa Glasgow, the county’s director of economic development. “They have been anxiously waiting for new retailers to come to St. Johns County so they can have those amenities close to home.”
Durbin Park is being developed in a joint venture between Gatlin Development Company and Gate Petroleum. Gatlin CEO Frank Gatlin III said the development’s location near Race Track Road and Interstate 95 is ideal in a lot of ways.
With the extension of State Road 9B from I-95 to St. Johns Parkway almost complete (as well as the connector to Race Track Road, Peyton Parkway), an area that’s already busy is about to get a lot more traffic. The new S.R. 9B will run right through the Durbin Park development and provide easy access on and off the interstate. It’s one of the main reasons the first phase of the development is proving so popular.
“The big thing is that by bringing in that first 700,000 (square feet of retail) we’re validating a major intersection for the retail corridor of St. Johns County,” Gatlin said. “That 9B, Peyton (Parkway) is just right in the middle of all of that residential growth.”
Unlike some other places where Gatlin has developed shopping centers, the growth around Durbin Park is nowhere close to being at its peak unless there’s some disaster in the market.
The developer’s research indicates that the 5-mile radius around Durbin Park has seen an annual growth rate in population of about 3.5 percent. And some of the communities in the area either just opened for sales or haven’t even started building yet.
Overall, the county approved more than 5,000 new home permits in the 18-month period ending in December 2017. The majority of that activity was north of International Golf Parkway.
“This is an area that will continue to grow for the next 20 years,” Gatlin said. “When you look from the river to the ocean and from St. Augustine to (Interstate)-295, 60,000 homes are planned there now. And there’s plenty of room to double that or triple that.
“This is another city, just about, is St. Johns County for the future.”
Gatlin isn’t making up the numbers to suit his interests. Others have seen the same data and reached similar conclusions.
Keith Goldfaden is a principal with NAI Hallmark in Jacksonville. The company is not involved in Durbin Park but is involved in the leasing and/or management of a portfolio in excess of 4 million square feet of commercial space in North Florida. He said northern St. Johns County has been primed for a major influx of retail choices after having little to choose from since residential growth started in earnest about 20 years ago.
“There’s already 55,000 people with average household incomes above $100,000 in a 5-mile radius,” Goldfaden said. “A lot of the retailers that have signed on to this project, such as Home Depot, are filling a major void in that part of the county.
“When you look at the residential base that is already there and look at what the projected residential growth can be with Nocatee, Shearwater, Twin Creeks and several other large-scale residential developments, this project is going to pull customers from a very wide radius.”
The first phase of Durbin Park includes between 650,000 and 700,000 square feet of retail space, depending on how it’s configured. Gatlin said he’s received commitments for about 70 percent of the available space in that phase as stores could open as soon as November. Then it’s on to Phase II, which will be on the east side of S.R. 9B but west of Interstate 95.
Bass Pro Shops is expected to be one of the main draws for that next step in the development. The middle portion of the project is planned for more than 1 million more square feet of retail/restaurant/entertainment space as well as two 120-room hotels, office space and multi-family residential components. The development is approved for almost 1,000 homes.
But with so much activity already happening on the residential side of things, the main focus for Durbin now is commercial.

The more Durbin has to offer shoppers and diners, the more it’s expected to enhance the neighboring communities, developers say.
Mike Taylor, North Florida Division manager for GreenPointe Communities, said Durbin is likely to see customers from residents of many different neighborhoods who have been underserved for a long time. His company is developing TrailMark near World Golf Village, but he thinks homeowners there will be interested in Durbin Park.
“The timing of this project couldn’t be better for our county and our area,” Taylor said. “Everyone that I’ve met that has explored our communities has an interest in where the nearest grocery store is, where the nearest school is, where the services are that are going to provide the elements they’re looking for their lifestyle.
“We have projects in St. Johns County, Clay County, Nassau County, Ponte Vedra Beach, and they all have a similar theme as they’re close to all of those key driving factors that people look when buying a home.”
As the competition has increased among the housing developments for the best builders and best amenities, the next arms race could be proximity to the best stores, restaurants, services and entertainment. That’s one of the reasons the new Beachwalk development includes a projected 3 million square feet of commercial space fronting County Road 210.
Right now, Durbin Park has a head start, but it’s likely there will be enough customers for everyone.
“St. Johns County has the biggest void in retail and these services (restaurants, banks, etc.),” Gatlin said. “When the houses come, the retailers need to be there. This is an area that is under retailed. You’ve got plenty of houses but you don’t have the services to back up the demand for it.”


  • Comments


Edward Adelbert Slavin
  • Edward Adelbert Slavin
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1. Thanks to Gatlin Development Company CEO Frank Gatlin III and the headline writer -- "This is another city."
2. Nocatee was described as another a city, but instead of treating it as such, three St. Johns County Commissioners, choking on Nocatee largesse, allowed it to be built without a city government.
3. Five all-Republican St. Johns County Commissioners sit like Republican lords of all they survey, allowing massive, unsustainable projects, rubberstamping whatever developers want.
4. These days, our Commissioners are not even swearing in witnesses who testify at quasi-judicial and legislative hearings on development. Wonder why?
5. We need answers under oath. Citizens should be empowered to cross-examine developers, for as Wigmore said, cross-examination is the greatest engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.
  • 9 minutes ago (edited recently)
Bill Lazar
  • Bill Lazar
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it will be interesting to see where the workforce comes to operate these businesses. Since very little rental property has been developed within 15 miles of there, and fewer homes under $250,000, their workforce will have to travel in and out. It will be interesting to see if they have to raise wages to attract employees
  • 3 hours ago
Edward Adelbert Slavin
  • Edward Adelbert Slavin
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1. After Bill Lazar spoke at Commission on Tuesday on the St. Johns Housing Partnership's affordable housing item, I spoke in support, raising the issues of rent control and living wage ordinances. ZERO INTEREST from Commission Wonder why?
2. We have five all-white, all-male, all-Republican Commissioners. I stayed for the entire meeting. NONE of them addressed the issues. Wonder why? They created the affordable housing crisis and won't solve it. Last year, they allowed Nocatee to delete 40 acres of affordable housing from their mandatory duties under the Planned Unit Development, indulging developers' political clout and prejudice against housing workers. People should not have to commute from other counties to work in our stores, restaurants, bars and other service industries.
3. Big corporations and their stable of dull Republicans call themselves "conservatives." That dawg won't hunt.
4. Precisely what is it that they are "conserving" when they carve their initials in our Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Map (FLUM)? Is "FLUM" short for "flummery?" You tell me.
5. What are these Wall Street corporations and secretive foreign investors in dodgy LLCs "conserving" when they arrogantly demand our leaders allow them to clear-cut our forests, burn the dead trees, destroy our wetlands, destroy our wildlife habitat, and build poorly-constructed homes without enough roads, schools and firehouses?
6. Uncontrolled growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.
7. "Pro-business" ideology is destroying St. Johns County ("God's country").« less
  • 2 hours ago (edited)
Edward Adelbert Slavin
  • Edward Adelbert Slavin
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8 Corporate greed is creating a desert and called it "development."
9. We will rue the days when we allowed secretive LLCs, big corporations, developers, The Issues Group, Syd Perry and undisclosed foreign investors to pick out candidates and amend our Comprehensive Plan, on demand.
10. We must ask questions, demand answers and expect democracy.
11. We need more investigative reporting and less fluff.
12. We need a county ethics ordinance with teeth, lobbyist registration, full disclosure of all beneficial investors in projects seeking development favors, an independent Inspector General, an Ombuds and new County Administration leadership. St. Johns County Administrator MICHAEL DAVID WANCHICK does not give a fig about our environment. He is hell-bent on turning St. Johns County into an ugly, unreasonable facsimile of Broward County or Richardson, Texas.
13. I'm voting for Catherine Hawkinson Gueverra, Democrat, for County Commission seat 4.
14. It's time for a change. What do you reckon?« less
  • 2 hours ago
t0mmyreynolds
  • t0mmyreynolds
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Stew e ... BANGS OUT ANOTHER GREAT PRO-North Florida Developer GANGS Article!

“I think our residents are tired of driving to Jacksonville for their daily needs,” said Melissa Glasgow, the county’s director of economic development.

WE ARE ALSO TIRED OF YOU BRAGGING ABOUT RETAIL LOW WAGE JOBS THAT YOU KEEP PATTING YOURSELF ON YOUR BACK FOR. BRINGING INTO ST JOHNS COUNTY!

MELLISA, YOU HAVE FAILED BIG TIME IN YOUR POSITION AS DIRECTOR of ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT!

TRY GETTING THOUSANDS of HIGH... » more

EPA ADMINISTRATOR SCOTT PRUITT'S LAVISH TRAVEL IS A BADGE OF FRAUD AND CORRUPTION

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Washington Post investigative reporters have exposed EPA Administrator EDWARD SCOTT PRUITT's First Class travel and secrecy.

Will PRUITT be fired or resign?





First-class travel distinguishes Scott Pruitt’s EPA tenure


EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt at the Vatican in June. (Environmental Protection Agency)
  


