It was considered impossible for Fernandina Beach to make conditions more unpleasant and miserable for residents and visitors than it did when it initiated paid parking and dug up busy city streets to kick off the summer tourist season, until city officials shouted: “Hold my beer!”
While confused visitors and residents maneuvered around heavy equipment, “No Through Traffic” signs, piles of dirt, and closed downtown streets, to attend the annual Memorial Day ceremony at the city marina, the city launched a surprise attack.
Their actions compared favorably to World War II Germany’s desperate push toward the Belgian Port of Antwerp resulting in the “Battle of the Bulge.”
Waiting until the unsuspecting attendees and military veterans were setting up for the annual somber memorial ceremony at the city marina, the city launched its ambush – a squad of meter maids peppered the unsuspecting crowd’s cars with parking violation tickets.
Has anyone from the city ever served in the U.S. military? Have they ever read the list of local dead chiseled on the memorial statue in front of the marina? Did they even know it was Memorial Day? Or have they been too busy hanging up Pride flags while preparing for Pride Month and its parade and Central Park celebration? Or maybe they’ve been tied up counting revenue from their wildly unpopular paid parking disaster.
Like the “Battle of the Bulge” there are first-hand accounts of the city’s desperate attempt to disrupt the Memorial Day ceremony. It was documented by those that were there and caught by surprise…many of them battle tested veterans. They certainly didn’t expect to be mugged by those they fought for and swore to protect
An attendee who experienced the local debacle posted her incredulity publicly on the online Neighbor site writing: “I had to wait a couple of days to write this because I was so upset.”
“At the Memorial Day Service downtown honoring our fallen soldiers on Monday we had a meter maid walking around giving out tickets,” she recalled. “One of our guys was setting up chairs for the service and was given a ticket. Another one is handicapped and was given a ticket. Can you believe this? Memorial Day Services remembering our soldiers that gave their life to give us our Freedom, our City decided to make money off the families paying respect to their loved ones.”
“Can someone please explain how such disrespect happened? Something is wrong in the City of Fernandina with the elected officials to make this call. Money grabbers just continue to destroy our little town. Shame on them.”
Observers also reported that a pair of veterans from VFW Post 4351 located under the bridge, were ticketed as they helped set up the tent for the ceremony. It was reported that the Post Commander approached the ticket writer and “respectfully asked who he needed to talk to in order to explain how wrong this was”?
He said the ticket writer was unnecessarily gracious adding: “It wasn’t the ticket writer’s fault; she was simply doing her job. But this needs to go higher. The community loves our veterans, especially those who gave all.
I totally believe that and thank the community for their support of our veterans. We all need to speak up on this.”
Well, folks are speaking up. But good luck with that. Discussing any issue with the City of Fernandina Beach and the City Commission is like talking to folks with Attention Deficit Disorder.
They either can’t or won’t respond coherently or stick their fingers in their ears like bratty kids pretending they can’t hear you. The city has a predilection for stupid mistakes that it is unwilling to acknowledge let alone confront.
I’ve been told by a few disgruntled readers that I’m sometimes too critical of the city and the folks that run it, and that I should find something good to say. Ok, to wrap up on an optimistic note, there is some good in everyone. Hitler didn’t smoke.
When it comes to the Fernandina’s Town Hall bullies, I believe in the tough love approach, except I don’t love them. In fact, I don’t even like them. Except one, local fireman and recently reelected Commissioner Darron Ayscue. We need more like him.
Ayscue stands out by running unopposed He’s so popular he is unbeatable. It must be agonizingly unbearable for this personable commissioner to sit amongst the motley crew of dim Scrooge McDucks and Ebeneezer Scrooges during Commission meetings.
Another knight on a white horse is on the horizon. Scott Ingles, a military veteran, and member of Fernandina Beach’s American Legion Post 54 is running for the seat currently held by the Commission chamber’s plastic potted plant and current mayor James Antun.
