The St. Augustine City Commission meeting of 9-14-09 with their hired gun, out of town attorney trying desperately to make his latest plan to ban Constitutionally protected activity in the historic Plaza de La Constitucion was like watching a spastic middle schooler build a Rube Goldberg machine while covered with honey and tormented by Africanized bees.
Nobody was buying it with even Earoil Jones pointing out how crazy it was to expect to rent six of twelve little 8'x10' spaces (cells) to street performers all of whom would be performing their own music, less than ten ft. away from other performers doing their own act, with different music, different tempo, disharmoniously trying to stand out from the others, and all while six vendors would be selling their wares to passing tourists in The Slave Market.
Could anything be less likely to succeed?
Of course no one even hopes for the program to succeed, this being all one more attempt to ban the artists and performers from the Plaza in a manner that could pass Constitutional muster, be accepted on review by an appeals court judge after the local county court Judge (probably Tinlin) approves the city's enforcement of this outlandish ordinance.
It seems that someone who has control over the SACC and their City Mismanager William B. Harris (locally known as 'Will Harass') has only one true interest and that is to write a true story about the Stinkiest little tourist trap in Florida with the craziest, quirkiest laws since the frontier towns of the old wild west.
Anyone with six hours to spend on really amusing, if confusing and contorted, municipal shenanigans should obtain a DVD copy of the recorded meeting from the City's records clerk, make a huge batch of popcorn and watch this circus. Maybe with a few cold beers to make it go down a little smoother.
Stay tuned for further developments as this farce makes its way through the inevitable battles sure to ensue.
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