Published by former Mayor George Gardner January 25 2012
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George Gardner 57 Fullerwood Drive St. Augustine FL 32084 |
450 - Top down 'top-heavy'
In 2007, Mayor Joe Boles said, "We can't finance a commemoration with bake sales. It has to be organized from the top down."
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Four and a half years later, Vice Mayor Leanna Freeman Monday night said, "We've spent $397,000 so far. What have we gotten? There have been two excellent series (First America! programs at Flagler Auditorium) and not much more."
The City Commission then approved another $40,000 for a branding study described by Jennifer Zuberer, 450 communications and resources manager, and Charlie Seraphin, consultant to the 450th for revenue generation.
The vote was 3-2, with Freeman and Commissioner Bill Leary opposing.
"I feel we are ego-driven, not community-driven," Freeman said, urging more attention to community groups and education. "We haven't started from the bottom up. Like that tree (referring to a presentation slide arguing consumer attention only to the top of a tree), we're at the top. We're top-heavy."
Mayor Boles countered with the story of an experimental ad campaign in which a product not yet developed caught consumers' attention through advertising. "Sometimes you can put the cart before the horse," Boles said.
While listing specific prices for each phase of the branding campaign, City Manager John Regan assured commissioners the projects would go out for bid. | |
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That new lighting in the Visitor Center parking facility is not only softer on the eyes, but the city's pocketbook as well.
The LED (Light Emitting Diode) lighting on the second, third, and fourth floors of the Visitor Center parking facility, installed through a $250,000 grant, should save the city some $50-$80,000 a year on the electric bill, Public Works Director Martha Graham says.
It replaces the high pressure sodium vapor lighting originally installed. |
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FSDB board calls
special meeting | | The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind Board of Trustees will meet in emergency session Friday at 9:30 am to discuss not the City Commission request for mediation modifications but rather "security issues related to the Collins House property."
The single agenda item is "how to address security of the unnamed alley" alongside the house," where eleven students were moved in during mediation.
The public is invited to the meeting at Moore Hall on San Marco Avenue between Makaris and Fullerwood. |
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The four-phase branding program will include:
- $13,800 - A research-based study to create a cleaner logo and secondary merchandising logo
- $11,100 - A retooling of the city's 450 website. This will be the fourth makeover after the original city site, a First America Foundation site, and a second city website.
- $14,500 - Social media marketing. City Manager Regan said, "This is the number one marketing tool today."
- $1,600 - Development of commemoration merchandise
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11th hour urgency
on Proctor's bill | |
Last December Vice Mayor Leanna Freeman failed to get a quorum for a special meeting to file a resolution opposing State Rep. Bill Proctor's legislation giving the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind (FSDB) powers of eminent domain and protection from city codes.
Finally taken up two weeks ago, Freeman could only muster a request to legislative committees to delay action until local mediation with the school was completed. That was answered by an appearance before a subcommittee by Proctor and a vote supporting his legislation.
Monday night an aroused City Commission voted strong opposition to the legislation and orders to city staff "to fight it any way they can." A mediation memorandum of agreement was also rejected following a train of residents condemning it. The agreement would have provided partial relief and assurances that relief would stick regardless of passage of the Proctor bills.
"The only ones who can stop (the legislation) is the school," Vice Mayor Leanna Freeman said. "That's the reality."
Commissioners sent the matter back to mediation, with a calendar check for rapid resolution. The FSDB Board of Trustees meets February 10 but could call a special meeting; the City Commission's next regular meeting is February 13, but a city workshop February 8 could be redesigned as a special meeting.
Email addresses for House Economic Affairs Committee is here. This committee is expected to take up the Proctor legislation. |
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Spanish Quarter reopening: maybe October |
A reopening of the Colonial Spanish Quarter under private management should occur "no later than October 1," Assistant City Manager Tim Burchfield told commissioners Monday.
The city's signature historic site was closed in October in a budget shortfall, with confidence it could reopen by March 1 "with the highest quality" program.
The city is using a new bid system, Invitations to Bid, recommended by the University of Florida which oversees all state-owned historic properties here including the Spanish Quarter.
Burchfield said another round of Invitations to Bid will go out this week, to add to three who previously filed qualifications. All bidders will attend a mandatory site visit February 10. An evaluation committee of four University of Florida and three city staff will review the applicants.
Negotiations with leading bidder will continue through May 11, with announcement of winning bid May 15, turning over the keys July 1, and reopening under private management October 1. |
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Commentary | |
Civil Rights Museum - new in historic area?
For a city that wants to commemorate its history, the plan to build a new Civil Rights museum in the area of three existing buildings significant to our black history seems incongruous.
The proposed $15-$16 million museum would be sited by the former black Catholic St. Benedict School on Lincolnville's Martin Luther King Avenue, currently just a shell as a citizen's group tries to raise restoration funds. Next door is Echo House, a former black nursing home St. Paul AME Church is trying to restore for use as a School of Excellence. And next to this is the Excelsior Cultural Center, housing a museum of Lincolnville history and after school program.
The Excelsior was formerly a black school. Owned by the state, it was leased and restored by the county. The county recently gave up its lease, which the Friends of Excelsior has taken up with plans to expand activities - if funds can be raised.
The plan for a new museum may have been inspired by the City Commission's so far mistaken belief that a memorial to Ambassador and former civil rights activist Andrew Young might bring his financial resources to bear on the project.
What better way to commemorate not only the struggle for equality but generations of black history here than restoration of these buildings into a compound Civil Rights museum and community center. |
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History's highlight
First America! theme: Britain's exit | |
3 years, 7 months, 15 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
The Madness of King George, theme of tonight's First America! program at Flagler Auditorium and of the award-winning 1994 film of the same name, "is a travesty," Britain's Prince Charles says.
George, who reigned during the American Revolution, "was one of Britain's most dutiful, cultured and misunderstood rulers, who studied the arts and sciences and was involved in agriculture, astronomy, architecture and clock-making," the prince said during an interview for a TV documentary.
That said, tonight's program focuses on the exit of Britain after 20 years occupation of Florida, 1763-1783, during the American Revolution.
This 14th American colony for an expanding British empire offered both new commercial trade opportunities which might have continued well beyond the 20-year span, but for war.
Under its first governor, James Grant, nearly three million acres were granted in East Florida. He planted, tracked, and kept extensive journals as he tested new plants in Florida's subtropical soil. Rice was cultivated at many British East Florida estates, and might have become an increasingly significant export crop if the British had retained control of East Florida.
But storm clouds were gathering in the north, where populations were swelling with American-born subjects, unattached to the mother country.
With the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Florida became the loyalist stronghold, its population swelled by immigrants from England and loyalist refugees from the north. The newcomers had no history of growing commercial unrest and separatist democratic culture of the northern colonies. Their loyalties remained with England.
Most of the war took place far north of Florida, but cross-border raids increased. In 1779, Spain entered the war in alliance with France. The energetic Bernardo de Gálvez, governor of Spanish Louisiana, immediately began operations to gain control of British West Florida. The Siege of Pensacola in 1781 returned West Florida to Spain.
Having lost control of the majority of its colonies, Britain had little interest in keeping Florida. Now an isolated outpost, it had little prospect of staying productive. On September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the American Revolution. In it Britain recognized the independence of the United States.
Under separate treaty, England ceded Florida back to Spain in exchange for the Bahaman Islands.
The curtain fell on twenty years of English occupation, and a second period under Spain began. |
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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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