Approval of a 25 year lease agreement to dock the Spanish replica galleon San Pelayo at the city marina will be considered by city commissioners Monday.

   Presentation will be made by Jim Piggott who, as city General Services director, oversees much of its maritime interests.

   Like recent  Lighthouse Park neighborhood conflict over uses of Block Four (Little) Beach - he'll update commissioners on a boat storage policy, and the Lighthouse boat ramp and pier  - he'll seek approval to proceed with project planning and contract development for proposed expansion.

   Spain's Nao Victoria Foundation plans to build a replica of the San Pelayo - St. Augustine Founder Pedro Menendez' flagship - and seeks a 25-year dockage lease here including a ten year term with three five year extensions.

   The city would be paid the minimum dockage fee or ten percent of visitor ticket sales, whichever is greater.

City budget time

   City Comptroller Mark Litzinger will propose to commissioners a workshop August 14 to review the proposed 2014-15 city budget, and another workshop for "development of the strategic plan for next fiscal year."

   The budget workshop would be at 9 am in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.

   City departments prepare their budget requests early in the year, then vie for anticipated funds through a budget committee and the city manager. Commissioners will review staff's proposed budget and discuss possible changes for official action through a regular meeting and public hearing process.

Horse carriage permits

   City Attorney Ron Brown will brief commissioners on a request for additional carriage license permits following one company's terminating 15 permits.

   Horse carriage companies made a plea to commissioners recently to authorize additional carriages because, as one carriage businessmen said, "We don't have enough for special occasions."

   There are currently fifteen carriages permitted of the thirty permits authorized three years ago.

Consentual heaviness

   The City Commission's consent agenda - usually housekeeping items on which City Manager John Regan has briefed commissioners privately so is usually passed without discussion - has no less than 17 items for Monday's meeting, ranging from notices of future meetings to an agreement between the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and city for City Wayfinding Signage.

   The consent agenda is being read by titles now, and commissioners can call for discussion of any or all items. Under the FDOT-city agreement the city would fund, construct and maintain the signage.

   Among other consent agenda items, approval of licenses to the Authentic Old Jail, Inc. to install and maintain a pedestrian crosswalk to its parking lot on Dufferin Street and to Flagler College to construct and maintain two balconies on the Cordova Street side of the classroom complex it's building.

   Licenses allow uses on city right of way while the city retains control.  

These words were first written at 3:00 a.m. in the sweltering heat of a sleepless night, by the light of the one naked bulb hanging in the corridor outside our small cell. They were, ironically, scratched on the back of the pages of a mimeographed report of the bloody assaults of the Ku Klux Klan in St. Augustine. Excerpts from the letter:

...We were arrested on Thursday, June 18, 1964. Fifteen of us were arrested while praying in an integrated group in front of Monson's Restaurant. Two of us were arrested for sitting down at a table with three Negro youngsters in the Chimes Restaurant. We pleaded not guilty to the charges against us.

...We came to St. Augustine mainly because we could not stay away. We could not say no to Martin Luther King, whom we always respected and admired and whose loyal friends we hope we shall be in the days to come. We could not pass by the opportunity to achieve a moral goal by a moral means - a rare modern privilege - which has been the glory of the non-violent struggle for civil rights.

We came because we could not stand silently by our brother's blood. We had done that too many times before.

...We came as Jews who remember the millions of faceless people who stood quietly, watching the smoke rise from Hitler's crematoria. We came because we know that, second only to silence, the greatest danger to man is loss of faith in man's capacity to act...

We believe, though we could not count on it in advance, that our presence and actions here have been of practical effect. They have reminded the embattled Negroes here that they are not isolated and alone. ...We are more certain than before that this cause is invincible, but we also have a sharpened awareness of the great effort and sacrifice which will be required. 

...We shall not forget the people with whom we drove, prayed, marched, slept, ate, demonstrated and were arrested. How little we know of these people and their struggle. What we have learned has changed us and our attitudes. We are grateful for the rare experience of sharing with this courageous community in their life, their suffering, their effort. We pray that we may remain more sensitive and more alive as a result

...We believe in man's ability to fulfill God's commands with God's help. ... We came to stand with our brothers and in the process have learned more about ourselves and our God. In obeying Him, we become ourselves; in following His will we fulfill ourselves. He has guided, sustained and strengthened us in a way we could not manage on our own.

We are deeply grateful to the good influences which have sustained us in our moments of trial and friendship. ... Never have the bonds of Judaism and the fellowship of the rabbinate been more clearly expressed to us all or more deeply felt by each of us...