Published by former Mayor George Gardner January 11 2012
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George Gardner 57 Fullerwood Drive St. Augustine FL 32084 |
Careful what you wish for
FSDB legislation opposition becomes request
Vice Mayor Leanna Freeman wanted a resolution of unanimous, strong opposition to State Rep. Bill Proctor's legislation giving the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind (FSDB) powers of eminent domain and freeing it from city codes.
What she got after an hour of City Commission debate Monday night was a request to legislative committees to delay action on the measure until after the commission's next meeting January 23, when mediation between the city and school is expected to be concluded.
"I am opposed to this bill today, and I'll be opposed to it on the 23rd," Freeman said as her support waned. She said the bill is speeding through the process, and "I want lawmakers in Tallahassee to know the position of the city when they vote on it."
"The legislation and the mediation are not linked," City Manager John Regan said, and Mayor Joe Boles added, "I don't want us to be anything but clean hands" while mediation continues in efforts to get the school to conform to city codes.
Commissioner Bill Leary said he's "been unable to persuade" Proctor to drop the bill. He said Proctor "suggested he ran for the legislature to get eminent domain for the school," because he was angered that the school "overpaid" seven years ago to buy up the adjacent Alfred and Genoply residential blocks.
Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline, the commission's representative in the mediation, noted the city and school's "good faith effort to address some if not all elements in the bill." | |
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Monday Breakfast
Honors Dr. King
Theatrical flair is handy in the classroom, and Gerald Eubanks didn't retire that passion when he left the St. Johns County's school system after 30 years' service.
Eubanks is keynote speaker at next Monday's annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast, themed "Out of the Mountain of Despair a Stone of Hope Should Be Carved."
The breakfast is from 7:30 to 10 am at the First Coast Technical College. Tickets are $25 per person; $250 for a corporate table of 10.
Eubanks hopes to resurrect the St. George Street Players, prominent here in the 1980s. This, along with Cross and Sword, St. Augustine Passion Play, and reenactments of Frederick Douglass, are among his community credits.
The Eubanks family was prominent during the 1960s Civil Rights movement here, and Eubanks chairs the St. Augustine Civil Rights Committee.
No tickets for the breakfast will be sold at the door. For tickets and information, call Sonee Carswell 392-1768 or Jackie Bryant 794-5990.
Eubanks image: artistikvision.com |
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Constitution bicentennial: replicas, symposium, ball | |
Replicas of possibly the only remaining monument to the Spanish Constitution of 1812, a symposium on that constitution, and "this being a historic Spanish event, we gotta have a ball" were outlined to city commissioners Monday as main elements developed by a pubic relations/lobbying firm for the constitution's bicentennial.
Allison Defoor, a Tallahassee attorney representing the Fiorentino Group, mentioned a number of Miami Hispanic companies interested in financially supporting the bicentennial, but no firm commitments.
He said he saw no need to continue a $19,000 three-month contract with the city, expiring this month, but expects to continue assisting the bicentennial effort.
Funding for the monument replicas, promised to Cadiz and Aviles, Spain, is hoped for from Miami, where Defoor said the private sector is enthusiastic about the idea of a third replica, for Cuba, to be held in Miami "until Cuba becomes free."
A weeklong symposium with constitutional scholars in March would begin in Miami and wrap up at week's end in St. Augustine, he said, and "the ball will take care of itself at the end." |
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Two workshops were scheduled and a third anticipated as city commissioners Monday took up concerns about streetside vendors at the Visitor Center and added street entertainers to the mix.
"What you plan for the 450th will be affected by ordinances you pass today," City Attorney Ron Brown cautioned as he presented sample ordinances from Gainesville and Key West.
Morning, afternoon, and evening workshops were suggested, "to give everyone a chance to take part." Scheduled workshops will be February 8 from 8:30 am to noon, and February 23 from 3:30 to 6:30 pm. A third, evening, workshop will be considered after these. All will be in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.
Street entertainers were added to the topic list after veteran musician Ralph Hayes said he has the support of at least 55 St. George Street merchants for regulated street entertainment.
"You regulated carriages and boats," he argued to commissioners, "it's time for musicians." |
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Deagan: It's context, not artifacts |
Dr. Kathy Deagan, University of Florida Distinguished Research Curator who's put context to St. Augustine's earliest history over four decades of methodical archaeological study, weighed in Tuesday on treasure hunters and TV reality shows.
In a guest column in the St. Augustine Record and presentation at Tuesday night's First America! Series, she sounded the alarm on treasure hunter Bob Spratley, who claims he's found the Matanzas massacre site of 1565, and a TV producer's proposal to dig up artifacts.
"Neither archaeology nor history is about artifacts," Deagan says. "And history is not 'brought to light' by artifacts. Artifacts have historical importance and meaning only in their stratigraphic context."
One example: "If somebody digs up a beautiful piece of a French porcelain plate, well, it is a beautiful piece of porcelain, but we already know there was French porcelain in St. Augustine. It adds nothing to our history.
"But, if careful excavation and analysis can show that the porcelain was deposited in the ground during a period when it was illegal, we have learned something new about illegal - probably pirate - trade and activity in St. Augustine."