Just days after helping orchestrate the United States’ exit from a global climate accord last June, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt embarked on a whirlwind tour aimed at championing President Trump’s agenda at home and abroad.
On Monday, June 5, accompanied by his personal security detail, Pruitt settled into his $1,641.43 first-class seat for a short flight from the District to New York City. His ticket cost more than six times that of the two media aides who came along and sat in coach, according to agency travel vouchersthe records do not show whether his security detail accompanied him at the front of the plane.
In Manhattan, Pruitt made two brief television appearances praising the White House’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, stayed with staff at an upscale hotel near Times Square and returned to Washington the next day.
That Wednesday, after traveling with Trump on Air Force One for an infrastructure event in Cincinnati, Pruitt and several staffers raced to New York on a military jet, at a cost of $36,068.50, to catch a plane to Rome.
The transatlantic flight was part of a round-trip ticket for the administrator that cost $7,003.52, according to EPA records  several times what was paid for other officials who went. The documents do not explain the discrepancy. In Rome, Pruitt and a coterie of aides and security personnel got private tours of the Vatican and met with papal officials, business executives and legal experts before heading briefly to a meeting of environmental ministers in Bologna. Pruitt departed the Group of Seven summit a day early, before negotiations had concluded, to attend a Cabinet meeting at which Trump’s deputies lauded the president’s job performance.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt adjusts his headset during a meeting at the G7 Environment summit in Bologna in June. (ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
In total, the taxpayer-funded travel for Pruitt and his top aides during that stretch in early June cost at least $90,000, according to months of receipts obtained by the Environmental Integrity Project under the Freedom of Information Act. That figure does not account for the costs of Pruitt’s round-the-clock security detail, which have not been disclosed.
In an interview Sunday, EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said all of Pruitt’s travel expenses have been approved by federal ethics officials.
“He’s trying to further positive environmental outcomes and achieve tangible environmental results” through his travel, she said, adding that in the case of the New York trip, “He’s communicating the message about his agenda and the president’s agenda.”
On other domestic trips, Bowman added: “He’s hearing directly from people affected by EPA’s regulatory overreach.”
As he enters his second year in charge of the EPA, Pruitt is distinguishing himself from his predecessors in ways that go beyond policy differences. His travel practices — which tend to be secretive, costly and frequent — are integral to how he approaches his role.
Pruitt tends to bring a larger entourage of political advisers on his trips than past administrators. But while the aides usually fly coach, according to travel vouchers through August obtained by The Washington Post separately from the Environmental Integrity Project, he often sits in first or business classwhich previous administrators typically eschewed.
Last year, Pruitt promoted U.S. natural-gas exports in Morocco, sat on a panel about the rule of law in Rome and met with his counterparts from major industrialized countries. This year, he plans to travel to Israel, Australia, Japan, Mexico and possibly Canada, according to officials familiar with his schedule. None of those visits have been officially announced.
President Donald Trump, with Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, left, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, speaks in Cincinnati about infrastructure and health care. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
Pruitt plans to meet with his foreign counterparts and U.S. and foreign business officials abroad, as well as tour energy facilities.
These overseas trips are largely untethered to the kind of multilateral environmental summits that dominated his predecessors’ schedules, and Pruitt rarely discloses where he plans to be.
In an interview Friday, Bowman said the agency doesn’t release Pruitt’s schedule in advance “due to security concerns” and because it could be a “distraction” from the trips. But she added that he has received government invitations for all his foreign trips.
“There’s just a lot of international cooperation that the head of any Cabinet-level agency wants to establish with his or her counterparts,” she said.
The agency records show that wherever Pruitt’s schedule takes him, he often flies first or business class, citing unspecified security concerns. The EPA’s assistant inspector general for investigations told The Post in September that Pruitt has gotten a higher number of threats than his recent predecessors.
Federal regulations state that government travelers are required to “exercise the same care in incurring expenses that a prudent person would exercise if traveling on personal business . . . and therefore, should consider the least expensive class of travel that meets their needs.” Agencies are allowed to authorize first-class travel in rare instances, such as a flight of 14 hours or more, a medical disability or when “exceptional security circumstances” mean “use of coach class accommodations would endanger your life or government property.”
Pruitt has used the security exception often during the past year.
In a two-day period last July, he spent $4,443 for separate round-trips to Birmingham and Atlanta for visits that included a power plant and farm tour. On at least four occasions, he has spent between $2,000 and $2,600 on first-class airfare to official meetings or tours near Tulsa, where he lives. Frequently, he stayed in Tulsa for the weekend, records show, before returning to Washington.
Pruitt’s other first-class trips include a $4,680.04 itinerary to Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Little Rock to promote the unraveling of a controversial Obama administration water regulation. Another multi-city ticket, which included stops in Colorado, Iowa, North Dakota and Texas, cost $10,830, according to the vouchers, not including lodging and incidentals.
A separate batch of travel vouchers obtained by the Environmental Working Group shows that Pruitt flew coach multiple times from March to May 2017, but he also logged several more expensive trips during that period. On May 11, the administrator delivered the keynote address to the Heritage Foundation’s Resource Bank Meeting in Colorado Springs; the conservative group covered his lodging, but the ticket cost $2,903.56. A week later, he flew to Tulsa to tour the Brainerd Chemical Co. and stayed the weekend, for a flight cost of $1,980.34.
While on the road, Pruitt often stays at high-end hotels, according to travel records: the Kimpton in Salt Lake City, Le Meridien in Minneapolis, the Capital in Little Rock and the Michelangelo in New York.
In addition, he frequently opts to fly Delta Airlines, even though the government has contracts with specific airlines on certain routes. Asked whether there is an additional expense associated with flying Delta when there is a comparable government contract flight, Bowman said, “EPA staff seek cost-efficient travel options at all times.”
Such travel decisions, coupled with a tendency to not publicize out-of-town trips, have prompted criticism from Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups, who have questioned how much some of Pruitt’s trips have to do with the EPA’s mission.
“What did American taxpayers get for Pruitt visiting the Vatican and getting photographed with European agency heads?” said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, of last year’s Italy trip. “This was all for show.”
The group obtained Pruitt’s travel vouchers through litigation and is suing for other travel-related documents, including speeches he has made in closed-door meetings with industry officials.
“It is acutely paranoid,” Schaeffer said of the EPA’s refusal to disclose Pruitt’s whereabouts on any given day. “He’s a public official. His schedule should be publicly known.”
At the request of congressional Democrats, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General is conducting probes of Pruitt’s travel last year and the expansion of his security detail.
The decision to bring seven political aides and his security detail to Rome for two days before the G-7 summit significantly increased the cost of the Italy trip, which included just two career EPA officials. The Rome stop included a routine U.S. Embassy briefing, a meet-and-greet with business executives and a roundtable on the judiciary. But much of the two-day stop was devoted to papal visits, including a meeting with Archbishop Paul Gallagher and private tours of the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica.
Bowman declined to comment specifically on the topics discussed at the Vatican, but said in an email, “While in Italy, Administrator Pruitt discussed how the U.S. is leading the world in environmental achievements to remediate toxic land, reduce air pollution, improve water infrastructure, and ensure access to clean drinking water.”
She added: “These discussions were broad, and very well-received.”
In December, Pruitt journeyed to Morocco, where he touted America’s natural-gas exports and discussed a series of policy collaborations between the two countries.
Pruitt’s two immediate predecessors, Lisa Jackson and Gina McCarthy, also traveled repeatedly to foreign summits and other events. Jackson traveled abroad four times a year while on the job, including to the Group of Eight’s environment ministers’ meeting in Siracusa, Italy; the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen; the inauguration of Indonesia’s president; and the Netherlands as part of a trip focused on sea-level rise. The entire delegation flew coach to the Netherlands, and invited the media to come along.
McCarthy traveled overseas between four and seven times a year, including to multilateral meetings; a G.E. oil and gas conference in Florence, Italy; the Costa Rican president’s inauguration; and to the closing ceremony of the Rio Olympics.
Unlike with Pruitt, the EPA typically announced McCarthy’s general itinerary and the purpose of her trips in advance.
“McCarthy will arrive in China beginning on Monday, December 9, to discuss US-China cooperation on air quality, climate pollution and environmental issues. She will travel to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong during her four-day visit,” read a 2013 agency news release posted days before her visit.
By contrast, Pruitt’s EPA routinely gives the public no such notice, either domestically or internationally.
Last week, for instance, Pruitt surfaced in Florida, to the surprise of reporters who cover the EPA and even media outlets in the state. An official said the agency notified some local and national outlets.
The EPA has also declined at times to confirm in advance Pruitt’s speaking engagements to various industry and political groups.
Several foreign officials, when contacted by The Post, deferred questions about Pruitt’s upcoming visits either to the U.S. Embassy or the EPA.
In the coming weeks, Pruitt will embark on a series of trips, some of which had been postponed due to external circumstances. A brief government shutdown in January forced the administrator to cancel a trip to Japan and Israel, for example, and he will travel this month instead.
Japanese Embassy spokeswoman Rieko Suzuki said in an email that Pruitt had raised the idea of visiting with Japanese Environment Minister Masaharu Nakagawa, and her country was working on finalizing the details. “Since EPA Administrator Pruitt expressed his intention of visiting Japan and meeting Minister Nakagawa,” she wrote, “the Ministry of Environment of Japan has been trying to arrange a bilateral meeting.”
A spokesman for a low-emissions coal thermal plant located in the suburbs of Tokyo, run by the electric utility firm J-Power, confirmed Pruitt was scheduled to visit the facility. J Power spokesman Shingen Tsuneoka said that the plant emits “almost no” nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, two major air pollutants released by burning coal.
Bowman said Pruitt is headed to Japan “to strengthen existing areas of environmental cooperation, learn how Japan is responding to emerging energy challenges, and share successful approaches to innovative environmental technologies.” The administrator also will participate in a business roundtable with the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and visit the Yokohama Hydrogen Supply Chain Demonstration, she added.
In Israel, Bowman said, Pruitt will “visit a water recycling plant, hear from Israeli water technology companies about their successes in wastewater recycling for irrigation, visit a waste processing facility, tour a toxic land remediation site” and take part in a clean energy roundtable.
Next month, Pruitt is tentatively planning a one-day trip to Mexico to meet with Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Rafael Pacchiano Alamán, she said. That trip also had been postponed, according to travel vouchers.
Pruitt had intended to journey to Australia last year, according to EPA officials, where he was set to meet with officials from Peabody, the world’s largest private-sector coal company, as well as Melbourne-based energy giant BHP. The visit was to include a boat trip, according to an official, but was canceled because Pruitt had to work on the federal response to Hurricane Harvey.
This week, Pruitt is expected to travel to New Hampshire on a trip that will include a meeting with the governor, a visit to a local paper company and a tour of a Superfund site. The EPA has not publicized the trip.

Commission puts ‘nonessential’ programs under microscope (SAR)

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Thanks to Mayor Nancy Shaver's leadership, the county is now talking about data-based decisions. It's about time. But watching St. Johns County Administrator MICHAEL DAVID WANCHICK try to introduce accountability concepts is like watching a duck try to make love to a football. He's a patsy for Sheriff DAVID SHOAR and a puppet for developers. Also:
1. This meeting was six (6) days ago. We deserve TIMELY coverage, not week-old news.
2. The Jesse Dunn presentation was NOT in the agenda packet. Wonder why?
3. The presentation focused on cost recovery for services, and identifying costs. The term "nonessential" is spin and surplussage, normative, judgmental and inflammatory, it would appear.
4. I spoke in public comment (NOT quoted) and noted the need to make developers pay for the cost of ALL the services of the entire building dedicated to servicing their need, full of guys named "Bubba" granting them permits, rubber-stamping bad projects.
5. County Administrator Michael David Wanchick once expanded the number of bumptious Bubbas at the same time he cut library hours. How revealing.
6. County Sheriff David Shoar's bloated budget must be subject to cost accounting.
7. County Commissioners need to pass an ordinance requiring ALL five Constitutional officers -- Sheriff, Clerk of Courts, Supervisor of Elections, Property Appraiser and Tax Collector -- to present their budgets by May 1, 2018.
8. THEN the County Administrator's budget hearing must be held in public (not an outbuilding) in the BCC Auditorium, TELEVISED.
9. No more secrets. No more coddling developers and their indecent demands to destroy our nature and history.
10. No more automatic budget increases for the Sheriff's bloated budget.
11. No more no-bid contracts. No more evergreen contracts.
12. No more marginalizing essential services (like libraries) as "nonessential." That dawg won't hunt.
13. It is time for Michael David Wanchick, County Administrator for Life, to find another line of work. It's time for him to go.
14. We don't need his kind of arrogant, autocratic, developer-driven, other-directed misrule any longer.
15. Character counts!« less


By Jake Martin
Posted at 6:44 AM
St. Augustine Record

St. Johns County commissioners, at their Feb. 6 meeting, directed staff to look at the costs of certain “nonessential” county programs and services and to come back with options for recouping some of those costs. That could mean higher countywide taxes or individual fees, or reduced services.

