$240,650 seawall, multiuse area in planning for marina

Published by former Mayor George Gardner October 16 2013

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$240,650 seawall, multiuse

area in planning for marina

Rendering of seawall extension and multiuse area east of current mini golf site.

A $240,650 plan to create a multipurpose area and extend the seawall between the Municipal Marina and Bridge of Lions was approved Monday by the City Commission.

General Services Director Jim Piggott said the multipurpose area will include a temporary kiosk serving coffee and snacks - "temporary because we plan to expand the marina restrooms as visitation grows."

A mixed bag of financing is planned, including remaining monies from the seawall project, marina reserves, mini golf rental fees, and excess from increased Visitor Center parking structure revenues.

City Manager John Regan said one boost to visitation will be a return visit by the tall ship El Galeón, which plans to dock here from January to July 2014.

Postage stamp

For the 450th?

There is a postage stamp effort under way for St. Augustine's 450th commemoration.

World Golf Village resident Francisco "Paco" Acevedo, a philatelist with ties to both US and Spanish postal services and philately (stamp collecting) societies, has volunteered to spearhead a joint US/Spain effort to create a postage stamp recognizing both countries for the 450th.

City commissioners Monday authorized a letter of support.

A US stamp (above) was created for St. Augustine's 400th anniversary, not naming the city but inscribed Settlement of Florida 1565-1965.

Commission agrees to help UF historic sites

"If they're successful, the city's successful," Assistant City Manager Tim Burchfield told commissioners Monday as he outlined a plan to promote the University of Florida's Colonial Quarter and $2.5 million in Government House repairs and First Colony exhibit.

City Manager John Regan added Government house "is averaging 65 visitors a month; they need 300. Losses are running between $50 and $100,000 a month.

Burchfield said the first step is reestablishing an Explorer Passport program developed by the city "prior to the city getting out of the heritage tourism business." The program bundled Government House, Spanish Colonial Quarter and Castillo tickets, and was discontinued when the city closed the quarter for redevelopment as the Colonial Quarter under UF.

In addition to the Explorer Passport UF will take over a section of the VIC to promote its venues.

To concerns by Vice Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline that other attractions are not promoted as well, Commissioner Leanna Freeman responded, "This is for historical, educational purposes; this is an exceptional circumstance."

Cork in carriage wine for now

A public hearing and final action on an ordinance to allow alcohol consumption on horse carriages was tabled Monday as City Attorney Ron Brown told commissioners the state Department of Motor Vehicles, Florida Highway Patrol and Attorney General want to weigh in.

The ordinance would exclude horse carriages from the open container ban provided the driver holds a valid commercial driver's license with a passenger endorsement. The hearing will be on the October 28 agenda, Brown said.

$125,000 approved for

streetscape planning

Commissioners Monday approved $125,000 from Utility Fund reserves for final designs and assessment documents for a $2.7 million historic streetscape plan. An optimist City Manager John Regan said he has 49 percent of property owners in the affected area pledged to assessments for part of the cost and hopes to achieve 85 to 90 percent commitment.

Event hall, mural win commission approval

Because "anything other than a restaurant is considered a bar" in city codes, Planning and Building Director told commissioners Monday a requested Planned Unit Development is necessary for an event hall serving alcohol in the former Exchange Bank lobby.

The measure passed with little difficulty, along with recognition of a revised placement of an antenna on the bank roof - moving the unit out of the cupola after resident Theresa Segal objected to closing in that architectural feature. The antenna now awaits use by exception approval.

Mural? Advertising? Actually both

Approved - but not without comment - was a mural on the exterior of the former Ice House on Riberia Street, being adaptively reused as a distillery.

To the plaints of three public hearing speakers, Vice Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline said, "We need to give this business, in this neighborhood, every chance to survive."

One year for Riberia Pointe planning

The nonprofit Children's Museum of St. Johns and aquarium developer Manne Conservation Partners, LLC, won endorsement of memorandums of agreement with the city for a year of feasibility studies for development on Riberia Pointe. Each will deposit $5,000 with the city, to be applied to purchase or refunded depending on the outcome of those studies.

Approval for Sharrows, Adelaide fund

Commissioners Monday approved resolutions supporting Florida Department of Transportation plans for sharrow markings to give bicycles right of way along the busy business district of San Marco Avenue, and creation of an "Adelaide Sanchez Endowment Award, recognizing significant achievement in the restoration, preservation, education and interpretation of City of St. Augustine Historic Resources."

Columbus Day montage

Maritime weekend

The inaugural St. Augustine Maritime Heritage Festival brings the city's maritime history to life October 25-27 9 am to 10 pm at the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park.

It's hosted by the nonprofit St. Augustine Maritime Heritage Foundation, building a 16th century Chalupa on the park grounds.

