Plan board tackling tough city issues

Published by former Mayor George Gardner November 13 2013

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Plan board tackling

the tough city issues

A five-hour meeting of the city's Planning and Zoning Board (PZB) last week was testament to the wisdom of planning a workshop - likely after the first of the year - to tackle two major continuing challenges: tree removal and Entry Corridor Guidelines.

Lopez

Photo: Jacksonville.com

Valdes

Photo: Historic City News

The two were the focus of that meeting, with two applications to remove preserved trees - one approved after extensive photo exhibits and property owner testimony, the other denied after extensive debate, and Entry Corridor Guidelines - a motorcycle sales/repair shop and a used car lot on entry corridor San Marco Avenue, both approved but for only 18 months while guidelines and zoning are reviewed.

Both tree removal permitting and entry corridor guidelines were actions by a community-oriented City Commission ten years ago. The tree removal process was shifted from the city Code Enforcement Board to PZB to more effectively consider building footprint and other adjustments to preserve trees.

The Entry Corridor Guidelines, prepared by professional consultants in the late 1990s to reflect historic styles along San Marco Avenue, King Street and Anastasia Boulevard, were enacted into code by the commission in the early 2000s amid cries that limiting property uses would bring lawsuits. City Planner David Birchim has since noted that of hundreds of permits issued, only six have challenged the code and all were settled without going to court.

"Any reduction of property uses could be contestable," Assistant City Attorney Isabelle Lopez cautioned the plan board last week.

"Being afraid of being sued is not an excuse for not doing what is right," board member John Valdes replied. "If we're going to change, we have to take risks."

100 Years of

shrimping

More recent, but no less exciting, St. Augustine history is reported in Shrimp Boat City: 100 Years of Catching Shrimp and Building Boats in St. Augustine, the Nation's Oldest Port, a St. Augustine Lighthouse book co-authored by Ed Long, a former employee of shrimp boat manufacturer DESCO, and archaeologist Brendan Burke of the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP).

Says LAMP Director Chuck Meide, "I am so proud of Brendan and of Ed. It is a real scholarly contribution to St. Augustine's maritime history, as well as a great coffee table book loaded with awesome photographs."

Catch a glimpse of an industry which once dominated St. Augustine's waterfront in a special video.

Opening our region's

festive holiday season

The lights are strung and ready in St. Augustine's Plaza tree canopy. Vilano Beach Main Street, Inc. is taking applications for its Dressing of the Palms. Nautical-themed decorations line St. Augustine Beach's Beach Boulevard.

The holiday season is rolling in.

St. Augustine

Nights of Lights begins Saturday, November 23 (always the Saturday before Thanksgiving) and extends through January 31, 2014. Showtime USA will open festivities at 4:30 pm in front of the Lightner Building, with the All Star Orchestra striking up at 5:30 in the Plaza gazebo. The lighting ceremony begins at 6:30 pm.

Ponce de Tree On

Vilano Beach In its second year, the Dressing of the Palms will feature characterized (but not tree harmful) dressing of palm trees along Vilano Beach's Town Center. Decorating continues from November 17 to December 5 with judging for cash awards December 6. Details on adopting and decorating a tree here.

St. Augustine Beach Joining in the holiday spirit, nautical-themed decorations line A1A Beach Boulevard and lights outline City buildings and wrap around palm trees on plazas and in parks. Surf Illumination December 7 at St Johns County's Pier Park 4 to 7 pm will feature the traditional lighting of the Holiday Tree.

Remember others

The holiday season is not very festive for many who find themselves homeless and in need.

The Emergency Services and Homeless Coalition of St Johns County presents its annual Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Dinner November 21 at First United Methodist Church on King Street at 5:30 pm with speakers Raul Patton, Outreach for the Veterans Administration, and Tom Hancock, local comedian and previously homeless person.

All are invited, with special guests homeless persons. The coalition's annual Homeless Candlelight Memorial and Dinner is December 19 at 5:30 pm at First United Methodist Church.

Historic home demolition sought

Hidden in foliage, historic Rice property threatened with demolition.

Across the street from the Markland House and Flagler College campus, another vestige for the Flagler Model Land era faces demolition if approval is given by the city Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB).

The 1907 building stands at the corner of King Street and Markland Place. Earlier converted into professional offices, it's been vacant for several years.

Remarking on "spacious interior rooms, large entry hall with dramatic staircase and a huge, exposed stone coquina fireplace," St. Augustine Historical Society Senior Research Librarian Charles A. Tingley considers it "a great piece of early 20th century design and the most significant house on King Street after Markland House and Villa Zorayda."

The Marian N. Rice Revocable Living Trust will seek the demolition at HARB's meeting at 2 pm Thursday, November 21, in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.