The board previously requested preliminary information in December.

Jesse Dunn, director of management and budget for the county, told commissioners the ongoing challenge for local government is to balance the community’s expectation for programs and services with what the community is willing and able to pay for. He said that, while the services are certainly valued, the community doesn’t always recognize the true, incremental costs involved in maintaining them.

He said the county receives a range of revenues for a range of programs and services.

While the countywide property tax is a collective way to raise funds that also reduces per capita cost of service, Dunn said there’s always debate over what services should be paid for by every property owner in the county. With individual fees, people get a better idea of the true costs, although Dunn said that clarity comes with a higher cost per user.

“This is a long spectrum of discussion,” he told commissioners, adding that the basic challenge the county faces is providing services that exceed its revenues.

Dunn said people want more libraries, more parks and more fire stations, but other issues such as insufficient drainage infrastructure, minimal funding for pavement management and a lack of affordable housing have also snowballed over the past couple of years. He said the county’s growing pains are pains, but still better than the alternative.

The bottom line, he said, is the commission can increase contributions — whether that’s individual fees or a millage-rate hike — or decrease the level of service provided.

For the purposes of discussion, “nonessential” services were generally defined as being those related to culture and recreation, and not services such as public safety, transportation or physical environment.


Dunn said staff will be coming before the board in upcoming meetings with costs on such items as beach services, parks-and-recreation services, boat-ramp services, library services, animal-control services and other service areas as directed. He said they will be using actual expenses and service levels from fiscal year 2017 as the basis for cost analyses.

To illustrate, he said service area “A” might have a total cost of service of $1 million, with a current fee offset of $50,000, leaving a net cost to the General Fund of $950,000. Supposing this service had 47,500 users, and assuming a full-cost recovery is desired, a $20 fee per user could close the gap.

Dunn said they would just be providing the implied cost of recovery and the commission could decide what fees, if any, to levy, and whether to make those revenues unrestricted or tie them back to the programs or services for which they are collected.

Commissioner Paul Waldron said he’s heard from 15 to 20 boaters willing to pay a fee for boat ramps, as long as it goes toward upkeep or upgrades of the ramps.

Commissioner Jimmy Johns said he thinks it’s the board’s fiduciary duty to explain to taxpayers what they’re paying for, and he argues that breaking it down to a cost-per-user level is the way to do it. He said ascertaining those costs would be a way to start the conversation and get feedback from residents.

Johns also took issue with the “nonessential” tag, saying the goal is really to make sure the county is getting the most bang for its buck. He said they don’t want to stop any services that people want to retain.

Commissioner Jeb Smith expressed some skepticism that the county could get legitimate, quantifiable user numbers from departments trying to justify their existence. He said even assuming they receive legitimate information on users, there are different intensities and kinds of uses of programs and services that could result in apples-to-oranges comparisons.

Dunn acknowledged the challenges of properly and fully capturing the number of users (and whether they’re residents or non-residents) and said they’re going to try not to put round numbers through square tests. He said there are certain programs for which user data will be easier to quantify than others — looking at ticket sales at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre, for instance.

Waldron said a golf course might be easy enough to track, looking at rounds of play, while visitors to the beach can range from a family spending the entire day there to someone walking over the beach walk and taking a 10-minute stroll.

Circling back to the “essential services,” Johns said the county also has a substantial deferred maintenance backlog that they need to catch up on. He said there’s no reason these projects should be deferred when the county is a destination for tourists and new residents alike.






Edward Adelbert Slavin
  • Edward Adelbert Slavin
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1. This meeting was six (6) days ago. We deserve TIMELY coverage, not week-old news.
2. The Jesse Dunn presentation was NOT in the agenda packet. Wonder why?
3. The presentation focused on cost recovery for services, and identifying costs. The term "nonessential" is spin and surplussage, normative, judgmental and inflammatory, it would appear.
4. I spoke in public comment (NOT quoted) and noted the need to make developers pay for the cost of ALL the services of the entire building dedicated to servicing their need, full of guys named "Bubba" granting them permits, rubber-stamping bad projects.
5. County Administrator Michael David Wanchick once expanded the number of bumptious Bubbas at the same time he cut library hours. How revealing. 
6. County Sheriff David Shoar's bloated budget must be subject to cost accounting.
7. County Commissioners need to pass an ordinance requiring ALL five Constitutional officers -- Sheriff, Clerk of Courts, Supervisor of Elections, Property Appraiser and Tax Collector -- to present their budgets by May 1, 2018.
8. THEN the County Administrator's budget hearing must be held in public (not an outbuilding) in the BCC Auditorium, TELEVISED.
9. No more secrets. No more coddling developers and their indecent demands to destroy our nature and history.
10. No more automatic budget increases for the Sheriff's bloated budget.
11. No more no-bid contracts. No more evergreen contracts.
12. No more marginalizing essential services (like libraries) as "nonessential." That dawg won't hunt.
13. It is time for Michael David Wanchick, County Administrator for Life, to find another line of work. It's time for him to go.
14. We don't need his kind of arrogant, autocratic, developer-driven, other-directed misrule any longer.
15. Character counts!

Sidewalks! What a novel idea for U.S. 1 in corrupt St. Johns County! (SAR)

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Why this matters: Pedestrian and bicyclist lives matter.  As elsewhere, FDOT and St. Johns County burghers long ignored the need for sidewalks.   Environmental racism? Deep insensitivity to human rights?  When you're planning decisions are made by developers and the likes of ROGERS TOWERS and GEORGE MORRIS McCLURE's greedy clients, who cares about pedestrians and bicyclists.

Meanwhile, several prisoners released in the middle of the night from St. Johns County Jail died, run over by cars, because they lacked transportation options.  Their blood is on Sheriff DAVID SHOAR's hands, just like the blood of Michelle O'Connell.

Lack of sidewalks is a national problem, wherever corporations have their way, distorting and distending development problems, electing hick hack politicians whose priorities don't include walking or bicycling. What do you reckon?










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FDOT: Sidewalk planned to make stretch of U.S. 1 safer. (St. Augustine Record)



Bretrice Colyer walks along the west side of U.S. 1 between the St. Johns County Courthouse and the city gates on Friday. The Florida Department of Transportation has announced plans to add a sidewalk on the west side of the stretch of road, which sees regular foot traffic and has a history of wrecks involving vehicles and pedestrians. [CHRISTINA KELSO/THE RECORD]

By Sheldon Gardner
St. Augustine Record

Posted Feb 11, 2018 at 2:01 AM
From 2008 to 2012, a part of U.S. 1 from St. Augustine to beyond St. Johns County offices and the Sheriff’s Office had at least eight wrecks involving vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians, according to the Florida Department of Transportation.

Many of the eight wrecks happened at night — people frequently walk in the grassy shoulder of the road close to high-speed traffic on U.S. 1 because there is little sidewalk along the highway on the west side of the road in the north part of the city and beyond.

Now, the Florida Department of Transportation is planning on adding a sidewalk on the west side of the road to do make a safer route, according to Bianca Speights, FDOT spokeswoman.

The sidewalk will be built on the west side of U.S. 1 North from Fairbanks Street to Big Oak Road, according to Speights. Big Oak Road is across from the area of the Northeast Florida Regional Airport.

But it will take a little while.

The project will be advertised for a contractor in late August 2019. It takes about 30 to 60 days after the end of the bidding process to get started, and will take about a year if weather and schedule permit after that for the project to be finished, according to Speights. It’s expected to cost $3.4 million, to be paid for with federal dollars.

Officials say it will not only make the road safer, it will also provide better connection to county offices for city residents.

″[A] study showed adding sidewalk would provide a safer more user-friendly route for pedestrians and bicyclists using U.S. 1,” according to Speights.

Part of the project involves the FDOT buying property from the city of St. Augustine, which the City Commission is expected to discuss on Monday. Assistant City Manager Tim Burchfield said North City residents who want to bike up to county offices would be able to with the addition.

“It will serve a good purpose,” he said.

The project comes alongside another sidewalk installation the FDOT is working on the east side of U.S. 1 from Northrop Grumman to Stokes Landing Road, according to Speights. That project, which is expected to cost $928,000, began in January and is expected to end this summer.

Comments:

Edward Adelbert Slavin
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Check out the AARP and Smart Growth America websites re: "Dangerous by Design 2016" report -- the Jacksonville Metro area has the fourth largest number of pedestrians killed by cars. 379 people killed from 2005-2014. Seven of the top ten metro areas were in Florida. Excerpt from summary:  
"Between 2005 and 2014, a total of 46,149 people were struck and killed by cars while walking. In 2014, the most recent year for which data are available, 4,884 people were killed by a car while walking—105 people more than in 2013. On average, 13 people were struck and killed by a car while walking every day in 2014. And between 2005 and 2014, Americans were 7.2 times more likely to die as a pedestrian than from a natural disaster. Each one of those people was a child, parent, friend, classmate, or neighbor. And these tragedies are occurring across the country—in small towns and big cities, in communities on the coast and in the heartland." 
"Dangerous by Design 2016 takes a closer look at this alarming epidemic, and once again ranks the 104 largest metro areas in the country, as well as every state, by the Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI) — a calculation of the share of local commuters who walk to work and the most recent data on pedestrian deaths." 
"The fourth edition of this report also includes a significant racial and income-based examination of the people who are most at risk, showing that people of color and older adults are overrepresented among pedestrian deaths, and that PDI is correlated with median household income and rates of uninsured individuals. Download the report to read the full findings." 
"This report is accompanied by two interactive maps of pedestrian fatalities as well as sortable tables of all state- and metro-level data." 
Look it up. Demand sidewalks. Now!

