Published by the Department of Public Affairs, City of St. Augustine. Florida May 11 2010
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| 'Style Wars' debate tabled |
In a split vote Monday night, city commissioners tabled for further study action on an ordinance which would remove state oversight of architectural styles in our city's Historic Preservation Districts.
Discussion on the proposed ordinance occupied an hour of Monday's City Commission agenda, which also included passage of a resolution against offshore oil drilling, progress in fence-mending efforts with the University of Florida, notice that Hotelier Donna Wendler plans to sue the city, and support for an Amtrak commuter rail service. |
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First America's final program Road to Freedom: African-Americans in Florida, the seventh and final program in the 450th Commemoration Commission's First America series, takes center stage at Flagler College auditorium next Tuesday.
From the earliest black explorers in the 1500s, to Fort Mose - the first free black settlement in 1738, to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the role of African-Americans in the cultural and historical development of St. Augustine will be described in dramatic presentations, programs and exhibits.
Doors open at 6 p.m. for our modern-day explorers to get their passports stamped and visit exhibits before the program begins at 7. |
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'We're raiding our Comprehensive Plan' | |
The proposal seven years ago was simply to allow architectural styles other than colonial in Historic Preservation District One (HP-1), our historic area south of the Plaza where, over time, non-colonial styles have predominated.
A solution presented to our City Commission Monday night is to move the Architectural Guidelines for Historic Preservation (AGHP) from our city's Comprehensive Plan to our city codes. The AGHP dictates only colonial style throughout our historic district.
Planning and Building Director Mark Knight said the move would allow the City Commission to make style changes without the extensive state review required in Comprehensive Plan changes.
"We're raiding our Comprehensive Plan's Historic Preservation Element," Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline protested. "From a 94-page master plan, now we're down to five pages. I object."
Mayor Joe Boles agreed. "The four, five, six month amendment process should make it harder to modify styles."
"This (proposed ordinance) would give future commissions the opportunity to have different visions," Commissioner Don Crichlow countered, "visions that we cannot create the history we want, but nurture the history we have."
Boles and Sikes-Kline were on the losing side of a 3-2 vote to table the proposed ordinance for two weeks for further review and public comment.
Crichlow, an architect, last year proposed reprising a late 19th century commercial building that once stood at St. George Street and Cathedral Place, arguing it is a true representation of another era.
His design sparked what Commissioner Sikes-Kline Monday called "style wars."
The AGHP dictates, among other features, zero lot line construction - building up to the sidewalk. "This just doesn't fit HP-1," Crichlow said.
Commissioners will look for public input as they revisit the issue at their May 24 meeting.
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Two weeks ago City Commissioner Leanna Freeman couldn't get a second on her resolution to support a ban on extended oil drilling in Florida's waters. That was before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Our City Commission Monday quickly and unanimously revived and passed that resolution that, two weeks ago, it felt was not a local matter.
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| City, university mending fences | Chief Operations Officer and City Manager designate John Regan told commissioners Monday he'll meet with University of Florida Vice President Ed Poppell Wednesday in continuing efforts to work together in development of our heritage program and repair of 34 state-owned historic properties here.
"In reality," Regan told commissioners, state authorization for the university to take over management of our heritage program "is not a big deal to the university, but it is a big deal to us and to the university's schools."
Regan met with university and National Park Service (NPS) officials last week and noted a key element, construction of a Castillo orientation center on the Colonial Spanish Quarter grounds, can't proceed "until we have a partnership worked out."
The land necessary for the center includes both state and city-owned property, he noted, which would be deeded to NPS for the center.
Hotelier seeks $3.4 million in damages
Donna Wendler, whose plan to demolish seven homes along King and Oviedo streets to build a boutique hotel was denied, plans to sue our city for $3.4 million in damages.
City Attorney Ron Brown said he'll discuss with Wendler's attorneys today whether they seek a magistrate hearing or court action under the Bert Harris Act for lost revenue.
"They're past the point of arguing the validity of the ordinance" under which the plan was denied, he said. "A judge has already upheld us on that."
Amtrak plan seeks our input
 The plan to develop Amtrak commuter rail service along the east coast from Jacksonville to Miami, with a station in St. Augustine, goes to a public workshop tonight at 6 p.m. in the Alcazar Room at City Hall, and commissioners urged citizens to turn out in support.
The commission Monday night, in its role as our Community Redevelopment Agency, endorsed a resolution supporting the plan and a station location on US 1 at Carrera Street.
Tonight's workshop will describe the plan in detail and answer questions, while a second workshop tomorrow from 9 a.m. to noon will study location details.
