Boles caught using expired pass to get free parking

A couple of months ago, while attending and reporting about a meeting at City Hall, Historic City News editor Michael Gold said he returned to his vehicle to find a bright yellow parking citation. Gold laughed as he marched directly to the City Finance Department, a block away, to pay the $30.00 fine. “That was my mistake, I bought a Park Now card years ago and should have used it.”

But in a lunchtime telephone call to St Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver, Gold said, “Your honor, if I have to pay to park, or pay a fine if I don’t, then the same rules should apply to everybody else.”

“You’re not alone, Michael,” the Mayor replied. “A couple of weeks ago the same thing happened to me — and, for the record, I went to the same place, and paid the fine.”

But the fly in the ointment wasn’t the tickets that Gold and Shaver had been issued and paid — it was the tickets that haven’t been issued.

On investigation, we found that the reason parking division officers haven’t been issuing citations to one particular vehicle is that the owner of the vehicle has been impersonating a city official on “official city business”, thus obtaining valuable public parking by fraud.

Three months ago, a Historic City News reader reported seeing the former mayor, local lawyer Joseph L. Boles, Jr., with a partially concealed parking pass on the dashboard of his vehicle. We looked into the practice because on-street parking is at a premium for the merchants, their customers, and, of course, residents encouraged to come downtown to shop.

While the elected mayor and city commissioners are in office, they are provided a parking pass from the City Manager’s office to assist them with attending public functions and running errands from time-to-time at City Hall — which has adjacent parking, but is metered or assigned. It seems a reasonable accommodation and is similar to the pass that department heads and certain city officials are issued.

We verified, for this report, the vehicle registration on the 2011 model 4-door black BMW sedan that was parked on Cathedral Place until after 1:00 p.m. today, during a time that drivers are circling the block waiting for a place to pay and park. The UF vanity license plate and 450th decal on the rear window looked familiar.

Joe Boles law office is on Riberia Street and he has a reason to be downtown during the workday and at times when meters are enforced. We were told that Boles asked the city manager, after his defeat last November, if he could keep his parking pass. Even though John Regan is a close friend, he told him “no”, but, apparently he never retook possession of the City permit.

What we found today, therefore, won’t be easily explained away.

If Regan, in his official capacity, gave Boles another free parking pass, he has acted inappropriately. That does not appear to be the case. We checked with two other former mayors, including former Mayor George Gardner. We were told that neither were allowed to keep their free pass after they left office. Gardner opined that he would be surprised if Regan had re-issued the parking pass to Boles, citing the importance Regan puts on revenues generated from parking and fines.

So what of the allegation of concealment of the date and permit number should a meter reader want to check the authenticity and validity of the permit? We photographed the vehicle in place, including a close up of the permit that has been placed below the dark glass tinting in the windshield. That is where the City Manager’s signature appears and the date and number of the permit — so it was not visible.

So what was the claimed “official city business” that warranted Boles using an expired free parking pass on Cathedral Place during lunch hour? He was attending the regular weekly Rotary Club luncheon held at the Casa Monica Hotel. Out of office for more than 9-months now, we can find no authority for Boles to receive free parking when the rest of us are stuck paying the bill.