Edward Adelbert Slavin
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1. Thanks to FDOT and the City for finally working toward building sidewalks on U.S. 1.
2. This basic amenity should have been done decades ago, especially in light of the custom, usage, practice and procedure of the St. Johns County Sheriff's Department of releasing jail prisoners at night, forcing those low-income released prisoners without transportation options to walk south on U.S. 1, resulting in several horrible deaths when pedestrian former prisoners walking alongside US 1 were run over by automobile and truck drivers.
3. Lack of sidewalks is a clear and present danger to pedestrian and bicyclist safety in St. Johns County, ignored by St. Johns County Administrator Michael David Wanchick and his minions, who pout about "nonessential" services, while allowing St. Johns County to be converted and perverted into an unreasonable facsimile of Broward County or Richardson, Texas, where Wanchick once worked, doing the bidding of developers, before he arrived here in 2007.
4. How about a story on the total numbers of persons hurt or killed along our highways and streets since 2000 due to lack of sidewalks?
5. Are these preventable injuries and deaths of pedestrians and bicyclists the foreseeable, direct and proximate result of bad planning and one-party Republican misrule -- allowing developers to build projects without sidewalks, and possible environmental racism on the part of government and corporate transportation plans?
6. Sidewalks are a basic public amenity and should be deemed a basic human right: they promote healthier living and save lives. Thank you!


Marty Miller
  • Marty Miller
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Now this sounds like a good use of bed tax funds that would actually benefit locals. Too bad it wouldn’t benefit beachfront residents.

President* TRUMP Shows the Way -- How NOT to Be President

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Evocative column by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times.


Trump Shows Us the Way

By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
February 11, 2018



Hope Hicks, who was dating her disgraced colleague Rob Porter, consults with her boss, President Trump. Credit Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump slipped into the Oval Office through a wormhole of confusion about the American identity.

We weren’t winning wars anymore. They just went on and on and on, with inexplicable and deceptive aims and so many lives and limbs and trillions lost.

We couldn’t believe in our institutions, with breaches of trust and displays of ineptitude.

We were moving from a white-majority, male-dominated country and manufacturing base to a multicultural, multilateral, globalized, P.C., new energy, new technology world, without taking account of the confusion and anger of older Americans who felt like strangers in a strange land.

Among many, the allure of Barack Obama’s brainy nuance had given way to a longing for a more muscular certainty.

With the Russians sowing confusion, Trump surfed those free-floating anxieties, that fear of not knowing who we are, straight to Pennsylvania Avenue.

And now, thanks to our barmy president and his staff meltdown, we are finding out fast who we are and who we don’t want to be.

We don’t want to countenance abusive behavior. And we certainly don’t want men like Rob Porter who have punched, kicked, choked and terrorized their wives to be in the president’s inner circle, helping decide which policies, including those that affect women, get emphasized.

We don’t want the White House chief of staff to be the sort of person who shields and defends abusers — and then dissembles about it — simply because the abuser is a rare competent staffer. Or a man who labels Dreamers “too lazy to get off their asses” simply because they didn’t apply for legal protections in time.

John Kelly served as a character witness not only for Porter, after he didn’t receive security clearance because F.B.I. agents had heard the harrowing tales from his battered ex-wives. Kelly also testified as a character witness for Gen. Robert E. Lee and a former Marine who pleaded guilty to sending inappropriate sexual messages to female subordinates; who drove drunk to an arraignment; and who got charged in Virginia with sex crimes against children.

A military hero like General Kelly who made the ultimate sacrifice of losing a son in war should have a higher standard for integrity and honor, the words he lavished on his disgraced aide, Porter.

We want our president to be a moral beacon, not a ratings-obsessed id. We want a president who understands that sexual and physical abuse are wrong. As a more lucid Trump tweeted in 2012 about Rihanna getting back together with Chris Brown, “A beater is always a beater.”

We don’t want a president who bends over backward to give the benefit of the doubt to neo-Nazis, wife beaters, pedophiles and sexual predators — or who is a sexual predator himself. We don’t want a president who thinks #me is more important than #metoo.

We don’t want a president who flips the ordinary equation, out of some puerile sense of grievance, to honor Russia and dishonor the F.B.I.

We don’t want a president who believes that vile behavior is justified by a Vesuvial stock market.

We don’t want a president who is too shallow to read his daily intelligence report and too obsessed with the deep state to deal fairly with our intelligence agencies.

We don’t want a president who is on a sugar high of ego, whose demented tweets about nukes and crowd size scare even Omarosa.

We don’t want a president who redecorates the Oval as an infinity mirror.

We don’t want a president who suggests that Democrats who don’t clap for him are treasonous and who seems more enthralled by authoritarian ways than democratic ones.

We don’t want a president who promises an A team but surrounds himself with dreckitude, a president who vows to pass “the best” bills but then doesn’t care whether he’s selling steak, wine, condos or garbage policies on matters of life and death that he hasn’t even bothered to read.

We don’t want a president who goes to military school but never leaves; who loves generals but trashes Gold Star parents; who wants the sort of chesty military parade that we mock Kim Jong-un for, a phallic demonstration of overcompensation that would only put more potholes in the D.C. boulevards.

We don’t want a president who makes his version of make-believe real, and who looks with favor on deceit, hypocrisy, conflict of interest and nepotism.

We don’t want a president who merits a special prosecutor, let alone one who could be so easily trapped in lies that he can’t even be allowed to talk to an investigator.

We don’t want a president who treats the hallowed house where Abraham Lincoln once wrote the nation’s most sacred texts as the set of a cheesy reality show.

We don’t want a president who treats the presidency as just another personal business franchise or family employment program.

We don’t want a president who glides through the chaos he craves and conjures, while everyone around him immolates and shivers.

And, finally, we surely don’t want a president who seeks advice on foreign affairs from Henry Kissinger. Ever. Again.

Lincolnville resident Warren Clark named "Green Hero"

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Lincolnville resident Rev. Dr. Warren Clark was named a "Green Hero" by the Northeast Florida Green Building Council February 8th. 

Rev. Dr. Clark is the co-founder of our St. Johns Solar Cooperative.

Last year, Rev. Dr. Clark said, “We want to jump start a transition from old, dangerous and dirty fossil fuels into clean energy right here on the First Coast and in St. Johns County.” 

He is a talented artist-activist whose illustrations for the St. Johns County Visitor and Convention Bureau dramatize our City's history, including African-American and civil rights history.  He's  a leader on social justice issues with Compassionate St. Augustine.

Dr. Clark is married to Pam, and is the father of First Coast News reporter Jessica Clark.  










Carl Halbirt, St. Augustine City Archaeologist, 1990-2017, Receives La Florida Award From City of St. Augustine

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Viva Carl Halbert, our City of St. Augustine's first City Archaeologist, 1990-2017! 
He documented our City's buried treasures.

St. Augustine City Hall's Alcazar Room was full of archaeologists, volunteers, historians, activists, federal, state and local government employees, current and former politicians and other residents Monday, February 12, 2018.

Our friend Carl Halbirt received the City's highest honor, the La Florida award.  Carl has performed over 800 archaeological digs in 27 years at the City's first City Archaeologist.

Government scientists often face pressures from their employers and business men.

When I was a lawyer, I "rode circuit" protecting the rights of ethical resisters (employee whistleblowers), I found this across this land, from sea to shining sea, from California's San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program to Washington, D.C

I believe that history may record the fact that Carl Halbirt's work was sometimes  threatened, but not stopped, by short-sightedness, by hick hacks (like ex-Mayor JOE BOLES, who did not attend), by cabined budgets and by cranky City burghers.

Case in point: in 2005-2006, corrupt City Planning and Building Director MARK ALAN KNIGHT (later fired for reasons never shared with us) kept secret from City Archaeologist Carl Halbirt the incomplete ESI report on Red House Bluff, a 3000-4000  Native American monument along Lewis Speedway, just north of St. Augustine High School.

I believe that history may record that there were tensions and pressures upon Carl, flowing from developers, builders and City officials, among them cognitive misers 'who know not that they know not that they know not," as my friend and former client, retired Special Agent Robert E. Tyndall might say.

"Nonetheless, [Carl] persisted." (To paraphrase Senator Mitch McConnell about Senator Elizabeth Warren.)

Against all odds, like Horatio at the bridge, our heroic City Archaeologist Carl Halbirt helped document our City's history and cultural heritage.

Under the City's pioneering archaeological ordinance, Carl performed archaeological digs before developers and construction crews.  Working with dedicated volunteers, Carl worked for more than a quarter of a century, 1990-2017; together they have made a tremendous difference in the understanding of the history of Our Nation's Oldest Cities.  

Their discoveries have been documented in scholarly publications and may be seen in the St. Augustine Art Association and in museums.

Thank you!

In their honor, I believe that we need to adopt an ethical employee whistleblower protection ordinance.

Viva!

From the City of St. Augustine's Facebook page:
Carl Halbirt became the 19th recipient of the City of St. Augustine's highest and most prestigious award, the Order of La Florida on Monday, February 12. Halbirt, who retired in September 2017 after 27 years as the city archaeologist, received the award from members of the City Commission before a standing room only audience in City Hall’s The Alcazar Room. In addition to the city’s presentation, representatives of U. S. Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson presented Halbirt with letters recognizing his years of service and his contributions to the historical knowledge gained through his work.
To watch the presentation, visit http://staugustinefl.swagit.com/play/02122018-754, and to learn more about Mr. Halbirt and the Order of La Florida, visit the web story at www.CityStAug.com.




Carl Halbirt and Dr. Kathy Deagan, Emeritus UF Professor.

HCN

Carl Halbirt, City Commissioners and volunteers
Carl Halbirt and La Florida Award
Left to right: City of St. Augustine City Commissioners Leanna Sophia Amaru Freeman, Roxanne Horvath, Emeritus City Archaeologist Carl Halbirt, Mayor Nancy Shaver and Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline

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archaeology.org

Florida Museum of Natural History

New York Daily News
Jacksonville Florida Times-Union

St. Augustine Art Association


St. Augustine Art Association

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Coe College
Colonial History
First Coast News
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Going Public


The "IRON FIST" AND "THE IRON HEEL" OF ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH

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Is the City of St. Augustine Beach being run by an "IRON HEEL" of a somnambulistic longtime City "Manager" who stayed too long, like The Man Who Came to Dinner?"

Controversial City of St. Augustine Beach City "Manager" MAX ROYLE refuses to apologize for anything, most recently his Code Enforcement persecution of Commissioner Maggie Kostka.

But in a surprise move, St. Augustine Beach Mayor Undine Pawlowski George ACTUALLY APOLOGIZED at Commission's February 12, 2018 (Lincoln's birthday) meeting to fellow Commissioner Maggie Kostka.  Mayor George graciously publicly and correctly apologized  for City Manager's frivolous code enforcement complaints against Commissioner Kostka, (Coneheads Ice Cream Store Flutter Flags Kerfuffle).   It was the right thing to do, and surprised everyone.

Watch meeting video here.


Flutter signs -- a June 7, 2017 City Commission workshop resolved would be legal. Due to staff incompetence, City Commission never got a draft ordinance back from its City Manager and City Attorney in July and August.

