CITY OF ST. AUGUSTINE

MEMORANDUM

TO: All Department Heads

DATE: May 3, 2017

RE: City Reorganization

Effective immediately the Human Resources Division will report to the City Manager’s Office and the IT Division will report to the General Services Department. Additionally, in relation to daily operations all Departments will report to the Assistant City Manager.

Historic City News has observed one of the most dysfunctional city boards, overpaid middle-managers, and poor community consultants administered by arguably one of the least qualified, slap-on-the-back, city managers in recent history. But according to an announcement brought with little public fanfare before Monday night’s regular meeting of the St Augustine City Commission, John P Regan, a public engineer, is using his fair share of convoluted double-speak, to propose major swaths of reduction to his responsibilities going forward.

Sheriff David Shoar, acting like a poorly behaved 6-year-old who has just been reminded that he’s not the boss of everyone, despite what he thinks; was shown the first sign today that he is not going to be able to stonewall the taxpaying citizens of this county who, in fact, are the ones in charge.

After telling Historic City News that she has been “getting nowhere” with County Administrator Michael Wanchick since February, Mary Lawrence, an organizer for the liberal-leaning, but non-partisan, political group “Indivisible St Johns”, made an official request to use the county auditorium for an upcoming meeting.

Today, the Florida House of Representatives passed Joint Resolution 7105 which amends the State Constitution to increase the homestead exemption by $25,000. This measure, if approved by the voters in 2018, will increase the overall exemption to $75,000 for hard-working Florida homeowners.

In an April 26th Historic City News article titled, “House members grease way for public meetings to become secret,” we reported that the House Government Accountability Committee had unanimously approved a Bill that would allow private one-on-one meetings of local elected officials, even when they serve on the same decision-making boards.

The 58-year-old city manager of Cross City, Gary David Pinner, was suspended by the City Council for a period of 30 days on March 27, 2017. Craig Riley of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, requested and obtained a warrant for Pinner’s arrest on official misconduct charges. Pinner was arrested today and transported to the Dixie County Jail. The case will be prosecuted by the Office of the State Attorney, Third Judicial Circuit.

“Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.”

Lord John Acton

Over the past month, since Monday March 27th, St Johns County Sheriff David Shoar has attempted to conceal the names of contributors and the amounts of money that he solicited for his “Annual Awards Dinner” held on March 24, 2017 in the St Johns County Convention Center.