Published by former Mayor George Gardner January 18 2012
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George Gardner 57 Fullerwood Drive St. Augustine FL 32084 |
Eminent domain bill in committee
Legislation providing eminent domain powers for the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind (FSDB) begins its round of committee reviews today in the House Community & Military Affairs Subcommittee.
Inspired by State Rep. Bill Proctor (R-St. Augustine), its House Sponsor is Doug Broxson [email protected]. 850-488- 8188 and Senate Sponsor Stephen Wise [email protected], 850-487-5027. Subcommittee Chair is Ritch Workman [email protected] 850-488-9720.
The bill has raised alarm in St. Augustine as it would give the school power to expand in a city where expansion is only possible by tearing down existing structures. The school is bordered by historic residential neighborhoods, most prominent the Nelmar Tract which is on the National Register of Historic Districts.
Readers are urged to call or email the subcommittee chair and members as well as the bills' sponsors. | |
HMS Bounty coming to city
The HMS Bounty is scheduled to visit St. Augustine April 26-30 to start its spring/summer visits along the east coast up to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The ship was made famous for the storied mutiny that took place in Tahiti in 1789. Its replica was built for the 1962 movie Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando, and has appeared in many documentaries and featured films such as the Edinburgh Trader in Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Mans Chest with Johnny Depp.
City General Services Director Jim Piggott said a Bounty team is expected to visit St. Augustine to assure facilities are adequate. The ship has a 13-foot draft (depth in the water) and will moor at an outside pier at the Municipal Marina, where depth at low tide is 15 feet.
There's been some discussion in the community of staging a sea battle with the Black Raven pirate ship and other tall ships. Whether that might happen while the Bounty is in port has not been decided.
Information on the HMS Bounty is at http://www.tallshipbounty.org/ | |
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Figaro Figaro
Figaro . . .
Kenneth Mattice will sing it out as the town's most notor-ious barber, matchmaker, valet, messenger, wigmaker, surgeon, pharmacist, and general factotum in Rossini's comic masterpiece, The Barber of Seville, Friday, January 20 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, January 22 at 2 pm. at the Kirk Auditorium, Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind.
Parking is available on campus.
Advance $25 tickets at Herbie Wiles Insurance, online at www.firstcoastopera.com, or call 904-417-5555. Tickets at the door $30.
This special production is a collaboration of First Coast Opera, Vero Beach Opera and Florida Opera Theatre (Orlando). |
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Dredging of Inlet
begins in March | |
Not expected to interfere with a visit from the HMS Bounty, but making it easier for vessels in future to navigate the entrance to St. Augustine, dredging of the inlet will begin in March, General Services Director Jim Piggott says.
First will be dredging of the Porpoise Point area, expected to take 30 days, Piggott says. The $16 million inlet dredging - funded through grants - is expected to continue for 5-6 months. The dredge material will be transferred to St. Augustine Beach. |
Flagler College proposes communications complex | |
Flagler College plans a 20,000 square foot communications facility with five building units and courtyard spaces at Cordova and Cuna streets, site of its current facility.
The college will seek an Opinion of Appropriateness Thursday, January 19, from the Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB), which last month approved demolition of the existing facility.
An Opinion of Appropriateness is a preview for HARB, after which a Certificate of Appropriateness and authorization to build will be sought. The monthly meeting begins at 2 pm in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.
The complex would include three two-story classroom buildings and one-story TV studio and Screening rooms.
Alhambra Inn seeks demolition of units
Also on HARB's Thursday agenda, Alhambra Inn, 2600 North Ponce de Leon Blvd, will seek approval to demolish a 30-unit section between Waldo and Genovar streets, behind the recently closed IHOP restaurant.
The application says it's to provide more restaurant parking. The inn section and restaurant site are both owned by Alhambra Inn Real Estate, LLC. |
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$903,000 for bayfront improvements |
Grants of $150,000 for planning and $753,000 for implementing portions of a program dubbed Reconnecting the Castillo & the Bayfront have been  approved through the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit in Parks Program, designed to improve pedestrian and traffic flow around national sites.