With his Coneheads Ice Cream Store Flutter Flags Kerfuffle,Royle created a hostile working environment for Commissioner Maggie Kostka in retaliation for her criticizing ROYLE, violating the First Amendment and Commissioner Kostka's civil rights. In response to rogue ROYLE's complaints, Commissioner Maggie Kostka was subjected to a retaliatory Code Enforcement hearing in January 2018.

At the City of St. Augustine Beach's February 12, 2018 meeting, Mayor Pawlowski George apologized to Commissioner MAX ROYlE's unconstitutional, retaliatory Coneheads Ice Cream Store Flutter Flags Kerfuffle Code Enforcement scheme.  Watch tape at 3:01.

BUT St. Augustine Beach City Manager BRUCE MAX ROYLE has refused to apologize for his latest retaliation for First Amendment protected activity in asking questions about violations of sexual harassment laws and calling for a national search for a new City Manager.

At the February 12, 2018 City Commission meeting, refusing to look me in the eye, City Manager ignored citizen requests to apologize for the Coneheads Ice Cream Store Flutter Flags Kerfuffle and resign as a result of his incompetence, e.g, barmy bureaucrat BRUCE MAX ROYLE's flutter flag flummery.

Why this matters: ROYLE never apologizes for anything. He literally puts his head down and won't look you in the eye when you ask questions, and he never takes responsibility for his many management failures. It's time for him to go.


Speaking of apologies, St. Augustine Beach Mayor Undine Pawlowski George and her fellow Commissioners owe an apology to everyone for their violation of First Amendment rights in 2018.  She's feeling her oats, like the Mayor of the other itty bitty city, Mayor Nancy Shaver of the City of St. Augustine Beach.

Both need to lighten up.

St. Augustine Beach Mayor George told me February 13th that she would rule with an "iron fist." That sounds too much like Dick Cheney to me.  SAB citizens deserve a Mayor, not a martinet.

On February 12, 2018 Mayor George ordered dissenters Thomas F. Reynolds, Jr. and Merrill Paul Roland for wasting time at the podium, a form of protest likely protected by the First Amendment and civil rights laws. Mr. Roland stated at the podium that he could "whistle Dixie" if he wanted to do so in his two minutes.

Both Messrs. Roland and Reynolds were ejected for being annoying, apparently.

Case law establishes the right of free speech, including the right to protest at meetings.

Bother were peacefully escorted from the meeting.

At the end of the meting during Commissioners' comment time,  SAB Commissioners considered and adopt at least four (4) measures without allowing public comment:

  • A letter endorsing a St. Johns County Request for Proposals (RFP) to find a new vendor for the St. Augustine Beach Farmer's Market on county property.  Earlier in the meeting, County Commission Chairman I. Henry Dean, an SAB resident, spoke in favor of the RPP to keep a St. Augustine Beach Farmer's Market.  The Wednesday Farmer's Market was long (mis)managed by the oxymoronic St. Augustine Beach Civic (sic) Association, Inc., a de facto political action committee whose President is WILLIAM JONES, disgraced, disciplined, demoted St. Johns County Sheriff's Office civilian employee. No public comment was allowed.  Unconstiutional.  
  • Updating the strategic plan. Commissioners rightly rejected the notion of hiring UCF's overrated, overpaid Marilyn Crotty as facilitator at a meeting this year.  Too soon, too much money ($1800 for a day).  I agree with their decision. But I was not allowed to speak.  Unconstitutional. 
  • Allowing SAMORA and ROYLE to work on a renewed effort for the City to communicate with the County about its desire take over the Pier Park, with a "vision." Not on agenda.  No public comment allowed.  Unconstitutional. (But they logically and legally set a workshop for March 6 at 6 PM, or after the conclusion of any continuation meeting from the March 5 meeting, which would include Commissioner Maggie Kostka's suggestion of considering federal and state options on the Pier Park. 
  • Directing the City Attorney directing him to write a policy for him to investigate harassment complaints involving the City Manager or Police Chief, instead of outside counsel or arbitrator.   That's a conflict of interest. Bad policy. Not on agenda.  No public comment allowed.  Unconstitutional.

We have a First Amendment right to speak and also rights under Florida law.

Developer-driven SAB City Manager BRUCW MAX ROYLE and two successive Mayors met with County Administrator MICHAEL DAVID WANCHICK to discuss with the EMBASSY SUITES HOTEL owner the future of our County Pier Park -- no press, no lawyers, no e-mails no correspondence,, no disclosures by disgraced ex-Mayors "ANGRY ANDREA SAMUELS a/k/a "CUPCAKE" and RICHARD BURTT O'BRIEN.

Building Director Brian Law predicted at the February 12 meeting that the EMBASSY SUITES HOTEL, too big and with too little parking, would soon "monopolize" the Pier Park parking lot. Shameful of former Commissioners and Mr. Law's boss and his predecessor to allow this to happen?

What happened?

St. Augustine Beach's City "Manager" MAX ROYLE allowed AKERMAN SENTERFITT client KEY INTERNATIONAL, owned by the aRDIDS in Miami, to defy height limit and build a massive hotel without sufficient parking.  The contempt for the environment shown by the City of St. Augustine Beach is both totalitarian and total.

Violating state  law, SAB Commissioners made at least four (4) decisions without allowing ANY public comment. They denied this right during Commissioner comments when these decisions were made.

Ambitious St. Augustine Beach Mayor Undine George is a licensed attorney? Does she think before she acts? If she can be provoked by annoying protests, how many reversible errors will she commit in quasi-judical hearings? Does this reflect on her ability to be a judge if nominated or elected? (Rhetorical questions).

Does Mayor Undine George now owe an apology for repeatedly violating the First, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments and Florida's open meetings laws? After the meeting, I reminded Mayor George and Vice Mayor England of our civil and constitutional and legal rights (with the former by phone the next morning and the latter after the meeting, in person).

To St. Augustine Beach City Commission: As I once told Commissioner Tom Manuel after his 2008 arrest for bribery, "DON'T DO IT AGAIN."

It appears Mayor George, married to former St. Augustine Beach Mayor Edward George, needs to calm down. She's acting like ANGRY ANDREA SAMUELS on caffeine.

The City of St. Augustine Beach is getting ZERO legal advice on First Amendment issues in its meetings, and at times it appears that City of St. Augustine Beach City Attorney James Patrick Wilson might as well have a bumper sicker over his nameplate -- "I'D RATHER BE SAILING."

ROYLE and WILSON were behind the actions of three Commissioners who outvoted Mayor George by a 3-2 vote to limit agenda item public comment to only two minutes (Commissioners Undine George and Maggie Kostka were outvoted by disgraced ex-Mayor RiCHARD BURTT O'BRIEN, VICE MAYOR MARGARET ENGLAND, and the new Commissioner, DONALD SAMORA.

SAMORA promised he could attend SAB Commission meetings when he was chosen by Commissioners last year. Yet he demanded the scheduled February 5, 2018 meeting be reschuled to February 12, 2018, a direct conflict with the simultaneous meeting of the City Commission of the other itty bitty City, St. Augustine. City Manager ROYLE has previously used this tactic, smirking "You're the only one who complained" to me when I pointed out the (intentional) schedule conflict, with also inconveniences St. Augustine Record reporter Sheldon Gardner, who covers both cities. This move smug sneaky scheduling move effectively guaranteed that Austin-edited Record will not cover this meeting for days. Nice move, sweethearts!

SAMORA doesn't do his homework, fixes a malocchio on critics, and is a strident opponent of public comment rights.

SAMORA was chosen by Commissioners to replace resigned former Commissioner Sherman Gary Snodgrass.

At the meeting that chose SAMORA, there was public support from the slithering Certified Public Accountant for Flagler Hospital, Flagler College, Republican candidates and developers -- His Dishonor, da Vice Mayor of that other itty bitty City, the City of St. Augustine, COMMISSIONER TODD DAVID NEVILLE a/k/a "ODD TODD."

Also supporting SAMORA  was ODD TODD's father TIMOTHY, "THE ODDFATHER," a  genial man who retired to St. Augustine Beach resident with his lovely wife.

The ODDFATHER is a retired anti-union consultant and plant manager from Tennessee who often played tennis with the late former White Houae Chief of Staff and Senate Republican Majority Leader HOWARD HENRY BAKER, JR. in Scott County, Tennessee.

DONALD SAMORA's GODFATHER, St. Augustine City Vice Mayor ODD TODD NEVILLE, is an enemy of the First Amendment.

ODD TODD NEVILE abused City resources to investigate the possibility of a libel lawsuit against an online publication for expressing an opinion about conflict of interest involving NEVILLE and THE COLLECTOR HOTEL owner DAVID BARTON CORNEAL.

ODD TODD NEVILLE' never reimbursed the City of St. Augustine for miusing its lawyers time, or for reading in such a paranoid manner to criticism by Historic City News and Michael Gold.

In listening to ODD TODD and the ODD FATHER, SAB Commissioners chose SAMORA, who has proven to be yet another local enemy of the First Amendment, it would appear.

In Commissioner comments, sibilant SAMORA congratulated Mayor George for running the meeting with an iron fist.

Watch the meeting tape here.   You tell me.  Do citizens have a right to be angry and protest when their rights to three minute public comments are abridged to two minutes?  Does Mayor George have a right to interrupt citizens?  Did she lose her cool?  Does she need to apologize?  Does anyone else?   What do you reckon?

It appears that Mayor George is unduly influenced by three of her colleagues, who are hostile to the First Amendment, and in this one instance even egged on by SAMORA (and presumably at their country club or at home with their cocktails, ODD TODD and the ODDFATHER.    

So with SAMORA the swing vote, it seems that Commissioners will be run like a crime scene, with MAX ROYLE still calling the shots and avoiding and evading accountability.

It's not unlike watching an old tomcat bat around young mice.   While ROYLE is about as sharp as a mashed potato sandwich with the crust cut off, he gets away with it.  Again and again and again.

Former Mayor Gary Snodgrass made ROYLE answer citizen questions. That must be the rule. No more evading answers. No more disrespect to citizens.

Will the itty bitty ity government of the City of St. Augustine Beach will remain a dysfunctional mafia family, "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight," now influenced by the Manchurian candidate vetted, endorsed and supported by ODD TODD and the ODDFATHER, with SAMORA now arrogantly pushing to exercise a Philistine's veto on free speech rights?

I reckon that SAB will sadly continue down the road to perdition, to First Amendment Hell and to further violations.

That is, unless and until Vice Mayor Margaret England comes to her senses and reads the law to her colleagues.

As RFK once wrote to Senator James O/ Eastland in book dedication, "Repent now, there's still time"

What do you reckon?

To be continued.....





DONALD SAMORA




ODD TODD NEVILLE





First U.S. St. Patrick’s celebration held in St. Augustine, Florida in 1600 (Celtic Canada)

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Dr. Michael Francis's research has proved St. Augustine beat New York City by 162 years in celebrating St. Patrick's Day.

