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Published by former Mayor George Gardner October 10 2012
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George Gardner 57 Fullerwood Drive St. Augustine FL 32084
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Flagler classrooms approved
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3-2 vote follows 5 ½ hours of public hearing
The balance of Monday's City Commission agenda was suspended and the meeting adjourned without objection after 5 ½ hours of presentation, public comment and commission debate, resulting in a 3-2 vote to approve a controversial Flagler College classroom project at Cordova and Cuna streets.
Mayor Joe Boles, and commissioners Errol Jones and Bill Leary voted in favor, while Commissioners Nancy Sikes-Kline and Leanna Freeman opposed.
City Attorney Ron Brown said a CD was prepared with "some 400 emails," and Leary said he must have received that many as well as letters and phone calls.
Presenting the college's case, Flagler President Bill Abare said the college's greatest need is classroom space, followed by student housing and parking. Enrollment this year is above 2,600. He and consultants defended the plan against concerns for need, design, location, student safety, campus planning, and the process which put the college through multiple hearings before the commission and lower boards.
More than 50 spoke on the issue, the majority decrying expansion of the campus into Historic Preservation District 3.
The college will return to the city's Historic Architectural Review Board to complete details for a Certificate of Appropriateness. |
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Celebrating
Greek Heritage
St. Augustine's Greek heritage is celebrated Saturday and Sunday with its annual Greek Festival at Francis Field.
Freshly prepared Greek food and pastries, costumed dancers, a live Greek band, and traditional crafts are all part of one of the city's largest annual events.
Admission $2 for adults and free for children 12 and younger, and for active military and their immediate family.
Hours 4-9 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Call 829-0504 or visit www.stauggreekfest.com.
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Of enrollment and satellite campuses
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Jason Mauro of Flagler's Model Land Neighborhood was focused on Flagler College's future enrollment growth.
Mauro, who has spoken before about student rental housing taking over areas of his neighborhood, asked, "Is there any limit to that growth? If not, I fear for our downtown residential neighborhoods."
Flagler President Bill Abare, in concluding remarks Monday, said, "We don't want to be larger, but I can't predict what the future will be any more than the founders of Harvard in 1636 could have predicted enrollment in 2012."
He noted enrollment has leveled in the past two years, despite some 6,000 applications each year.
Answering suggestions for satellite campus, Abare said, "the core function of a college is instruction. That core function has to be in the central part of the campus."
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Neighborhood activists named to Plan Board
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Two neighborhood activists have been named to the city's Planning and Zoning Board, following comments by City Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline that residents active in their neighborhoods and community should get strong consideration.
Sue Agresta, chair of the Lift Up Lincolnville Revitalization Corp., and Matthew Shaffer, vice president of the Nelmar Terrace Neighborhood Association, have been named by the City Commission to succeed John Valdes and Carl Blow, who term-limited out.
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Jones: Retract 450 quote
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Commissioner Errol Jones took issue at Monday's City Commission meeting with a quote in last Saturday's Report on a recent commission 450 workshop.
 | Commissioner Jones
historiccity.com photo |
Said Jones, "I'd just like to make a major correction that I noticed in George Gardner's newsletter; he said that I said that the community was not needed to be involved in the 450th. That's totally untrue. I don't know if it's a drastic misunderstanding or misprint of my information.
"I indicated that we look forward to the community, that they could step forward to offer to volunteer their organizations to be involved. The 450th is about community in total.
"I hope he'll retract it in his next report."
Mayor Joe Boles added, "Don't worry. Nobody that read it believes it anyway."
That Report stated, "Mayor Joe Boles, who's resisted taking 450 management out of city hall's hands and had proposed top-down management - funding first, then projects and programs, said, "I don't want to put a moment's thought into sanctioning a nonprofit group," and Commissioner Errol Jones added, "the community can get involved on their own. They don't need our direction."
From the transcript of that workshop, Commissioner Bill Leary asked, "Do we need a nonprofit (to raise funds)?
Boles responded, "I don't want to talk about that, because when we talked about that before what we got was First America which came with so many fraughts and perils that I don't want us to put even a moment's thought into sanctioning, appointing, recognizing a nonprofit group, and we can say if there are nonprofit groups out there that feel like raising money to help support the city, by God go do it, but we went down that road, and you saw where it took us, and I don't want to repeat it."
