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Published by former Mayor George Gardner                          July 17 2013
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George Gardner 57 Fullerwood Drive St. Augustine FL 32084 
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Historic streetscape  

    What to do? How to pay for it? 
Spanish Street rendering
Brick streets and banners in Spanish Street rendering 
   Former Mayor Len Weeks' quest for ways to improve the streetscape along Spanish and Hypolita streets where he plans improvements to property he owns will unfold in a city-sponsored public meeting Thursday at 6 pm in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.

   The city is looking for improvements like streetscape and drainage for Spanish, Hypolita, and Treasury streets. Businessmen like Weeks are looking for more inviting pedestrian ways. Their wish may include a Business Improvement District, a defined area within which businesses pay an additional tax or fee to fund projects within the district.

   City officials want public input on proposed work and options for funding. Marquis Halback developed streetscape ideas for Weeks including brick surfaces, more trees and benches, even a pocket park at Hypolita and Spanish streets.

   Beautification of streets around St. George, to expand pedestrian areas and commercial opportunities, was proposed throughout former Mayor George Gardner's terms in office (2002-2006), even getting $25,000 set aside for improvements. But the only success was coquina paving of Hypolita from Avenida Menendez to St. George, courtesy of boat show promoters who paid to tear up that section to lay a water line to the bayfront.

Mourning fellow firefighters

Honoring 

the fallen 

St. Augustine and St. Johns fire/rescue units and St Johns County Pink Heals will honor with a fundraiser 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots team, a 20-man squad specially trained to tackle fires in rugged, back country areas at close range, who died on June 30 when they were overrun by wind-driven flames as they battled a lightning-sparked blaze with hand tools outside the tiny hamlet of Yarnell, Arizona.

Hosting the event noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 21 is Ann O'Malley's Irish Pub and Deli, whose owner John Cunningham said, "In the spirit of brotherhood that extends across the nations' firefighting profession, we are proud to offer our support for fallen comrades. All proceeds will be donated to the Prescott Firefighters charity."

Numerous local businesses have already answered the call for donations to support the silent auction being held during the fundraising event. Ann O'Malley's and local departments have information.

Photo: CNN
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7-Eleven to meet neighbors
      Officials from 7-Eleven can expect to meet some unhappy neighbors as they review preliminary plans with city officials Friday at 8:30 am at city hall for a contentious store and gas pumps at San Marco Avenue and May Street.

   The meeting is with the city's Development Review Committee "to get feedback" on preliminary designs, Planning and Building Director Mark knight says, with no final permit decision until detailed plans are submitted.

Vehicle parking chart

Chart reads monthly, October to September, in annual groups from 1005-06 through June 2012-13. Highest count is March 2013 at 44,728 vehicles parked.

VIC parking facility

paying its way, plus

   
   The 1,170 space Visitor Center parking facility is paying its way and then some, on track to surpass last year's $2,067,283 annual total by $75,200.             

After nose diving from 352,735 to 297,815 annual vehicle count when city commissioners two years ago approved a $10 all day flat fee to generate new revenue for city projects, the current figure is 268,918 through June with three months to go in this fiscal year. Last year those months tallied 69,591 vehicles. That would bring this year's final count to 338,509.

The July Fourth weekend will certainly help. City officials say From Thursday, July 4 through Sunday, July 7 the facility "accommodated 8,753 vehicles, over seven times the capacity of the facility, meaning users came and left and others came behind them."

Another boost should come as the city plans to presell 700 spaces for the September 13-14 Mumford concert.

Raising the all-day fee to $10 while charging just $1 for ParkNow card holders (that fee was raised to $3 in March) city officials hoped to basically double the $1,301,972 brought in the previous year. 

The additional projected $1,050,000 would go to debt service on the parking facility ($450,000), the city's $2 million share of the $7 million seawall project ($207,000 a year for ten years), Visitor Center remodeling for exhibition space ($65,000 a year for three years), and the 450th commemoration ($328,000 a year for four years).

High, low months

Only October 2012 and April 2013 fell below the 2011-2012 fiscal year (October through September) in monthly revenue; highest months were December, March and April as of June in this fiscal year. Vehicle count has been higher this year throughout the period, with March highest at 44,728.