Celtic Canada reports that Carl Halbirt, recently honored ed City of St. Augustine archaeologist, is thrilled with this discovery. Halbirt was recently named Parade Marshal of the 2018 St. Augustine St. Patrick’s Day Parade taking place on March 10.




First U.S. St. Patrick’s celebration held in St. Augustine, Florida in 1600
By Celtic Canada - February 13, 2018

FIRST U.S. ST. PATRICK’S CELEBRATION HELD
IN ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA IN 1600

St. Augustine, FL – Put another feather – or shamrock – in St. Augustine’s cap.

It’s time to re-write history. It’s been proven in written records that the first event commemorating Saint Patrick in the U.S. was held in St. Augustine, Florida in 1600, and the first St. Patrick’s parade/procession took place in 1601.

This pre-dates Boston’s claim to the first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in 1737 (stpatricksday.com), and New York City’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1762 (history.com).

Found in Spanish archives on December 20, 2017 by historian Dr. J. Michael Francis, documents reveal that spring festivities included a feast day of San Patricio (St. Patrick) in the year 1600 in St. Augustine, Florida. The discovery was found in a gunpowder expenditures log in Spain’s Archivo General de Indias, or AGI.

“While artillery pieces often were fired to help guide ships safely across St. Augustine’s protective sandbar, they were also fired during times of public celebrations and religious festivals,” Francis wrote in his blog for PBS (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/blog/uncovering-secrets-spanish-florida/)

Francis is a professor and Chair of the Department of History and Politics at University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. He was recently appointed to the Florida Historical Commission. He’s been searching through those Spanish archives, off and on, for the past 30 years.

Also in Francis’ PBS blog: “In March of 1601, St. Augustine’s residents gathered together and processed through the city’s streets in honor of an Irish saint, who appears to have assumed a privileged place in the Spanish garrison town. Indeed, during these same years, St. Patrick was identified as the official ‘protector’ of the city’s maize fields.”

How did Francis feel when we figured out what he had just found?

“It was certainly a surprise … it did not register the first time I looked through it. … It was written in Spanish, and it took a few seconds before it actually hit me that this was a St. Patrick’s Day parade/procession,” Francis explained when he discovered these facts.

” … I don’t know how much it will change the national perception (of St. Patrick’s Day) which has evolved into something so unique. … It certainly forces people to pause.”

Carl Halbirt, recently retired City of St. Augustine archaeologist, is thrilled with this discovery. Halbirt was recently named Parade Marshal of the 2018 St. Augustine St. Patrick’s Day Parade taking place on March 10.

“The history of St. Augustine, its diversity, and place in American (U. S.) heritage is often overlooked by people who do not live in Northeast Florida,” Halbert said.

“Yet, it is a city of firsts and oldest in terms of the country’s European ancestry. The discovery of this particular cultural tradition only adds to the city’s mystic and place. The late historian Luis Arana stated that ‘we have only scratched the tip of the iceberg’ regarding the historical records (and I might add the city’s buried archaeological record). Dr. Michael Francis’s discovery of these documents adds to St. Augustine’s cultural heritage.”

RARE FINDS

For Francis, this is one of two extremely rare finds. His previous discovery was the oldest documented marriage in St. Augustine in 1565, which was between a free black woman and a Spanish soldier.

“I’ve been working in those Spanish archives going on almost 30 years … and it’s rare that you read through and there’s this one magical document that changes everything … like this one St. Patrick’s day commemoration,” Francis said.

Francis also found written archive records about two Irish residents in St. Augustine – David Glavid, a soldier and a merchant who moved to St. Augustine in June 1597, and Ricardo Artur (Richard Arthur) who served as St. Augustine’s parish priest from 1597 to 1604, when he disappears from the record.

Francis believes the St. Patrick celebrations in 1600 and 1601 were influenced by the Irish priest, Richard Arthur

Can governments restrict public comment rights? NOPE. (SLPC)

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From Southern Poverty Law Center:

Legal Analysis: Can school boards restrict public comments?