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| Celebrating National Preservation Month | |
Historical Society coming home
 The Florida Historical Society, oldest cultural organization in the state, established in St. Augustine in 1856, will be celebrating National Preservation Month with its annual meeting here May 27-29.
Among the speakers: City Archaeologist Carl Halbirt and Drs. Pat Griffin and Michael Gannon. Tours will include the Civil Rights Movement in Old St. Augustine, a cruise on the VICTORY III, Villa Zorayda and Lightner Museum.
May 15 Tour into History
Prepare to describe to those statewide delegates some lesser-known St. Augustine history with a primer by local historian David Nolan, sponsored by the Citizens for the Preservation of St. Augustine (CPSA).
The tour is Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and again at noon, and proceeds will support efforts to save one of our historic assets, Lincolnville's Echo House.
Tour highlights include the "Streetcar Suburbs" from the trolley age of nearly a century ago; old plantations that have been turned into subdivisions; Henry Flagler's first train station and the last remains of his mansion "Kirkside."
For tickets ($15) and information, contact Becky Greenberg 829-9689, Nancy Sikes-Kline 823-8921, or Kathy Schirmacher 808-1886.
Tourism loads big gun
 Have lunch May 18 with "one of the world's leading authorities on tourism marketing," according to host St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & the Beaches Visitors and Convention Bureau (VCB).
Peter Yesawich will be featured speaker at the 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. program at the St. Johns County Convention Center. Admission is $15 including lunch. Call 825-1711 to RSVP and for information. Yesawich promises to "reveal the latest trends in tourism and discuss how the local tourism industry can take advantage of new opportunities for successfully marketing our destination to potential visitors."
In addition to chores as broadcast commentator, contributing writer, and trade columnist, Yesawich heads up Ypartnership, the advertising agency selected by our VCB to handle marketing for our county.
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| CitySprout sprouts memories |  CitySprout's Lincolnville Community Garden gained a new resident Sunday, as Joan Shannon and son Gerard planted a Norfolk Pine in memory of Joan's late husband, Joe.
The "Buddy Tree" - Joan plans decorations on it each holiday season - is part of the growing garden of flowers and vegetables in a section of Eddie Vickers Park at the south end of Riberia Street. Lincolnville resident Cash McVay began the garden as a means of drawing the community together and inspiring other gardens throughout our city.
"Buddy is Joe's family nickname," Joan says. I never called him Joe; I referred to him as Joe but called him Buddy."
Find details on how to become involved with CitySprout and the Lincolnville Community Gardner on the CitySprout website. |
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History's Highlights
New Smyrna survivors in our heritage
One in a series of historic features as we prepare for our commemorations, drawn from research by George Gardner. 5 years, 3 months, and 30 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
Old men, women and children in the center, younger, stronger men in front and behind, carrying wooden spears, the silent column of some 150 trudged north along the trail from New Smyrna to St. Augustine.
They were unconcerned about attacks from Indians, or being hunted by their overseers, or insects or beasts of the forest. In nine years they had suffered all forms of misery.
Three of their number had secretly made the 70-mile trek before them, and filed complaints with East Florida Governor Patrick Tonyn. This tattered band would testify further to broken contracts, forced labor, beatings and death at the hands of overseers charged with making a success of an agricultural colony carved out of the wilderness.
 It was May 5, 1777, nine years and 18 days after their arrival on the Mosquito Coast.
It was to have been a new start for the Corsicans, Italians, Greeks, and Menorcans, escaping starvation and tyranny in war-torn Europe. English entrepreneur Dr. Andrew Turnbull promised them free passage to a new land, in exchange for five to eight years indenture working an indigo plantation in a place he named New Smyrna for his wife's birthplace, Smyrna, in the Mediterranean.
Turnbull had hoped for 500 colonists, but left Gibraltar early in 1768 with 1,403, to settle a raw land where it would take two years of clearing and cultivating before crops finally developed. In those first two years, half the population died.
For a time, New Smyrna was successful, yielding sugar, corn and the precious commodity, indigo. But the Spanish had properly named the area Mosquito Coast. A constant torrent of mosquitoes was bad enough, but they brought with them malaria.
Governor Tonyn welcomed the exhausted column to St. Augustine - the fourteenth British colony in a land where the original thirteen colonies were challenging for independence. He had little interest in forcing an apparently loyal people back to New Smyrna.
The survivors were granted small parcels of land where, their hopes finally realized, they quietly built new lives and became a major influence on the future development of St. Augustine. Both Menorcan and Greek descendants keep alive their heritage with annual events in our nation's oldest city. |
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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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