Letter: We no longer need an Infrastructure Sales Tax Advisory Committee

Ed Slavin
St Augustine, FL

Dear Historic City News and readers:

I have asked Chairman Dean and Commissioners Arnold, Keating, and Whitehurst on the St Johns County Board of Commissioners to delete Item 26, “Infrastructure Sales Tax Advisory Committee” from the November 15, 2022, Consent Agenda.

• The people have spoken — 63% of St Johns County voters defeated the 15% sales tax in the November 8, 2022, election, despite a heaping pile of misleading, developer-paid print and electronic propaganda, gaslighting, disinformation and misinformation paid for by deeply conflicted, ethically-challenged State Senator TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON, his HUTSON COMPANIES, and commercial allies.
• For the seventh time since 1988, St Johns County voters rejected a regressive sales tax increase.  
• Thus, the putative predicate for the Infrastructure Sales Tax Advisory Committee has not been met. 
• So why is this tedious turkey still on our November 15, 2022, agenda?
• I opposed this half-baked timewaster as premature when it was first discussed. 
• It was the height of chutzpa when four Commissioners approved directing the staff to work on it before the people voted.
• Now Consent Agenda Item 26 is a monument to the specter of government folly and mendacity, just like that feculent failed putative “educational (sic) campaign,” as misguided County Administrator HUNTER SINCLAIR CONRAD called it at a meeting where no public comment was allowed. That was a violation of the Florida Constitution, Article I, Section 24, and Section 286.0114 F. S. 
• Please direct our county staff to work smarter, in the public interest, and not for developers, from this day forward.
• Enough flummery, dupery, and smarmy sneakiness from devious developers and their favorite County Administrator.
• Hubristic, haughty HUTSON COMPANIES’ regressive proposed 15% sales tax increase is dead.
• Kindly stop wasting our time with hare-brained real estate speculator schemes.