When Dean Paterakis stepped to the microphone to comment on restroom accommodations for transgender students, he was already a familiar antagonist to the Brevard County school board.
A former third-grade teacher, Paterakis had sued the district alleging wrongful termination in retaliation for blowing the whistle on grade-tampering by an administrator. On this occasion in May 2016, though, Paterakis was before the board as an upstart candidate challenging a two-term incumbent. And he gave the board an earful.
According to news reports 1, Paterakis was told to step away from the microphone for “inappropriate” remarks and, when he refused, was removed from the meeting by sheriff’s deputies and jailed on two misdemeanor charges.
A school board member said Paterakis (who accused a teacher of showing a photo of his genitals to students during a class presentation) was in violation of a policy forbidding “talking about a teacher,” which is a “personnel matter and not allowed at Board meetings due to possible slander.” 2
Though it’s a rarity when a school board speech escalates into an arrest, it’s increasingly commonplace for districts to impose restrictions on what members of the public may say during the open-microphone portion of board meetings. But such restrictions are doubtfully legal, and in a pair of recent interpretations – one in Illinois and one in Virginia – have been found unconstitutional.
What First Amendment rights do speakers have when they address school boards and other government meetings? This article will look at the growing consensus of legal authorities that citizens may freely criticize school practices – including named employees – during public meetings.
The First Amendment and government meetings
The ability to speak directly to a government board – a city council, a school board, college trustees – is perhaps the purest and most basic form of citizen participation. It may come as a surprise, then, that the Constitution is not understood to guarantee citizens a right to be heard before their elected officials make a decision; the Supreme Court said as much in a 1984 ruling involving labor negotiations in a community college district. 3
Once an agency does agree to accept public comment, however, the commenting system cannot be operated in a discriminatory or viewpoint-restrictive way.
When a speaker seeks to use government-owned property as a platform for delivering a message, the degree of First Amendment protection depends on the nature of the property. Some property is recognized as being traditionally a “public forum” where speech can never be restricted on the basis of its message, such as a park or a sidewalk.
The Supreme Court set forth its “forum doctrine” in a case about access to mailboxes in a public school. 4 In that case, a union wanted to place recruitment flyers in teachers’ inboxes, noting that the boxes were built specifically for communicative purposes. The Court, however, found that the boxes were not a “forum” open to general expressive use, but rather, were limited by their nature to communications about official school business by authorized users. Therefore, non-school organizations had no constitutional right to insist on using the mailboxes.
The podium at a governmental meeting is considered a “designated” public forum, meaning a piece of property that has been purposefully set aside for expressive use. Regardless of whether property is a forum by tradition or by designation, the government cannot pick-and-choose among viewpoints; once the property is opened for one opinion, it must be open on equal terms to all.
However, unlike a park or a sidewalk, when the government “designates” a location as a space where citizens can express themselves, the use of the space can be limited to speech consistent with the purpose of the space. While a city or county or school board cannot differentiate based on a speaker’s opinion, speakers can be limited to subjects relevant to that agency; for instance, a person who insisted on using the school board microphone for a speech about U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan could be silenced on the grounds that the speech is unrelated to the purpose of the school board meeting.5
Content based versus content neutral
Once a piece of property is declared to be a “forum,” any regulation on the content of a speaker’s message is presumed to be unconstitutional and is likely to be struck down if it is challenged. 6 Only if a judge finds that the restriction is absolutely necessary to achieve a compelling governmental purpose will the restrictions be constitutional.
But even in a public forum, the government can always enforce reasonable regulations on the use of property that are “content neutral,” applying even-handedly to all speakers. For instance, a federal appeals court decided that a five-minute limit on speeches at a congressional hearing is a lawful, content-neutral restriction. 7 A government body also may remove a speaker who causes a disturbance – shouting, refusing to leave after the expiration of a time limit – without violating the First Amendment.8
Judges sometimes have trouble making this distinction. Regulations that clearly seem targeted to the substance of a speaker’s message are, at times, mistakenly deemed to be “content neutral.”
For example, a federal judge decided that a City of Topeka regulation prohibiting “personal, rude or slanderous remarks” at city council meetings was a constitutionally valid, content-neutral regulation. 9 But the rule should have been analyzed as content-based, since it targeted the speakers’ choice of words rather than their method of delivery.
Had the judge analyzed the rule properly, it would have been declared unconstitutional because of its excessive breadth. “Rude” and “personal” are not terms with any accepted legal definition, and any potential speaker would be unable to anticipate what speech is and is not permitted, which is a red flag of unconstitutionality. (There is no indication that the ruling was appealed, but because it comes only from a district court, the decision is not binding on other courts.)
Restraints on commenting rarely succeed
When speakers who’ve been restrained from commenting at public meetings bring constitutional challenges, they’ve generally been successful. Judges have no difficulty recognizing that a government meeting is meant for the airing of complaints, even if that requires naming or criticizing a particular employee.
Examples include:
  • A federal district court in California ordered a school board not to enforce a regulation against “charges or complaints against any employee of the District” during board meetings. 10 The plaintiff, who was silenced – and ultimately removed from the room by sheriffs’ deputies – when addressing the board about why grievances against a principal and superintendent went unaddressed, argued that the rule violated her free-speech rights. The judge agreed, in a ruling that was primarily based on the California state constitution’s strong free-speech protections rather than on federal law. The judge found that protecting employees against speech defaming them or invading their privacy was not a compelling government interest overriding the public’s right to speak. (The judge also noted that the policy was not well-tailored to its purpose; for instance, a speaker could reveal intimate personal information about an employee without violating the policy, as long as the disclosure was not a “charge” or a “complaint.”)
  • Another California district court struck down a school-district bylaw prohibiting “improper conduct or remarks” by public presenters. 11 The district defined “improper remarks” to mean “complaints against an individual employee.” A speaker who twice was silenced while trying to raise questions about the qualifications of the district school superintendent sued to invalidate the bylaw, and a judge found the restrictions unconstitutional: “Debate over public issues, including the qualifications and performance of public officials (such as a school superintendent), lies at the heart of the First Amendment. Central to these principles is the ability to question and challenge the fitness of the administrative leader of a school district, especially in a forum created specifically to foster discussion about a community's school system.”12
  • A Virginia Beach school board policy prohibiting “personal attacks” was struck down as an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. 13 The school district attempted to defend the restriction by saying it narrowly applied only to “personal” remarks (such as “the principal is a liar”) and not to complaints about professional conduct (such as “the principal lied about spending the money”). But the judge found that the regulation still would inhibit speakers from voicing opinions about school officials, because the average person would not make such a distinction and would assume that any criticism mentioning an employee’s name was forbidden.
In a 2010 case going against the majority view, a federal appeals court refused to strike down a Texas school district’s restrictions that forbade speakers from using the microphone to air complaints about specific district employees. 14
A three-judge panel of the federal Fifth Circuit analyzed the restriction as an extension of the school district’s complaint-resolution process. Because the district had a complaint mechanism requiring grievances to first be presented to a lower-level district employee before the board would hear them, the judges regarded the restriction on speech as a legitimate method of enforcing compliance with the complaint procedure.
The ruling is a fairly narrow one, and it can be interpreted as applying only to speech that involves disputes with employees that are subject to a formal grievance procedure. That is different from saying that a board could constitutionally prohibit the mention of any names, which is a much broader restriction.
During 2016, two rulings – one in Illinois and one in Virginia – added to the growing consensus that the First Amendment protects the right to criticize the performance of school employees during board meetings.
Two regulations struck down 
When the chairman of an Illinois school board shut off the microphone in the midst of a citizen activist’s speech criticizing school personnel, Komaa Mnyofu responded with a federal lawsuit. Mnyofu alleged that his speech was cut short because of his unfavorable opinion, an act of unlawful viewpoint discrimination. He challenged the board’s decision in U.S. district court as a violation of his First Amendment rights.
The district judge agreed that Mnyofu had a constitutionally protected right to use the public-comment period to criticize school employees – in fact, the judge wrote, the right is “clearly established” by decades of federal precedent. 15
In an unusual maneuver, the school district filed a “preemptive strike” lawsuit attempting to have Mnyofu banished from attending board meetings, arguing that his demeanor demonstrated a likelihood of future disruptive behavior. The judge threw out the case, finding that a government agency cannot preemptively ban a citizen from speaking at public meetings.16
In Virginia, meanwhile, the state’s attorney general issued an interpretation instructing the Franklin City School board to stop enforcing a regulation banning “personal attacks against employees” and comments that “identify specific individuals” during the public portions of meetings. 17
When evaluating a governmental restriction on speech, the first question is always whether the restriction is based on the content of the speaker’s message; if so, then the regulation is presumed to be unconstitutional unless it is show to be necessary to achieve a compelling government purpose.
Herring concluded that the rule was not based on content, because it prohibited all mentions of identifiable people (students as well as employees) and did not differentiate based on the speaker’s message. 18 Nevertheless, even a content-neutral regulation can be struck down as invalid if it is unreasonably broad or vague – and the Franklin school board’s flunked the test.
Because the school board comment period is a “designated public forum” for the expression of public views, access to the forum can be closed or limited only if the speaker has reasonable alternative channels to be heard. The school board’s lawyers argued that speakers could request to air personnel grievances in a closed-door “executive session,” but Herring noted that there is no assurance the request will be granted: “I conclude that allowing discussion of individual school employees only during closed session does not meet the constitutional standard of ‘leaving open ample channels of communication.’” 19
Anticipating libel?
When a journalist questioned the validity of a Miami-Dade School Board policy that prohibits “individual grievances” and “personal attacks” during board meetings, the district’s attorney claimed the policy was necessary to prevent members of the public from defaming school employees. 20
The argument that criticism of employees must be forbidden to prevent defamation fails on two legal grounds. First, not all critical speech is defamatory. Defamation requires proof of a false statement of fact. Accurately describing wrongdoing by a school employee is a non-defamatory act of constitutionally protected speech. A restraint on referring to identifiable individuals fails the constitutional test of “overbreadth,” since it restrains far more speech than is necessary to accomplish its objective. 21
Even if it’s reasonably anticipated that some speakers will abuse the comment period to make defamatory statements, the Supreme Court has made clear that speech cannot be restrained in anticipation that it will harm someone’s reputation. 22 Rather, the proper remedy is to let the speech be heard and – if it causes harm – compensate any injured parties by way of a civil suit for money damages.
The Miami-Dade policy (which, while rare, is not unique) goes even further than prohibiting criticism of school employees and even prohibits mention of the names of individual school board members themselves (as well as any other proper name, even that of President Obama or the U.S. education secretary). While it’s arguably unfair for a speaker to be given a platform to berate a schoolteacher who’s not present at the meeting to defend herself, the school board members are present and have microphones of their own. Any policy extending beyond low-level school employees that insulates elected officials against criticism is undoubtedly unconstitutional.
As a reporter monitoring Miami-Dade school board meetings observed, policies against “mentioning” names are an invitation to abuse, since a speaker almost never will be silenced for commending an employee – indeed, reporter Rowan Moore Gerety witnessed several instances of speakers thanking people by name (including named school board members) without interruption. 23
Conclusion
It’s important for journalists who cover school boards – or student advocates who may find themselves speaking before school boards – to appreciate the strong First Amendment protection for citizen speech to government officials addressing matters of public concern. (Indeed, the First Amendment not only protects the freedom of speech, but also the freedom to petition government officials for the redress of grievances, and a restraint on speech to school boards jeopardizes both of these rights.)
An increasing number of school districts are buying cookie-cutter policies from vendors of uncertain reliability, who may or may not have written their policies in consultation with constitutional-law experts. When journalists discover that their school district is purchasing policies from an outside company rather than preparing them internally with the assistance of qualified legal counsel, that’s a red flag that the policies may be shoddy and collapse if challenged in court.
Like any government agency, a school district acts only through the acts of its employees. Criticizing the way a school district is delivering educational services almost always requires commenting on the performance of employees.
The law recognizes that – especially when it comes to high-ranking officials – criticism of government practices occupies a specially protected status. The burden for a “public official” (such as a school board member or superintendent) to win a defamation suit is purposefully high, recognizing the need for speakers to feel confident they can safely express dissatisfaction with government services. 24
While restrictions on criticism of school employees may be rationalized on fairness grounds – protecting the reputations of people who aren’t present to defend themselves – school districts are notoriously image-conscious and it’s likely that at least some “no-criticism” rules are motivated by aversion to controversy. But when a member of the public takes to the microphone to complain about a school’s performance, it’s almost always because lower-volume options have been tried and failed. That a citizen feels compelled to resort to the podium to air a grievance should be recognized as suggesting a weakness in the school’s dispute-resolution process.
Attorney Frank LoMonte is Executive Director of the Student Press Law Center
Footnotes:
3 Minnesota State Bd. for Community Colleges v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271 (1984).
4 Perry Ed. Ass’n. v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n., 460 U.S. 37 (1983).
5 For example, in Jones v. Heyman, 888 F. 2d 1328 (11th Cir. 1989), a federal appeals court said a speaker could be ejected from a public meeting after he refused repeated requests from the chairman to limit his remarks to the item on the agenda and responded with belligerent remarks interpreted as threatening. 
6 “Selective exclusions from a public forum may not be based on content alone, and may not be justified by reference to content alone.” Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 96 (1972).
7 Wright v. Anthony, 733 F. 2d 575 (8th Cir. 1984).
8 Kirkland v. Luken, 536 F. Supp. 2d 857 (S.D. Ohio 2008). See also White v. City of Norwalk, 900 F. 2d 1421 (9th Cir. 1990) (upholding an ordinance that prohibited speech during council meetings that “disrupts, disturbs or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the Council meeting.”). 
9 Scroggins v. City of Topeka, 2 F. Supp. 2d 1362 (D. Kan. 1998).
10Baca v. Moreno Valley Unified Sch. Dist., 936 F. Supp. 719 (C.D. Calif. 1996). <
11 Leventhal v. Vista Unified Sch. Dist., 973 F. Supp. 951 (S.D. Calif. 1997). 
12 Id. at 958.
13 Bach v. School Bd. of the City of Virginia Beach, 139 F. Supp. 2d 738 (E.D. Va. 2001).
14 Fairchild v. Liberty Independent Sch. Dist., 597 F. 3d 747 (5th Cir. 2010).
15 Mnyofu v. Bd. of Educ. of Rich Twp. High Sch. Dist., 2016 LEXIS 45773, No. 15 C 8884 (N.D. Ill. April 5, 2016).
16 Erin Gallagher, “Federal judge bars school district’s effort to limit comments,” The Daily Southtown (May 16, 2016).
17 Letter of Attorney General Mark R. Herring to the Hon. Richard L. (“Rick”) Morris, April 15, 2016, available at http://ag.virginia.gov/files/Opinions/2016/15-020_Morris.pdf
18 This is probably erroneous; the proscription should have been treated as content-based because certain categories of message were deemed acceptable and certain were not, which is the definition of content discrimination.
19 Herring, supra, at *3.
20 Rowan Moore Gerety, “Don’t Say My Name Unless You’re Saying Thank You,” WLRN.org, July 24, 2016, available at http://wlrn.org/post/don-t-say-my-name-unless-youre-saying-thank-you.
21 See United States v. Stevens, 130 S.Ct. 1577, 1587 (2010) (restriction on speech may be struck down “if a substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep.”) (internal quotes omitted).
22 See Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931) (striking down state statute that enabled courts to issue injunctions prohibiting the publication of defamatory speech).
23See Gerety, n. 14.
24See Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 328 (1974) (explaining differing standards of proof for libel cases involving public officials versus private citizens).


Local newspaper now edited and printed elsewhere

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Why this matters:

Our democracy is at risk when they censor the news at the source. Outsourcing of editing by American newspapers has included outsourcing to editors in India.

  • Our local newspaper, The St. Augustine Record, owned by GateHouse chain, is now subject to editing in Austin, Texas. While Austin's a cool place, the editors are not here. Not attending meetings. (Not unlike generations of local St. Augustine Record editors, who never show up either, sometimes not even bothering to send a reporter, and hardly ever quoting activists at meetings). Sad.

  • The St. Augustine Record is now printed in Gainesville (weekdays) and Daytona Beach, Florida (Sundays).  
  • The Record's "news hole" is now waaay too small.  
  • Not enough news.
  • Earlier deadlines.
  • Corporate conformity.
  • Reports on our government meetings are sometimes printed days later, in pieces, or not at all.  
  • Decisions made in Texas.  Let that sink in.  Texas.
Sad.  Whatever happened to newspapers that believe in "All The News That's Fit to Print?" That's the standard of care.

From GateHouse Media website:

,,, Our Center for News & Design, based in Austin, Texas, employs more than 240 individuals and now serves 82 daily and 176 weekly GateHouse newspapers, and 13 newspaper partners. In early 2017, we brought the editing and design work of the Dallas Morning News to the Center....


The Center for News and Design in Austin, Texas, is the hub for centralized page design, copy editing, content development and digital publishing for GateHouse newspapers across the country.
We are a creative services organization fostering innovation, operational excellence and accountability that provides media and marketing companies with best-in-class content, design and marketing solutions.
The center opened in May 2014 and has been growing ever since. It services more than 200 GateHouse newspapers today and also supports a growing number of commercial clients for print and digital services.