While not the $2.5 million applied for last spring, it will be enough to continue the Orange Street connection to the Castillo de San Marcos and for sidewalk improvements on the west side of Castillo Drive, officials say.
Halback Design Group has been working on a multi-phase plan for several years. Details and renderings of its study are at http://www.halback.com.
Most ambitious at this stage is the redesign of Orange Street. The westbound traffic lane will remain, but the eastbound lane will be restricted to sightseeing conveyances, a crossing and traffic signal will be add, and the Cubo line completed from the City Gate to Cordova Street. |
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On the weekend | |
Arbor Day at Lincolnville garden
Spring will be a little early this year - and others, as St. Augustine celebrates Arbor Day January 20 rather than the traditional National Arbor Day on the last Friday in April. It's an option for states with better suited tree-planting seasons.
For the second year running, the Lincolnville Community Garden will be the tree-planting site. Four live oaks were planted there in ceremonies last year.
It's the 29th year the city has received the designation of Tree City USA from the National Arbor Day Foundation. The brief ceremony starts at 11a.m.
Art in the Park at Fort Mose
Timberlin Creek students open an exhibit of their interpretations of Fort Mose's history at the Fort Mose Historic State Park Friday, January 20, from 6 to 7:30 pm.
The works of fourth and fifth grade Art Club students will be on display in the park's visitor center through April as part of the park's Art in the Park program.
Tolomato Cemetery tours
Tolomato Cemetery's fascinating history is on display the third Saturday of each month, 11 am to 3 pm, offering self-guided and docent-led tours of St. Augustine's original Catholic cemetery. The burial grounds on Cordova Street reach back to the 16th century, its name originating in its location as an early Franciscan Indian mission.
The event is free, but donations are encouraged to support the preservation and restoration of the cemetery. For more information, visit www.tolomatocemetery.com. |
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History's highlight
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3 years, 7 months, 22 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
November, 1837, Osceola, Coacoochee, and other Seminole leaders were imprisoned in Fort Marion, the name given to the Castillo de San Marcos in the American Territorial Period.
Osceola, once the proud, charismatic symbol of the Seminole struggle, now about 38, was dying. He waved off the younger, fiercely angered Coacoochee as he plotted escape. 
Contemporaries described Coacoochee (also known as Wild Cat), now in his 20s, as handsome, well-built, with a flair for the theatrical; so athletic, he was able to outdistance pursuers, pause to turn back and jeer, then evaporate into the thicket.
At St. Augustine, such was the unusual relationship between captors and captives that selected Indians were often set free during the day to move about the fortress and mingle with the townspeople.
Coacoochee's associate and confidant in the escape plot was John Cowaya, an Indian-Negro leader. Together they scanned the entire, thick fortress.
The southwest angle of the fort was thought so escape-proof it was not even guarded. To escape, one would have to reach a slit in the fortress wall, 15 feet above the floor. The slit was five feet long, just eight inches wide, through six feet of coquina wall. On the other side was a 21-foot drop to the ditch, or moat, below. The slit was also blocked by two iron rods.
Given time, and a lack of guards, Coacoochee and his followers were able to pry one rod from the relatively soft coquina. The other, left in place, became a tie-off for a line which they dropped outside, then climbed down, leaping the final distance to the dry ditch below.
One by one Coacoochee, John Cowaya, sixteen more warriors and two women worked their way up to the slit, through the eight-inch gap in the six foot thickness of coquina, and down the line to freedom.
A Board of Inquiry, meeting the following day, could find no fault or evidence of assistance from the fort commander, Capt. Lucien Webster, or any of his command.
Osceola was moved to Fort Moultrie shortly after the escape, where he died two months later. Coacoochee led resistance for three and a half more years until, on October 12, 1841, with 210 followers, he was shipped west.
Excerpt from Escape, in St. Augustine Bedtime Stories, a collection of 24 booklets in two series on famous people and events in St. Augustine history. Click for further information on these fascinating historic series. |
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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 [email protected] |
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