Editorial: Sometimes I don’t think the paper is in the same town

I read with amusement the editorial comment in the local printed newspaper; but, I have no idea who wrote it. Plausible deniability, you know. I can just see Jim Sutton, Kathy Nelson and Delinda Fogle, sitting in a circle in a dark corner of what used to be the press room, pointing a finger at each other.

Two of the three musketeers haven’t been here long enough to know better — Jim has, but sometimes he gets a little fuzzy, like after a two-martini lunch?

Except in its administrative role with the bed tax, the Mullet Wrapper points out today that the county is at “arm’s length” on the money pit that signifies our upcoming 450th birthday party.

Further, somebody with access to the typewriter on the opinions desk says that there is a “rift” and lack of “continuity” between county government and city government — despite last week’s Kumbayah moment between administrator Michael Wanchick and sheriff David Shoar.

The Record editor(s), like the three mystic apes, see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil, say that in nearly every measurable way, both the City of St Augustine and St Johns County have accountable, professional officials and staffs.

They obviously haven’t spent a lot of time; deep in the bowels of the beast. Rather, they opine that it is a shame neither acknowledges those qualities in the other.

The Record goes way out on an editorial limb and declares that the two sibling rivalries need to share a sense of the future, cooperate with each other, and take all the citizens along for the ride. Cutting edge stuff there.

Of course, at the core of it, there is simply a lot of errors in the thinking at The Record. Beside the fact that they misspelled the sheriff’s name, the truth is that, since her November election, St Augustine Mayor Shaver and County Commission Chair Rachel Bennett have met twice to begin identifying areas of opportunity for the two municipalities to explore. Although these conversations have been informal, Mayor Shaver has also met with St Augustine Beach Mayor Andrea Samuels.

City Manager John Regan is scheduling an upcoming meeting to discuss matters of common interest between the jurisdictions.

That doesn’t smell like a “rift”. It smells like a mullet.