Winners, losers in bed tax funding
Artbreakers logo
Artbreakers 2013 Festival logo
Changing of the Guard
Changing of the Guard

Artbreakers' Auld City Gaelic Festival, City of St. Augustine's 450 Years of the African American Experience, St. Augustine Lighthouse's Sea Your History Weekends, Flagler College's Race in the South: SA in Context, and the Florida Heritage Book Festival's Festival and Writers Conference were biggest winners in the county bed tax competition for $550,000 in funding.

   The Auld City Gaelic Festival is a new event by Artbreakers, a group formed by cancer survivors in 2007.

   The recommendations of a funding panel went to the Tourist Development Council Monday before going to the County Commission for final approval. Find the complete list here for total requests and final rankings.

   Four of the five top money groups sought $60,000 while the Book Festival sought $44,045.

   The panel ranked each of 28 requests on a percentage scale, with funding going to scores of 70 percent or greater.

   Larger requests missing the cut were St. Augustine Beach's New Year's Beach Blastoff, St. Augustine Art Association's Annual Art and Craft Festival, and Romanza's Celtic Festival. (Romanza's annual Romanza Festivale was funded).

   Historic Florida Militia's four major annual reenactments all made the cut for funding: Searle's and Drake's raids, Changing of the Guard, and Colonial Grand Muster, as well as the Committee for the Nightwatch's British Nightwatch. 

In the mailbag

Performer ban increased 

St. George Players
 St. George Players perform off-street at Spanish Bakery

An intelligible licensing regimen, a reasonable license fee, clear rules for performers, and designated busking spots (where buskers make their 'pitches'): These seem the four components of an acceptable accommodation in communities that have had long experience with this phenomenon.

No matter how highly structured the community's licensing system however, certain local constituencies will inevitably continue to resist and resent the presence of these scions of the errant minstrels who filled the streets of Europe during both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

We know they played period instruments, sang and juggled. I wonder how talented they were. I'd bet some of them were really bad! I bet, too, that they were a constant source of excruciating annoyance to the mainstream peddlers and shopkeepers who paid a fee to the local feudal lord [that portended the property tax]....

Of course, the problem wouldn't exist were it not for the cattle chute and gauntlet configuration of St George Street and its tributaries. No such issues would seem of concern to the people of Boston and Paris, where legions of buskers ply their craft in the wide open spaces of Faneuil Hall and the Champs Elysees.

We seem unable to figure out exactly how to reconcile problems caused by the physical configuration of our pedestrian walkways with reasonable demands for a more accepting attitude toward artists, musicians, and other buskers. That said, I must say I'm neither smart enough nor wise enough to offer specific solutions that would please most and certainly not all.

 

History's highlight

First anthem written here

2 years, 1 month, 23 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary

        

Historian Michael Gannon established, to the chagrin of Plymouth folks, that the first Thanksgiving was here, following a mass on the founding of St. Augustine in 1565.

Another first is, America's first anthem, penned here and sung by American Patriot prisoners of the British July 4, 1781, within the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos - to the tune of Britain's God Save the King!!

Heyward
Heyward

St. Augustine was a British colony from 1763 to 1783, the result of the Treaty of Paris which transferred Florida to the British in exchange for Havana, the historic Spanish colonial seat of government which had been captured by the British.     

The loyalist colony - Britain's 14th - was its southern command center at the height of the American Revolution. Patriots captured in South Carolina and New Jersey were imprisoned here, including three signers of the Declaration of Independence.

July 4, 1781, by special permission, the American captives were allowed to gather for dinner, and the bill of fare included an English plum-pudding, topped by a tiny flag with thirteen stars and stripes.

Thomas Heyward, Jr., 34, a Revolutionary War officer, member of the Royal Assemblies of South Carolina, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, had been captured at Charleston after British forces seized his plantation.

Inspired by the plans for the community dinner, he set to work that morning on a suitable verse.

Being set to the familiar British tune of God Save the King, British guards peeping in were impressed by what they took to be the Yankees' sudden return to loyalty to King George.

The anthem was carried and sung through the rebelling colonies. It had five verses, each more stinging than the last. Two decades later, today's National Anthem was written by Francis Scott Key, during The War of 1812 - between the United States and Great Britain. 

God save the thirteen states, Thirteen United States, God save them all.

Make us victorious, Happy and glorious; No tyrants over us; God save our States! ...

 

   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]