Also on the agenda, approval of streetscape improvements planned along Treasury, Hypolita, and Spanish streets for a $2.7 million project including voluntary property owner assessments along those streets.

City/county joint workshop Monday

The city and county commissions worked through challenges to expand utility services in West Augustine, and most recently heard a suggestion to combine resources for a city/county fire station on SR 312. The commissions will get together in a joint workshop Monday, November 18, at 9 am in The Alcazar Room at City Hall for a progress report on the West Augustine effort and discussion on the fire station idea.

Veterans Day 2013

Mario Patruno

World War Two veteran Mario Patruno, 93, joined standard bearers representing more than two dozen military and civic organizations in massing of the flags during Monday's Veterans Day ceremonies at Francis Field.

Rear Admiral Rick Williamson, Commander of Naval Region Southeast at Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, was main speaker at the annual event, hosted by the Veterans' Council of St. Johns County and emceed by its chairman, Bill Dudley.

Videos capture our area

In the hoopla of Florida's 500th and St. Augustine's 450th, the 100th anniversary of the Crossroads of Flagler County might be overlooked - but not by the down home folks of Bunnell. Check out this anthem and snapshot video.

And Bruce Merwin, St. Augustine Video, put together five videos to assist in fund raising for 4wardmarch.org's effort to renovate American Legion Post 37, where he's a member.

St. Gerard fundraiser

St. Gerard's major annual fundraiser, its 30th Annual Fashion Show and Silent Auction at the World Golf Village Renaissance Resort, is Saturday, December 14, noon to 3:30 pm. Tickets $35.

Latest fashions, holiday and sportswear from leading fashion houses will be modeled for men, women and children. The silent auction has more than 100 items. Gourmet lunch, door prizes, raffle prizes, entertainment and a grand prize drawing for $5,000 included.

Contact Maria Gleason, Grant Administrator, Pregnancy Center Director St. Gerard Campus, Inc. 904-829-5516

History's highlight

'They Seem a Noble Race'

1 year, 9 months, 27 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary

The Washington Redskins football franchise name is under fire as denigrating to Indian peoples, whom Pedro Menendez found 448 years ago to be "a noble race."

St. Augustine was founded at a Timucuan Indian village in 1565. Bands of Indians both traded with and harassed early settlers in the 1600s, and joined defenders and attackers of the young settlement in the 1700s. Osceola, Florida's best known Indian leader, was imprisoned at the Castillo during the Seminole War in the early 1800s, as were western Indians in the late 1800s.

"They seem to be a noble race," Pedro Menendez remarked in notes to his king, Philip of Spain, after his first encounter. Fishermen, hunters and farmers, he would later report. "They possess human physical characteristics, but were clothed only in loincloths of animal skins, their hair done in topknots, and their flesh covered with tattoos."

He learned that the tattoo colors and arrangement indicated rank within the tribe.

Early garrison officers reported these Indians were so quick that they could wait until the flash of an arquebusier's weapon, then dodge into the woods, and each could unleash four to five arrows in the time it took a Spaniard to reload.

Uneasy peace with Indians marked the first 300 years of St. Augustine. Survival of the garrison had to be laid in great measure to divine providence. When the English corsair Sir Francis Drake raided virtually defenseless St. Augustine in 1586, Indians living in the area snuck into the abandoned town and took anything of value they could carry. After Drake burned the town to the ground, the Indians returned with the townspeople and helped them rebuild..

Florida's Indian population was estimated at 350,000 in 1513. Warfare, slave trading and especially disease dropped the number to almost none in the 1700s, but it swelled again in the early 1800s as northern settlers forced Indian migration to this virgin area rich in fish, game and farmland.

These scattered bands were not, at first, united, but came to be called as a group Seminoles, or wild people, by the whites.

Eventually joining forces to hold their homeland, the Seminoles engaged the young United States in its longest and most costly Indian war, a war to remove them to the west. That war was never won, simply declared ended by the American government.

St. Augustine's Castillo de San Marcos, renamed Fort Marion when the U.S. took over the territory in 1821, was prison to numerous captured Indians during the Second Seminole War of 1835 to 1842. Among its prisoners was Florida's most famous Indian leader, Osceola. (In 1942 the original name, Castillo de San Marcos, was restored by an Act of Congress.)

In the late 1800s, many leaders of the plains and western Indian tribes were moved here, away from their tribes out west - Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Chiracahua Apaches.

The Indian confinement at St. Augustine and its Castillo play a major role in U.S. history, as it was here that Army Captain Richard Pratt began an Indian education program, which led to new Indian policies and the establishment of the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.

Image: Timucua Chief, Theodore Morris, Florida Lost Tribes

Excerpts from The Indians in St. Augustine Bedtime Stories. Click for further information on this fascinating historic series.

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