Look for family-friendly live music, boat building competition and race, Ponce de Leon Paddle Battle, model boats, a dog agility contest, rubber duck race, kid's zone, and food and craft vendors. Visit the website.

Just sayin'

Little visible support for history here

'Take Kenya as an example,' Henry suggested. 'Sure it's got sunshine and beaches, but then so have Greece and Sardinia, and they are a hell of a lot closer to Paris and Berlin. What the Mediterranean hasn't got is African wildlife, and that's what the tourists will fly those extra hours to see, and that's the collateral on our loan. Tourist dollars are keeping us in business.' Henry Pickering in The Leopard Hunts in Darkness, by Wilbur Smith

Menendez tear History is St. Augustine's strength, but there's just not a lot of visible support for history in the nation's oldest city since, as Assistant City manager said at Monday's City commission meeting, "... the city getting out of the heritage tourism business." .

Outside of the National Park Service's Castillo, shopping trumps exploring, and the bottom line defeats community involvement.

The Castillo interprets 1740s Spanish military life, and the former Colonial Spanish Quarter presented that period's civilian life before redesign to the present four centuries of history.

Residents - the quarter's best advertising - get reduced, but not free, admission.

The city has effectively sterilized St. George Street over the past decade with ordinances eliminating vendors and street performers and setting limits on such historic programs as changing of the guard, period-dressed townsfolk and historic processions.

A proposed 2013-14 city/county contract providing $160,000 in county funds for the Visitor Center - properly called the St, Augustine St. Johns County Visitor Information Center - is currently under review by both governments. Contrary to a city code ban on distributing literature, the county included a provision for "on-the-street hosts ... dressed in period costume throughout primary tourist areas within the City's Historic Preservation District for the purpose of greeting visitors and providing visitor information."

Assistant City Manager Tim Burchfield says, "I believe (that provision) is still in the contract but with the stipulation 'as allowable by law.'"

The same argument that banned vendors and performers on St. George Street - that the street is "the frontispiece of the city's history," could be used to permit at least some visible historic interpretation.

History's highlight

The Delaney Murder Case

1 year, 10 months, 24 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary

As Halloween approaches, the following St. Augustine mystery is drawn from research by Helen Hornbeck Tanner

The night of November 20, 1785, Lieutenant Guillermo Delaney, severely wounded, stumbled into the residence of Josef Gomila on Charlotte Street, stabbed and beaten by persons he could not identify.

Later testimony would reveal he was having an affair with Catalina Morain, a seamstress who lived at the Gomilas.

It was just a year since Spain reoccupied East Florida by treaty after twenty years of British occupation. Many of the occupation troops were married, but it was the behavior of the unmarried personnel that drew the attention of incoming Spanish Governor Vicente Manuel de Zespedes during the investigation.

It appeared to be a crime of passion. Catalina Morain was also having an affair with Distinguished Sergeant Juan Sivelly, a well-known young reprobate in the town. He'd been imprisoned six months earlier because of his publicly scandalous behavior with another woman. Yet another admirer was Corporal Francisco Moraga.

Depositions revealed that Sivelly had ordered Moraga to stop visiting Catalina, but Moraga heatedly insisted he would never stop. Of the several suitors, apparently Francisco Moraga had the most violent temper.

While Delaney clung to life, Catalina Morain, the central figure in the case, implicated two other soldiers of the garrison, who were immediately seized and imprisoned.

Shortly after the new-year, 1786, Lieutenant Delaney died. The assault became a far more serious murder case.

Governor Zespedes, unable to get legal assistance from Havana, was forced to reopen the investigation on his own. He had doubts about the imprisonment of the two suspects implicated by Catalina, and released them. Now the behavior of Catalina Morain and Francisco Moraga appeared increasingly suspicious.

Belying earlier testimony, Moraga admitted frequent visits to Catalina. Governor Zespedes decided he was at least guilty of perjury and that Catalina deserved punishment for incriminating two innocent men. He ordered them both imprisoned to await the judgment of superior authorities.

Governor Zespedes, facing other matters in the restored garrison, suspended his investigation in April, 1786, forwarding 176 pages of testimony from fifty-five witnesses to authorities in Mexico City.

In the spring of 1788, while a final decision in the Delaney case was pending in Spain's Supreme Council of War, a regular troop rotation relocated the Delaney prosecutor and witnesses over Zespedes' objections. Both Francisco Moraga and Catalina Morain remained in prison until the end of Zespedes' administration in July 1790.

The length of their sentences has not been discovered, and the trail of the Delaney murder case rests in unexplored archives.

St. Augustine Bedtime Stories - Dramatic accounts of famous people and events in St. Augustine's history - in booklets designed for quick reads before bed. Information here.

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