Published by the Department of Public Affairs, City of St. Augustine. Florida March 22 2011 |
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Galimore pool offer $400,000 | |
The plan was for the county to get bids on restoring the Galimore Center pool, then offer the restoration or funds while turning responsibility for the pool over to the city.
Problem is, City Manager John Regan told commissioners last week, no bids were received.
"The county is offering the city $400,000 in estimated restoration costs and one to two years operation," Regan said. Negotiations are continuing.
The county announced last year that it could no longer maintain the Galimore pool - the county's only public pool until the opening of the Solomon Calhoun Center, where those recreational funds are now being directed.
Regan suggested the city may want to accept county funds rather than pool restoration, until the city can figure out whether or how it can maintain a reopened pool at $230,000 a year for pool operations. |
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Coming to
your street
An emailer reports finding a source of those Google street views.
"Just happened to see a Google Earth Street Mapping Car with camera(s) mounted on top. The driver was fueling up for the day.
"He told me he's contracted to drive the car, which was flown in from CA, for about three months, mapping the streets from Jacksonville to St. Augustine. In the globe on top of the car are 15 turret- mounted cameras.
"He drives up and down streets that are designated on a map itinerary he follows. All images are automatically sent to Google for image processing and then inserted in their system.
"He did say he starts at 8 a.m. till around 5-6 p.m." |
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Bayfront design goes back to drawing board | |
Proposed redesigns of traffic flow along the bayfront, including lane changes, will go back to the drawing board "to look at programs more focused on pedestrians."
City Manager John Regan summarized a City Commission workshop before last week's regular commission meeting in which "there was not a lot of consensus for a lot of lane changes."
The city manager said he's optimistic Halback Design Group, working on designs through the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit in Parks grant program, can develop designs "pleasing to pedestrians without ripping up the town," and do it before an April application deadline for future Sarbanes funding.
City officials are optimistic they can get funds from the fairly recent and little known program to enhance traffic flow around national parks and monuments.
City pushes back on
nightspot's 'hard push'
One hundred forty police calls, gunshots, and fights at Club (Lounge) 200 on Anastasia Boulevard were condemned by city commissioners last week, with major blame placed on one promoter's end of night "hard push."
"This promoter kept music going until minutes before closing, then pushed everyone out of the club, causing these incidents," Police Commander Barry Fox told commissioners. "We are in a 30-day cooling-off period now," he said, "and since it began, there have been no calls."
Club 200 co-owner Nick Cirelli told commissioners he's been cooperating with the city, and has suspended the one promoter "though we're losing $20,000 during this cooling off."
Commissioner Bill Leary had strongest condemnation of the reported incidents, telling Cirelli, "We are not going to have it here." |
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City plans tree inventory | Trees in ten city parks and along five city streets are included in a bid for grant monies to inventory their types and conditions, Public Works Director Martha Graham says.
The $12,000 project, with $6,000 from the state Division of Forestry matched by city in-kind service, would inventory 455 trees from large to smaller parks (Davenport Park 92, SWING Park 6) and streets (Magnolia Avenue 70, Myrtle Street 11).
Graham said it is the first step in an effort to inventory all the city's trees.
Parks included and tree estimate in this round: Plaza (47), Lightner Building (36), Eddie Vickers Field (50), Oglethorpe Park (14), Lighthouse and Hamilton Upchurch parks (52), Fullerwood Park (12), Davenport Park and former garden center (92), Francis Field (21), and SWING Park (6).
Streets include Magnolia Avenue from Myrtle to San Carlos streets (70), Myrtle Street (11), North Whitney from Evergreen to Ravenswood (12), South Street (20), and Marine Street (12). |
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VIC restrooms got thorough scrubbing | |
"Negative air pressure, drawing moist outside air into the Visitor Center restroom area with the potential of developing mold," forced closing of the restrooms from October 2009 to May 2010, City Attorney Ron Brown reported to city commissioners last week as they approved a settlement of $200,000 from contractors Perry-McCall and Walker Parking Consultants.
Brown said remediation experts were called in and the area "stripped down to the studs" to assure no mold development.
While the total project cost was $390,000, Brown said $84,000 in upgrades could not be included in legal negotiations, and the balance could be tied up in court for years if not settled. |
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Ajacan priests - first martyrs? | |
Responding to early mission efforts (Report March 11), an emailer notes a mostly forgotten incident in 1571 that dealt a crippling blow - the massacre of eight Jesuit priests in the Chesa-peake Bay area of Ajacan.
"My wife and I moved from S. Maryland to Gainesville almost 3 years ago," he writes. "Before that, we visited St Augustine frequently.
"The Ajacan mission was something that tied the two regions together, and so I took an active interest. I used to dream of joining an archeological project to find the burial site of the Martyrs.
"There's something in me that wants to pull for the forgotten. They were indeed the first Christian martyrs in what is now the U.S. and nobody recognizes them."
He notes a Jesuit "First Martyrs" Shrine in Upstate New York, whose overseers responded to him that "the Ajacan Martyrs were not considered the first US martyrs, because they did not convert any natives."
In 2002, the Richmond Diocese of the Catholic Church started seeking more recognition, opening "the cause for their canonization." The diocese has designated St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish as the new Shrine of the Jesuit Martyrs.
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History's Highlight
The Jesuit Martyrs of Ajacan 4 years, 5 months, 18 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
A complete account of the failed mission at Ajacon is carried in the Seattle Catholic.
During one of their visits to the Chesapeake Bay region in 1561, the Spaniards took back with them the nephew of a tribal chief. He was christened Don Luis de Velasco after the Viceroy of New Spain, and became quite literate in Spanish ways and Catholicism.
In 1570, La Florida Governor Pedro Menendez sent Don Luis with a mission of eight Jesuits, led by Father Juan Bautista de Segura, to "La Bahia de Santa Maria," as the Chesapeake was named by the Spanish. At Fr. Segura's request, unusual for the period, there was no military escort.
Fr. Juan Rogel, while taking part in the belated relief expedition to Ajacan in August 1572, wrote the following account:
"As (Fr. Segura) had twice sent for (Don Luis) and he had not come, he decided to send Father Quiros and Brother Gabriel de Solis and Brother Juan Baptista to the village of the chief near where Don Luis was staying.
"On the Sunday after the Feast of the Purification, Don Luis came to the three Jesuits who were returning with other Indians. He sent an arrow through the heart of Father Quiros and then murdered the rest. . . . "
According to Rogel's letter, the incident would have taken place in early February, 1571.
Leaving the three Jesuits dead or dying in the forest, the Indian party swooped down on Fr. Segura's encampment.
The Indians had the European axes and their own machetes ready, and Don Luis assigned one native to one Spaniard each, so that they would be killed all at once without being able to combine in self-defense.
Fr. Segura lay ill in his hut on a grass mat. When his former Indian protégé entered, the priest greeted him joyfully: "You are very welcome, Don Luis!"
The Indian replied with a series of axe blows to Segura's head and body. The other Jesuits were similarly dealt with.
More than a year after the massacre, a Spanish supply ship found and rescued Alonso de Olmos, the teenage boy who accompanied the Jesuits as their altar server and assistant. He gave the only survivor's account of the massacre.
Governor Pedro Menendez traveled to Ajacan to punish the culprits. Don Luis was never discovered, but eight other Indians accused of murdering the missionaries were promptly hanged by the Spaniards.
The disastrous attempt at establishing a mission in Virginia spelled the end of Spanish ventures to colonize the region. Following the death of Father Segura and his companions in the Ajacan Mission venture, the Jesuits were recalled from St. Augustine and sent on to Mexico. |
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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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