City Archaeologist Carl Halbirt, also on Tuesday's program, noted treasure digging "sends the wrong message to the residents of St. Augustine. As a resident, you are a steward to the city's heritage. Digging for artifacts is not preserving the city's heritage.
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Commentary | |
History not in Proctor's lexicon
Bill Proctor is a single-minded visionary, to the detriment of historic St. Augustine.
As president of Flagler College, he sliced into the historic fabric of the Flagler Model Land Tract to make way for, among other college expansions, a massive library, aptly named "Proctor Library."
As a state legislator, he rebuffed pleas by his constituent city to retract legislation turning over 34 state-owned historic properties to the University of Florida after the city produced a new business plan and leadership for its heritage program. Proctor submitted he has greater faith in the university's board of trustees than St. Augustine's City Commission.
And now, Proctor's "going home bill" as he leaves Tallahassee slides comfortably through a legislature that understands little about St. Augustine's historic sensitivity, but easily grasps the mission of assisting handicapped youngsters.
And to Proctor, those constituent historic neighborhoods threatened with further expansion by the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind are just "a few strident voices."
City commissioners Monday approved a request to legislative committees to defer consideration of the Proctor bill until current mediation is completed. The city manager and mayor said the two are not linked. Like saying the massive artillery being moved into place is not linked to treaty talks.
Expect in future to see the grassy area between Genoply and Alfred streets one day consumed by a massive student dormitory, aptly named "Proctor Hall." |
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Saturday offers newest and oldest |
Saturday is bookended by the grand opening of a supermarket at Vilano in the morning and colonial tradition of Changing of the Guard in St. Augustine in the evening.
A Publix supermarket opens at 8 am at Vilano Beach Town Center to anchor a revitalized business district bypassed more than a decade ago with the opening of the Usina Bridge.
Rolling back three centuries Saturday night, the St. Augustine Garrison will present a Changing of the Guard at 5:30 pm at Government House, as sentries posted there are relieved by a second contingent and a salutary flintlock musket volley is presented.
Politics, murder, and martyrdom
History Professor Michael Francis of the University of North Florida shares his credentials as a member of the federal St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission Tuesday at the annual meeting of the St. Augustine Historical Society with a presentation on "Politics, Murder and Martyrdom."
The free session begins at 7 pm in the Flagler Room at Flagler College.
Francis subject is based on his book, "Murder and Martyrdom in Spanish Florida: Don Juan and the Guale Uprising of 1597." Continuing research will bring his next book, "The Martyrs of Florida," which is under contract with the University Press of Florida.
In the uprising, Guale Indians murdered five Franciscan friars stationed in their territory and razed their missions to the ground. The action brought the missionization of Guale to an abrupt end and threatened Florida's new governor with the most significant crisis of his term, Francis says. |
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History's highlight
St. George Street Players in revival? | |
3 years, 7 months, 29 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
"The year is 1740. Two actors, Esteban and Juana, en route from Cuba to Spain, survive a shipwreck and are stranded in Spanish colonial St. Augustine, Florida. To earn money, they build their stage, a curtained wagon, place it in a courtyard lighted with torches, and delight audiences each night with comedies by a 16th-century Spanish playwright.
"Actually, Esteban and Juana, as they reveal to the audiences, are Steve and Joan Hansen of St. Augustine's Saint George Street Players. And the torchlight that fills the secluded courtyard behind the Spanish bakery over on St. George Street flickers on the faces of present-day vacationers.
 "But just as they did in 1740, audiences rock with laughter over the translated comedies of Lope de Rueda."
The pages of the St. Augustine Record captured another era - not of the 1740s, but of the 1980s, an era that could be recaptured today with the restoration of that curtained wagon and revitalization of the St. George Street Players.
Few remnants of the Players are left - the decaying wagon that was tucked away in a corner of the Arrivas House yard, and Gerald Eubanks, an original cast member. Both can revive this bygone era - the wagon now at the Technical Center and the cast: "I'm not sure who's still around but I'm sure we can find plenty of budding thespians," says Eubanks.
The St. George Street Players formed at the behest of the now-defunct Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board and played the Arrivas yard, DeHita yard, City Gate, Castillo, and any other venues that moved them.
"This whole town is like a stage set," Players Founder Steve Hansen told the Record in the 1980s. "Why have a theatre, when there are so many great natural settings?"
The St. George Street Players' scripts were well suited: the playlets of 16th century Spanish playwright/actor Lope de Rueda, who died the year of St. Augustine's founding and a year after the birth of William Shakespeare.
Record reporter Diana Edwards captured the spirit of the St. George Street Players:
"The city of St. Augustine has real-life stages for theatre on every street of the Spanish Quarter and in many of the historical buildings. What better place to stage a 16th century Spanish drama than in an authentically restored 16th century building on a street that has been walked down continuously since the 1500's?"
The setting still exists; the original wagon is on its way to new life, and if Gerald Eubanks is successful, the St. Augustine Record headlines can once again announce, "Sixteenth Century Comes to St. George Street."
Image: Eubanks discovering Players wagon in Arrivas House yard in 2009 |
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The St. Augustine Report is published weekly, with additional Reports previewing City Commission meetings as well as Special Reports. The Report is written and distributed by George Gardner, St. Augustine Mayor (2002-2006) and Commissioner (2006-2008) and a former newspaper reporter and editor. Contact the Report at gardner@aug.com |
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