Total Pageviews

Search This Blog

Saturday, July 20, 2019

Up is down, black is white and indecent is decent in the world of city attorney Jason G

I was the recipient of a bad ruling from Jason G. what our city attorney and not an up and coming pop star signs his emails, myself.

Years back after rouge school board member Scott Shine engaged in sustain harassment, I filed a complaint. My reasoning was administrators should not be able to harass staff. 

Jason G ruled that school board members weren't administrators a ruling by the way that shocked and dismayed (practically the same word) several school board members. 

Fast forward to today and Jason G. (not the guy you are thinking about hiring to pressure wash your house) beholden to a mayor with deep charter school interests has thrown a wrench into the plans of the school board as they seek to repair and upgrade their schools, or what their is nearly universal agreement that needs to happen and he uses ultra convoluted reasoning to do so.

Now we all know how one of his junior attorneys changed the meaning of the word shall, but look at his convoluted logic below. It was taken from a letter than Jason G. (not a trumpet player on the B stage at the Jazz festival) sent councilman Denis in an effort to defend the indefensible. 


It is the Florida Statute, not our office’s memo, which requires the Council to act on whether to place the matter on the ballot or not. Regardless of our office’s opinion, the City Council must vote on the matter. Any change to that format can be amended by the Legislature, and as noted in the memo, the Legislature has in fact empowered school boards to put some items on the ballot directly (without the need to go to council). It could have done so here for the discretionary sales surtax, but it did not. Council was charged with that vote. 

He starts by saying it is Florida Statute that the city council act, and he is right, if you change the entire meaning of the statute and words in the statute.  

He then says the legislature "has in fact empowered school boards to put some items on the ballot directly without the need to go to the council and it could have done so here.\

I am not a lawyer but people must understand how ridiculous this is, only the city council can put things like the referendum on the ballot which up to now has just been a formality.

But following Jason G (not a salsa dancer you met at Latin night)'s reason, why can't the school board just say never mind council, we no longer need your help and we will call up the supervisor of elections ourselves.  

You might be saying well they have already had a bite at the apple, well okay, how about they just write a new slightly different ballot referendum and skip the city council entirely, Jason G. (not your aunt's way to young boyfriend) says and I quote "the Legislature has in fact empowered school boards to put some items on the ballot directly (without the need to go to council). It could have done so here for the discretionary sales surtax".

Sound ridiculous? Well what sounds more so, that or the mayor on behalf of a handful of ultra wealthy donors with charter school ties standing trying to extort 250 million dollars from our public school system, because that is what is happening now. 

1 comment:

  1. Gabriel would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle. The only noteworthy sentence in his response to Dennis was that his opinion was not legally binding. It is based on his interpretation of state law which curiously cannot be appealed to anyone but him. How is that legal? Who made him judge, jury, & executioner? Lenny? The City Charter?? The problem with that scenario is the fact that Gabriel is Curry's de facto attorney. He owes his cushy guvmint job to Lenny. He does not work for the school board or the council. He takes his marching orders from one man and one man only. He swore an oath of loyalty to Curry when he took the job. Much like the guy at JEA. That seems to be the only prerequisite you need these days. Gabriel does not have the kids best interest at heart. He serves only one master.

    The school board might as well sue or at least try to appeal to a rational judicial body. It is ludicrous to beleive the 2020 will go any differently than the past few weeks. It's clear that this isn't about project timelines, fiscal overview, or the city's credit rating. It's blackmail plain and simple. Lenny has cowed the majority of council members into submission by threatening to turn off the tap in their districts. It wouldn't be the first time as Councilman Dennis can attest.

    ReplyDelete