That's when the state Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC) meets to prepare a recommendation to the Internal Improvement Trust Fund (Governor and Cabinet) on transferring a portion of land in the Quarter which, together with city-owned land, can provide a site for the Castillo Center.

     "There are many moving parts," Regan admitted. "The city wants the land donated, but DEP (the Department of Environmental Protection) wants the city to be obligated to replace the land, either with other land or its $588,000 value."

     Mayor Joe Boles said completing a site to be donated to the National Park Service for the center is critical. "Our goal has always been to tap into the 750,000 Castillo visitors with joint ticket sales for the Quarter and Castillo. The center in the Quarter can make that happen."

     Regan noted a second deadline - October 31 - to get funds in the federal budget for the center.

     Horse urine, city expenses, and horse carriage routes were among elements weighed by our City Commission in a 1 1/2 hour workshop on a draft horse carriage ordinance before its regular meeting Monday.

     The workshop played out before a filled Alcazar Room, but there was no public comment as commission workshops are designed for commissioners to discuss city matters outside of the formality of regular meetings. No official actions can be taken at commission workshops.

      Assistant City Attorney Carlos Mendoza, point man on the effort, called on legal, financial, and public works officials to support elements in the draft ordinance, the second he's prepared after getting input from carriage businesses and a public forum.

     Proposed is allowing a maximum of 25 carriage permits at $1,000 each, the $25,000 offsetting an estimated  $22,000 a year in city costs for street repairs and cleaning after horse droppings. An alternate is a 2 ½ percent franchise fee on carriage business income, which Commissioner Leanna Freeman said would be cumbersome to audit.

     A proposed new route for horse carriages, reversing the current direction, would take away the Kodak moments of horse carriages along the bayfront, but also eliminate bayfront hazard areas with four lanes of traffic. Mendoza said city bed and breakfast businesses weighed in, and a "charter carriage" element was revised to allow carriages to go off route for pickups without prior notice to the city.

     Derek Hankerson emerged several years back in efforts to include St. Augustine in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom and the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, both programs of the National Park Service.

     It would be only the beginning of his efforts to bring to light the significance of multicultural history here and in the Caribbean. Leaving his job with the county, he formed Freedom Road LLC with friend and Freedom Road Creative Director James Bullock.

     St. Augustine and Fort Mose, America's first free black settlement, are now part of the railroad network - establishing that the underground railroad in fact began running south in the 1700s - and Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor commissioners have agreed to add St. Augustine to the corridor management plan, extending the corridor from Wilmington NC to St. Augustine.

     Other projects on Derek's plate, Haitian American Historical Society events, expanded trade with the Caribbean rim being developed with State Senator Tony Hill, web-based travel and tour packages for multicultural visitors, a book draft-titled Mis-Education of Americans, and a grave stone and historic marker at Tolomato Cemetery for the Haitian revolutionary and Spanish General, Jorge Biassou.

     "My German wife and my mother inspired me to follow my boyhood dream, from the family dinner table at the age of 10," to uncover forgotten history, Derek says.