Jones then said, "I would agree with you fully. I'm not prepared to go in that direction either. I heard quite a few people talk about community involvement, community involvement. Community can get involved on their own; they don't need our guidance in that direction.
"If they'd like to get an organization together to raise some funding through a nonprofit effort and then to assist the city, fine, but anything, when we talk about community involvement, on the one hand they say, get the community involved, but everything you do in terms of that involves money. And it involves money to get staff involved, and you're talking about spending money to involve, I mean, volunteer effort is just that. It is of no cost to you. And that has to be done through those volunteers, not through staff ..."
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Weekend without end
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The Annual Greek Heritage Festival is just one of several signature events filling the weekend.
Fiesta de Aviles
The third annual Fiesta de Aviles rolls along the oldest street in America with music, art, dance, food, and shopping Saturday and Sunday.
Look for live entertainment from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday the Jazzland All Stars and Luis Mario Peral. Also, Zumba in the morning and Flamenco and a Brazilian Tropicana show in the evening with acrobatics and dance.
At 2 p.m. there's a human running of the bulls with Aviles Street restaurant gift certificates to the first five people over the finish line.
"Sangria Sunday" features merchants competing for votes on handmade sangria, along with music by Jim and Sylvia Kaval.
Admission free. Hosted by the Aviles Street Merchants Association. Call Plum Gallery on Aviles St. at 825-0069.
Garrison at the Gates 
St. Augustine's 1740 Spanish Garrison, with National Park Service volunteers from the Castillo de San Marcos, will man the City Gate from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, interpreting moments in history with interaction with the public. Look for photo ops and conversation with Garrison soldados.
Information jake_harper@nps.gov.
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History's Highlight
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Greek and Menorcan heritages
2 years, 10 months, 30 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
The annual Greek Heritage Festival celebrates the first landing of Greeks in America in 1768, as part of an expedition to establish an ill-fated indigo plantation in New Smyrna.
They came from Greece's Smyrna, Santorini, Crete and Mani, joining the Italians and Menorcans to form an expedition of 1,403. The majority were Menorcans, 900, and Greeks, 400.
They had agreed to work for Dr. Andrew Turnbull for six to ten years to pay for their voyage and opportunity for a new life in America. 
They landed in St. Augustine June 26, 1768, before sailing south to New Smyrna, where the English entrepreneur would establish an indigo plantation on a 20,000 acre tract.
Indigo, the plant producing highly prized blue dye, came primarily from India, where it got its name. A successful plantation in this new British colony of East Florida, awarded by treaty in 1763, would bring Turnbull and his partners great profits.
Food shortages for the large number of laborers, the area - aptly-named by the Spanish Mosquito Coast, and the intense process of crushing and stirring the rotting vegetation, all served against New Smyrna's success. In nine years the industrious laborers exported a remarkable 43,283 pounds of indigo with other crops from the wharves of the New Smyrna plantation.
But the toll was heavy. Malaria and starvation claimed more than half the original work force, and pleas that Turnbull honor their indenture agreements were met with beatings.
May 5, 1777, some 600 survivors of the failed colony walked 75 miles to refuge in St. Augustine. Three of their number had secretly made the trek before them to file complaints with East Florida Governor Patrick Tonyn.
They were granted the shelter of a large home near the city gate, built in 1749 by the Spanish Averos family. Here they worshiped and entered into new lives, establishing Menorcan and Greek cultures which survive to this day.
The Averos house was purchased in 1965 by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America as a holy site. While it exhibits the boxlike Spanish architecture outside, the interior has been transformed to replicate a Byzantine chapel with arches and four domes aligned to make a Greek Orthodox cross.
The inscription in Greek over the entranceway says, "Come, whoever is thirsty; accept the water of life as a gift, whoever wants it." (Revelations 22:17)
A statue of Father Pedro Camps, sheltering the colonists as he had through their ordeal and in refuge at St. Augustine, was placed in the west courtyard of the Cathedral Basilica in 1975 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the colonists.
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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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