STEVE COTTRELL column: Contextualization committee aims for balance

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Historian Susan Parker speaks during the City of St. Augustine Confederate Memorial Contextualization Advisory Committee’s first meeting on Wednesday at City Hall. [CHRISTINA KELSO/THE RECORD]

STEVE COTTRELL: Contextualization committee aims for balance
Posted Feb 13, 2018 at 2:08 PM
Updated Feb 13, 2018 at 2:08 PM
St. Augustine Record

“I had not anticipated being chair of this committee, but I plan to do as good a job as I can.” With those words from a genuinely humble Tom Jackson, the first meeting of the seven-member St. Augustine Confederate Memorial Contextualization Advisory Committee came to end last Wednesday afternoon.

I was impressed with Tom’s approach to chairing the ad hoc committee — especially his effort to encourage all members to take an equal and active role at the table, as well as encouraging the general public to get involved in the process.

There were only 10 to 12 citizens at the organizational meeting, but Jackson was ready to hear from any who wanted to speak. And he wasn’t one bit concerned about the city’s restrictive three-minute time limit for people wanting to comment at public meetings.

Here’s the exchange between Jackson and City Clerk Darlene Galambos when Tom opened the meeting to public comments:

Jackson: “This (committee) is not governed by the rules of the City Commission, so they can talk as long as they want, right?”

Galambos: “Three minutes.”

The chairman, seemingly surprised by the city clerk’s blunt directive, advised the first public speaker, “OK, we’ll do that three minutes, and if you feel like you need more time, just say so.”

Good for Tom.

Despite Jackson’s suggestion that speakers be given some flexibility, the city’s electronic timer was activated and buzzed obnoxiously whenever someone’s time expired. On at least two occasions, however, speakers continued talking for several more seconds then concluded their remarks without any prompting from the chair.

My suggestion: Dump the damn timer and let Chairman Jackson handle things.

Another suggestion: Now that the committee has been organized and a chair and vice chair selected, city staff should sit at a separate table.

I understand why Assistant City Attorney John Cary was at the table for the first meeting; he needed to discuss the Florida Sunshine Law and remind committee members of potential legal problems if they violate the open-meeting regulations.

City Manager John Regan also sat at the table, providing introductory comments and answering questions from the committee. But, once Tom Jackson was unanimously selected chair and Regina Phillips vice-chair, Regan promptly excused himself and sat in the audience.

Having a police presence and key city staffers at the committee table may have served an initial purpose, but there’s no need for any of them to sit at the table during future meetings any more than they sit at the table for City Commission meetings.

The committee has three Ph.D. historians, two of whom are connected with Flagler College. It also has three African-Americans, lifelong residents of St. Augustine who bring crucial personal histories and professional background to the table. The seventh member is also associated with Flagler, an adjunct history lecturer who has lived here for only a year.

They are seven intelligent people with what might prove to be seven different visions of what should be done at the eastern edge of the Plaza de Constitucion. Some might believe a single contextual marker at the Confederate war memorial will suffice, while others might prefer multiple markers.

Committee member Sharyn Wilson Smith Coley, a retired St. Johns County educator and lifelong Lincolnville resident, said the story of the Confederate war memorial and St. Augustine should be as inclusive as possible. Dr. Susan Parker, Ph.D. and longtime history contributor to The Record, reminded her colleagues that too much verbiage on markers becomes counterproductive — noting that many people tend to read the first couple lines of historical markers then skip to the final couple lines.

Trying to strike a balance between shorthand history and detailed history is the committee’s immediate challenge, and that process begins in earnest at 3 p.m. next Wednesday afternoon (Feb. 20) when the advisory group meets again in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.

If you plan to attend and address the committee, please limit your remarks to three minutes. Or at least try, OK?

Steve can be contacted at cottrell.sf@gmail.com.





Edward Adelbert Slavin
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1. Another great column! Chairman Jackson is right and our City staff is wrong. Why would 3 minute rule apply to the Monument committee? Steve Cottrell is right: trust and respect Committee's independence and citizen rights to be heard and heeded.
2. Rigid three minute limit violates free speech. Three minute rule not applied to developer mouthpieces, as they talk on and on, even after they're done, arguing with board members, wheedling and pleading. Favoritism is shown to the wealthy and campaign contributors. Cruelly unfair. Violates equal protection. Indefensible and must be at once.
3. And there are NO lobbyist registration ordinances. 
4. What is the etiology of the three minute rule? 
5. Not followed elsewhere. Congress gives witnesses at least five witnesses before questions. Other cities and boards give five minutes. 
6. St. Augustine Beach recently reduced non-agenda public comment to 2 minutes, under pressure by new SAB Commissioner DONALD SAMORA (recommended by St. Augustine Beach Vice Mayor TOD NEVILLE and his father TIMOTHY NEVILLE). 
7. Why NO public comment on reports, resolutions and first readings of ordinances in City of St. Augustine? Rule dates back to prior City Manager William Barry Harris. NOT followed at SAB and County.
8. Why NO more public comment at end of meetings? Change was made under disgraced former CoSA City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRISS, who tried to chill, coerce and discredit our accurate concerns about illegal City dumping landfill in a lake. City was ultimately fined. 
9. Like CoSA's HARRISS and SAB's BRUCE MAX ROYLE, far too many barmy bureaucrats and wannabe Tinpot Napoleons want to prevent citizens from being heard and heeded, at all costs, to include threatening their removal and having them removed.« less
  • 14 minutes ago (edited recently)
Edward Adelbert Slavin
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10. We need Commissioners on ALL local boards who cherish free speech. This is already an election issue in St. Augustine Beach, where businesswoman and constitutional rights defender Rosetta Bailey is running for the seat currently encumbered by DONALD SAMORA. 
11. CoSA Mayor Shaver and SAB Mayor George must raise their consciousness and stop inflicting their personal preferences on public comment speakers. 
12. We need Mayors, not martinets. Citizens are the proprietors. St. Johns County Commission Chairman Henry Dean appreciates public comment rights. So should two itty-bitty cities.
13. Ask our CoSA Mayor and Commissioners to support revising our procedural resolution. Ask SAB to vacate vacuous change to two minutes for non-agenda public comment. Crabbed rules reveal control freak staffs and lawyers, bossy cognitive misers, who lack respect for OUR tax dollars and human rights.
14. As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, "“It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.” CoSA's WILLIAM BARRY HARRISS left in 2010 --- HARRISS was a lawbreaker, not a lawgiver, and we owe him no "dead hand control" in 2018.
15. Why such hostility from some Commissioners, to include malocchios, eyerolling, interruptions and rude inattention? Watch videos. Read my blog re: what happened at St. Augustine Beach on Lincoln's birthday (February 12), not covered by any Record reporter at the meeting. At SAMORA's request, SAB created a schedule conflict with CoSA meeting!
16. Why NO answers to questions by City and County Commission?« less

$40 million worth of land in southern St. Johns County recently acquired from Rayonier. (SAR)

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$40 million worth of land in southern St. Johns County recently acquired from Rayonier
By Stuart Korfhage
Posted Feb 14, 2018 at 2:01 AM
St. Augustine Record

A company called First Coast Land and Timber LLC recently completed $40 million worth of land deals to acquire about 11,000 acres of property in southern St. Johns County.

The land was purchased from Rayonier, a real estate investment trust, in two transactions. The first was in December 2017 and the second last week.

Most of the parcels acquired are between Interstate 95 and U.S. 1, south of Watson Road. The property is mostly contiguous and extends down to the Flagler County border.

The agent for the property, Jacksonville attorney John Sefton, did not respond to an email on Tuesday.

Alejandro Barbero, Rayonier director of strategic development and communications, said the offer was unsolicited. He wouldn’t speculate on the future intentions of the new owners and said that Rayonier’s focus was on getting good value for its land.

“That land was held by the REIT and every now and then we get unsolicited offers, and we continuously look at our portfolio and our mission here is to enhance the portfolio,” Barbero said. “When offers like that come in, we consider them, and if it’s a good opportunity, we execute the transaction.”

It’s unclear what the immediate plans are for the property, but that part of the county is being rapidly developed, especially for new homes.

Home builder Toll Brothers doesn’t currently have anything working in the southern part of the county, but it is working in the northern section. It was involved in the St. Augustine Shores prior to the recession.

Steve Merten, president of the Northeast Florida Division, said he isn’t surprised to see the growth spread south. (Toll Brothers has no involvement with the Rayonier sale.)

“You have to assume that it’s going to push down that way,” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard for builders to recognize the strength of St. Augustine. There is a lot of growth that is going on down there.”

All of the land purchased from Rayonier is currently designated as Rural/Silviculture on the county’s Future Land Use Map. So a developer would have to apply to the county to get the use changed to residential before building any houses — if that’s what the plan would be. However, many other developments have successfully completed that process over the years as the county’s population has nearly doubled since 2000 to about 235,000.

One of the parcels in the Rayonier sale fronts State Road 206, directly across the street from Pedro Menendez High School. That’s very close to where a major development called Kings Grant was proposed. However, the County Commission voted it down about two years ago, worried that it constituted urban sprawl because it was so isolated from other developments.

The developers currently are engaged with the county in a lawsuit over that decision

However, residential growth is making its way steadily down U.S. 1 toward S.R. 206. And development has also increased from the Intracoastal Waterway west on S.R. 206 toward U.S. 1.

In addition to the First Coast Land and Timber acquisition, there are other large tracts of land available in southern St. Johns County. More than 8,000 acres of property known as the Hutson Ranch, owned by local developer David Hutson, was divided into four parcels and put up for sale by Davidson Realty in 2016.

The land is west of Interstate 95 and is cut into four unequal pieces at the intersection of S.R. 206 and County Road 305. None of the parcels has been sold yet.

Comment


Edward Adelbert Slavin
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1. Our Florida Secretary of State Corporation regulators' Sunbiz website, and other websites, reveal that the LLC's principal address is c/o a registered regulated broker, RICHARD FEASER, 9 WEST 57TH ST STE 5000 NEW YORK, NY 10019 -- an investment company, RUANE, CUNNIFF & GOLDFARB LLC. CRD#: 130062. 
2. Follow the money. 
3. Is this another foreign investment in St. Johns County, unregulated by our lax local and state laws?
4. Check out the Internet marketing of the Hutson Ranch property to Chinese-readers, with full translation of ad copy. 
5. Our Florida Constitution, Article I, Sec. 2 says in part, "the ownership, inheritance, disposition and possession of real property by aliens ineligible for citizenship may be regulated or prohibited by law." Why not do so for a change?
6. FOLLOW THE MONEY.
7. Who owns the LLCs contributing to politicians and getting zoning favors for clearcutting and sprawl in St. Johns County?
8. Do your homework.
9. Report the news.
10. Ask questions. Demand answers. Defend democracy.« less
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