Ingles has served the city successfully as head of the Shrimp Festival the past three years. Antun, a weightlifting, bodybuilding chiropractor, who is a pain in the neck, has done nothing but pose and be a constant pain in the backside to his disappointed former supporters. .
The Legion and the VFW and their officers can’t get involved in politics or voice support for candidates or issues. But by speaking for themselves, its members can.
I’m a member of both posts. I’m not an officer in either. I do not speak for the posts. But as a private citizen, I’ll continue to speak out on public disrespect and idiocy when it involves the military, particularly its veterans.
I will be casting my vote for Commissioner this year for Scott Ingles. If the city doesn’t want any more embarrassing debacles like the recent disgraceful Memorial Day fiasco, I encourage local folks to vote for Ingles and provide Commissioner Ayscue a much needed and like-minded ally on the Commission.
When, if ever, will the city publicly apologize for its reprehensible Memorial Day behavior toward veterans?
***
But Wait! There’s More! Informal polls indicate that revenues for downtown businesses have dropped alarmingly due to the city’s paid parking fiasco. The ongoing wastewater pipe construction resulting in the closure of busy city streets has poured gasoline on the city’s inexplicable misguided actions.
City Manager Sarah Campbell has been silent during this chaos. If she’s said anything, I haven’t seen it. The local biweekly News Leader newspaper, the recipient of the city’s lucrative required paid legal advertising ain’t writing doodle-squat on the topic and the other wannabe media outlets have little or no voice, serving only as city propagandists hoping to rake in some of the legal ad loot.
Local restauranter and City Commissioner, Tim Poynter, spoke out in defense of the city’s activities claiming his local businesses are also feeling the pinch. Poynter failed to mention that he has been publicly blamed for the chaos by locals who have also mounted a boycott of his eateries. From what I hear that boycott is picking up steam.
In his address Poynter didn’t mention the boycott, saying instead that a nationwide economic downturn is to blame. Really? Why don’t businesses outside of the city limits feel that economic pinch too? How odd.
VOTE FOR SCOTT INGLIS
Being a member of the Fernandina Beach American Legion Post 54, I have known and worked beside Scott Inglis on many projects. He is an excellent leader and always delivers more than expected. His work being the head of the Shrimp Fest for three years demonstrates his never ending willingness to take on challenging work and get the job done!! Vote for Scott Inglis as Fernandina Beach City Commissioner, Seat 4 !!!!
Dave, just saying it like it is…always!!
Dave, a terrific and timely blog — as usual. The cartoons are awesome too. Here’s an interesting fun fact — the “cash-strapped” city has received $50 million in additional revenues over the last 10 years ($42 million from property taxes, $7 million from federal covid give-aways). Yet the paid-parking grift is necessary? And the common denominator over that period is Tim Poynter, the unrelenting architect of the parking scheme.
Accountability is more effective when perpetrators are recognizable. Otherwise they simply hide behind anonymity. A name—as in Tim Poynter—has no face to most people. His businesses and eateries can be confused for others.
I would love it Dave if as you did for ‘Lednobitch’ you published these traitor’s picture and the list of their business and/or where they work, so that they can be avoided and their information shared more effectively.
Great idea
Dave, I believe the more accurate term is “diddly squat”, not “doodle squat”. It could be a regional thing. Nevertheless, this was a great article! Shame on the City for ticketing on Memorial Day. I still believe they deliberately ticket those that have paid for parking, knowing full well that spending the $50 fine is cheaper than the $75 appeal!
On a closely related note, our local leaders hand-wringing and the Chicken Little pronouncement of Media Mike about upcoming municipal fiscal starvation from some of the surplus homesteaded property taxes is really frosting me more than usual. Many of us have said, many times in many ways, that our local government is bloated, and our leaders have proven clueless about how to build a lean, efficient budget, holding department heads accountable for justifying each line item, and showing managerial discipline in sticking to it.
