Four horse carriage businesses have applied for additional carriage permits, and city commissioners greeted the news with mixed emotions.

"The times they're needed are peak periods, when congestion is highest," Commissioner Leanna Freeman said. "It will be hard to convince me that increasing our horse carriages on our busiest nights is good for our city."

And Vice Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline noted, "I remember being told when we approved 30 permits that we'd never have all thirty carriages on the street at the same time."

Mayor Joe Boles said, "We are the wedding capitol of the world. I'd favor more carriage permits than the 30."

Commissioner Don Crichlow supported additional carriages but added, "I want to see that at some time their business demands the use of all these carriages."

Thirteen of an available 15 permits are being applied for, with 15 already on the streets. City staff will be processing the applications for later commission review.

And mini vehicles in the mix

Carrying the theme of sorting out traffic, City Attorney Ron Brown presented three ordinance concepts, for Segways, pedicabs and sub-8s - tour vehicles carrying less than eight persons.

"The Segway ordinance is based on one in Miami Beach," he said. "We can take them off St. George Street, the (Visitor Center) promenade and circle, and other locations, and limit their speed to six miles an hour."

For pedicabs Brown based an ordinance on Gainesville's and said, "We can treat them like taxis." And for sub-8s "We can franchise them as we do the tour trains and trolleys."

City Manager John Regan has reactivated the Parking and Traffic Committee in the continuing effort to get traffic under control. 

June 26 1740 Battle of Bloody Mose - Predawn, a force of 300 Spanish soldiers, black militia, and native Yamassee auxiliaries "swept over (Fort Mose) with such impetuosity that it fell with a loss of 68 dead and 34 prisoners," Spanish Governor Manuel Montiano would report.

   It broke the will of invading English forces under Georgia Governor James Oglethorpe and proved Montiano's wisdom in establishing, two miles north of the Castillo, this outpost and refuge for escaped slaves from English plantations.

   The fifth annual Battle of Bloody Mose Commemoration is 10 am - 3 pm June 21-22 at Fort Mose. The two-day heritage event features white, black and Native American performers and demonstrations of period weapons, tactics and foodways.

June 26 1768 Greek Landing Day - Ships carrying 1,402 pilgrims from Smyrna, Asia Minor; the Mani area and Crete, Greece, Italy, Corsica and Minorca arrived at St. Augustine to replenish before starting an indigo plantation at New Smyrna 70 miles to the south. About 500 were Greeks.

   They were indentured to English Dr. Andrew Turnbull and promised freedom and a small piece of land after a period of service. A decade of hardship and cruelty later, 291 fled on foot to St. Augustine, where the few remaining Greeks gathered for worship at the Avero House on St. George Street.  

   In 1982 the house became the St. Photios Greek Orthodox National Shrine, dedicated to the memory of that first colony and to all Greek immigrants who came to these shores seeking a new world and a new life.

Greek Landing Day will be commemorated June 26 at St. Photios Shrine beginning at 9 am with a Divine Liturgy and memorial service, followed by a reception and evening cruise along the bayfront. 

June 14 1777 Flag Day - By resolution of the Second Continental Congress the flag of the United States was adopted. It was not heralded in St. Augustine, a place of refuge for loyalists under British occupation.

   In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation officially establishing June 14 as Flag Day, and in August 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress.

   Flag Day 2014 will be celebrated with Raise It Up! Anthem for America, a nationwide singing of the National Anthem at 4 pm June 14. In St. Augustine gatherings 3-4 pm include the front of the Lightner Building/City Hall and the Ximenez-Fatio House Museum, where local Girl and Boy Scouts and the Florida Army National Guard have been invited.

June 18 1964 Mass Arrest of 15 Rabbis - ...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...

   Quoted from a jail cell letter of 15 rabbis, arrested while praying in an integrated group in front of Monson's Restaurant and for sitting  at a table with three Negro youngsters in the Chimes Restaurant during St. Augustine's civil rights movement.

   Six of the original group will attend a series of events in St. Augustine June 17-18.