Roxanne Horvath and Bruce Maguire will advance to the November ballot for a seat on the St. Augustine City Commission.

It was an extremely tight race for the three challengers to incumbent Errol Jones, while he compiled half the votes of each of them.

Unofficial totals gave Horvath 707 votes, Maguire 689, and Deltra Long 674. Jones drew just 346 votes.

It was the only City Commission seat in this year's race after Mayor Joe Boles and Commissioner Leanna Freeman were unopposed for their seats.

Horvath, an architect, proposed updating the city's visioning process; Jones, the incumbent, wanted to continue involvement with city projects; Long, a former Planning and Zoning Board member and chair, sought greater community involvement, and Maguire, a former County Commission chair, called for reining in city spending.

City commissioners Monday approved using city light poles for banners for "narrowly defined government purposes," but with an amendment softening "special event" language, and calling for additional information on the possibility of banners stretched across streets for special events and allowing major sponsor placement on banners.

   "The city has to be predominant" on the banners, City Attorney Ron Brown said, but other city-authorized elements could be included.

   Commissioner Bill Leary also made a bid for banners identifying various business districts.

   The potential for cross-street banners will be brought to commissioners later from another part of the sign code.

Whetstone litigation

   Commissioners Monday authorized "additional funds as necessary" for outside counsel in the lawsuit brought by Henry and Esther Whetstone, who claim ownership of bayfront land at their Bayfront Inn south of the Bridge of Lions, but haven't yet produced documentation.

   City Attorney Ron Brown said litigation could continue to the end of the year, and involve searches "in the Library of Congress and National Archives."

'Sub-9' tour vehicles

   City Attorney Ron Brown will plan to have ready for an October commission session a proposal of regulations for "sub-9s," those less than 9-foot electric vehicles, pedicabs, and segways on city streets, after commissioners volleyed a range of ideas from  Mayor Joe Boles' "Do we want additional shuttles?" to Commissioner Bill Leary's "If we regulate some, we should regulate all."

   Considerations include franchising, as with the larger sightseeing vehicles, and pickup and drop-off locations.

   In St. Augustine it's the Historic Architectural Review Board overseeing historic accuracy. In Key West it's the Historic Architectural Review Commission, but the task is the same, and that body has rejected the idea of scanning St. Augustine's Ponce de Leon statue to create one for Key West's Mallory Square.

   Key West's HARC Chairman Rudy Molinet said, "State rules for historic preservation mandate that a 'false sense of history' may not be created," according to an article by Rhonda Parker in the Examiner.

   History buff Bruce Neff, who's building a Key West Historic Marker program, said, "We're covering the past 497 years of history," referring to 1513, when explorer Ponce de Leon landed in the Dry Tortugas. The statue would have pointed to that landing.

   Public reaction to the HARC decision ranged from "Ponce De Leon has NO significant value or history with the City of Key West," to "So what if Ponce de Leon didn't land here. It would be a great addition to Mallory Square."

   St. Augustine officials had hoped such a scanning would result in being able to create miniature statues for sale during the city's 450th commemoration.

   Key West's rejection of a Ponce de Leon statue as historically inaccurate is not a singular example.

   For several years a battle has been slowly brewing in North Florida, where an application has been made to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to name the island mass extending from Vilano to Mayport "San Pablo Island."   

   The 37-mile island stretch was created 100 years ago this year by the Army Corps of Engineers for an Intracoastal Waterway. Two-thirds of the island is in St. Johns County.

   Business and tourism officials in Duval County like the idea, hoping the single identity for the numerous beach cities will boost the tourism economy. 

   Except that it's just not historically accurate for northern St. Johns County, says County Historic Resources Coordinator Robin Moore. And St. Johns Tourist Development Council's Glenn Hastings thinks the change would only confuse marketing efforts.

   "San Pablo may be appropriate for Jacksonville Beach and areas north, where Pablo became entrenched, but it's less appropriate historically within St. Johns County, where more relevant historical names existed," he says. "San Pablo was never the name of a Spanish Mission, as stated in the application (to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names). 

   "Rather it was the name of a small Timucuan village located somewhere near the confluence of the St. Johns River and Pablo Creek, also known as the Intracoastal.

   "Archaeologists have located the San Pablo village, but it is across the intracoastal and not on the landmass for which the San Pablo name is being proposed," Moore said. 

   The issue, with a staff recommendation to deny the name change, goes before the St. Johns County Commission September 4. 

   Meanwhile, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, charged with "maintaining uniform geographic name usage throughout the Federal Government," is taking comments until Aug. 30. Email Executive Secretary Lou Yost at BGNEXEC@usgs.gov