I’m sick of saying it. End the bloat by controlling spending. I’d wager tax revenues WITHOUT surplus homesteaded property taxes AND the greed of paid parking revenues would be plenty sufficient to satisfy true needs of the city…
But our leaders won’t even try…
Here’s my stated opinion to Media Mike’s Chicken Little article…
“ Bull… Learn to build a lean budget, hold leaders accountable for justifying every line item.
Instead, our leaders are guilty of fiscal gluttony, and the result is governmental bloat. Stop wringing hands and roll up your sleeves, because you can’t do both, to separate wants from needs. Building a lean, efficient budget is the harder right, and spending like fiscally bloated idiots is the easier wrong…
But, alas, despite being told this by many constituents in many ways, our local leaders ignore us, and continue to somehow get elected, facilitating their fiscal incompetence and self-serving greed.
In my humble opinion, there is more than ample tax revenue with lean, competent budgeting, municipal right-sizing, and leadership proving capable of knowing the difference between true needs and non-critical wants.
Stop wasting. End the bloat.”
I spent many years building lean, efficient budgets for numerous operations, and building the teams that successfully lead those operations to achieve them. Our city leaders have no interest in doing that, are obviously fond of the bloat… I see you. We see you…
While I’m retired now, I haven’t forgotten how greed and incompetence looks…
It looks like here…
Dave, I don’t usually comment, but, like I mentioned, we chose to move our entire upcoming Paddle for Veterans from the downtown marina to Dee Dee Bartles so that our 150 paddlers and over 70 volunteers don’t get hit with parking tickets due to the event lasting from 7:00 a.m – around 4:00 p.m. We didn’t want any of our people to be forced to pay for parking the entire day. Or worse get a $50.00 ticket for volunteering their services to Veterans.
Thanks Dave! I love this article and the way that you get right to the point. And the cartoons are absolutely terrific.!! thank you for pointing out who will be the best replacement, and why! For some reason, I thought that there was an announcement that there would be no paid parking on that day. hmmmmm…. So I’m stuck, wondering also, if people refuse to pay these, in my opinion, illegal parking tickets, how would it be winnable? And not go against their record. 🤷♀️ thanks again Dave and I hope you have a lovely day.💜🇺🇸🎶🩵🩵🩵🙏🏼
Well said.
We should all fight fraud and corruption!
The debt in our country is unexplainable.
WTF!!!
Thank You Dave! I hope the voters give me a chance to work on fixing the city, starting with this paid parking issue.
Has the city refuted any of this?
Dave…..on the money, as usual. Our city is run like a third rate used car lot by people who should be cleaning the toilets in the used car lot office.
I go to the memorial every year to honor the 18 members of a unit we did deployments with that lost their lives serving this country. Hearing what happened with the ticketing boils my blood. They could have waived paid parking until the ceremony was over. What a disgrace.
The Organizer of the iconic “Cross the Line” paddle from St Marys to Fernandina tells us the real reason he moved the finish line from downtown to the Dee Dee Bartles launching ramp- PAID PARKING.
It isn’t just vets and vets day ambushed by it.
4 lying Corrupt commissioners – Amp up boycotts of Karibo ,Duckpin, Baba, Scully and minigolf-
I suppose the city could waive any parking citations issued during the Memorial Day celebration, as a sign of good will and in honor of our brave veterans and fallen heroes.
Just wanted to add that the county contributed to disrupting the Memorial Day ceremony downtown, as well. In the middle of the ceremony a Nassau County Sheriff’s deputy (I believe it was a K-9 officer) parted the gathering of ceremony observers across Front Street from the veterans memorial (which, I hear, the city plans to MOVE from its current location) & podium to drive to the end of Centre Street and turn left, barely squeezing by an elderly man sitting in his lawn chair on the opposing side of Centre: Disrespect of veterans and citizens on full display, turning the meaningful into the distasteful at exactly the wrong moment.