Published by the Department of Public Affairs, City of St. Augustine. Florida February 16 2010
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| Florida Memorial revisiting St. Augustine |
Road repaving, residential development plans, and multijurisdictional efforts to build infrastructure along West King Street are all good news for West Augustine - and for Florida Memorial University, which left 350 acres of undeveloped land behind when it moved to Northwest Miami in 1968.
Greg White, chair of the West Augustine Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), says top university officials visited here recently to discuss opportunities for commercial and residential development on acreage west of Holmes Boulevard. The possibility of a satellite campus here is not ruled out.
City and county officials last year developed a strategy for West Augustine development; Congressman John Mica has high on his screen federal funding utility and road infrastructure, City Chief Operating Officer John Regan got City Commission approval last year for utility extension to serve a planned residential development in the area, and County Public Works Director Joe Stephenson announced recently that repaving the length of West King and beyond will begin in April.
The university's last remnant here, the Abraham Lincoln Lewis Archway, was moved to Collier-Blocker-Puryear Park (formerly Calvin Peete Park), restored and dedicated last year with a marker noting the contribution of Florida Memorial students to local civil rights efforts. The park and arch names represent leadership in the university's history. | |
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Snapshot of America
Actor Ed Begley, as photo shoot director Payton Schlewitt, calls for a snapshot of America in a TV commercial urging all of us to get counted in the 2010 Census.
And uncharacteristically, the federal Bureaucracy has come up with a short form - honest, just ten questions to be in the count.
Those questionnaires will be mailed or delivered to households in March. April 1 is the designated Census Day, and from April to July census takers will visit households that did not return a questionnaire by mail.
You'll find complete details and links on the once-every-decade census on our city website. | |
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HARB revisits signs & centers |
Our Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB) Thursday will review once again city proposals for pedestrian wayfinding signage, Flagler College's proposal for a welcome center on Cordova Street, and a request to tear down an historic house at 74 Spanish Street.
All have been before the board previously. It's a matter of style for the signage and for the welcome center - which the board suggested should have a more colonial Spanish design, while board members wanted to do a walkthrough of the two-story building at 74 Spanish Street to determine whether it can be saved. |
| It's the law(s) |
Someone mentioned at a recent crime watch meeting whether open burning is allowed in the city, while the county bans it. And what about lawn watering regulations? Universal? City Attorney Ron Brown clarifies:
"A county ordinance may be enforced in a city if it doesn't conflict with a city ordinance or a city ordinance doesn't exist. Both county and city ordinances may be preempted by state and federal statutes if the state legislature or the Congress intends that preemption."
About open burning, Brown finds no regulation in city codes. Some other examples: "State statutes prescribe watering hours and preempt local ordinances although a city or county could establish more stringent times. In the case of alcohol service hours, state statutes provide for service hours of 7 a.m. to midnight unless a city or county enacts ordinances establishing other times." | |
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Flagler College a good neighbor |
Last week it was a joint session of are officials with Congressman John Mica in the Virginia Room at Flagler College's Ringhaver Student Center - same location as two steering committee meetings for our 450th  Commemoration, and one venue as well for our annual Florida Heritage Book Festival.
Our First America program series has been filling Flagler College's auditorium, which also hosted a screening of former ambassador Andrew Young's Crossing in St. Augustine.
Grant Nielson directs the Ringhaver Center scheduling, and says some two dozen community events as well as numerous smaller meetings have been held there in its three years of existence. Then there are numerous community forums and exhibits offered by the college.
Flagler College has taken its lumps while expanding in our city over past years, but today is showing its value as a good neighbor and asset to our community. |
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Gold inlay salute |
Something we see too little of in today's headlines:
Navy Seal Mike Monsoor was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor last week for giving his life in Iraq, covering with his body a live hand grenade and saving the lives of a large group of Navy Seals.
During his funeral procession to Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, all 45 men he saved, scattered through the column, stepped forward as his casket passed, slapped their gold Trident Pins to embed them, and stood back to salute.
"By the time the Rosewood Casket reached the grave site," the email message said, "it looked as though it had a gold inlay from the 45 Trident Pins that lined the top."
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History's Highlights
Earliest residents faced building codes
A continuation of remarks by historian and author Buff Gordon to our Historical Society in 2005
Residents faced planning and building codes as far back as 1573, in the first planned community in today's United States.
Royal ordinances published by the King of Spain, Philip II, for laying out new towns in the Americas, required among other details "houses all of one form for the sake of the beauty of the town," and "each house shall be so built that they may keep therein their horses and work animals in yards and corrals that should be as large as possible for health and cleanliness."
Buff suggested, "Here may be an early clue to what became a cultural tradition (influencing) the city's cohesive style of colonial architecture that is unique in pervasiveness. New arrivals, Spanish, English, Menorcans, and Americans alike, followed the general form of house architecture, with diversity in the detail.
"Now becoming known as the colonial 'St. Augustine style,' the architecture, like the street plan, had a sense of consistency, pattern, symmetry, and pleasing proportions, elements of great value to 16th century Spaniards, values that persisted in the 18th century architecture of the colonial cathedral and the 19th century Flagler's hotels."
Buff concluded, "Elements of the popular 'New Urbanism' ideal sweeping the country began here. Modern communities are being planned up front and personal with their streets, have roofed balconies, loggias, and courtyards. Go see neo-St. Augustine in Windsor Village, Vera Beach, and at Rosemary in the Panhandle.
"Long before the Miami architect, Andres Duany, introduced 'NewUrbanism,' there was St. Augustine."
Elsbeth "Buff" Gordon's research can be found in Florida's Colonial Architectural Heritage (University Press of Florida 2002). Historian Michael Gannon writes, "This first-ever book on Florida's colonial architecture will be an eye-opener to readers who identify American colonial buildings solely with the powdered-wig states of Virginia and New England." Buff is writing a companion book on St. Augustine's sacred sites. |
The St. Augustine Report is published by the Department of Public Affairs of the City of St. Augustine each Tuesday and on Fridays previewing City Commission meetings. The Report is written and distributed by George Gardner, former St. Augustine Mayor (2002-2006) and Commissioner (2006-2008) and a longtime newspaper reporter and editor. Contact The Report at gardner@aug.com | |
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