Published by former Mayor George Gardner January 14 2015
The Report is an independent publication serving our community
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Cracking St. George Street's shell
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I am coming to you to propose that, rather than a knock-down, drag-out war, we sit down and work out the problems with the ordinances.
Attorney Tom Cushman
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Attorney Tom Cushman, successfully representing street artists in past challenges to city bans, suggested to city commissioners Monday, "I believe there's a way the city, the artists, the citizens can all benefit" from revisiting ordinances that have banned virtually all activity along St. George Street and its cross streets in the historic district.
Mayor Nancy Shaver responded, "I have heard from both musicians, performers, reenactors and artists on that subject, and there are a number of citizens groups forming around that. So if you would be willing to be connected with them, to work out something that would be reasonable for everyone, that would be a great thing."
City Manager John Regan offered that he and City Attorney Isabelle Lopez "sit down with Mr. Cushman and go over how things have changed" in court decisions since enactment of the decade-old St. George Street ban and later cross street restrictions.
Cushman said he'll welcome comments from citizens while Mayor Shaver noted, "a lot of thought has been going on."
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2015 Arbor Day
ceremony Friday
St. Augustine will mark its 32nd year as a Tree City USA Friday at 11 am with the planting of Southern Red Cedars at Rollins Park, near the corner of W. King and S. Whitney streets.
The brief ceremony will include musical numbers by students from Crookshank Elementary School, special presentations and the traditional appearance of Smokey Bear distributing free saplings.
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450th focus will
be 3-day festival
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I think we have a strategy that I think is where the commission would like to go and where the staff is comfortable.
City Manager John Regan
St. Augustine's 450th Commemoration will be focused on a three-day festival in the historic district, with fireworks on Sunday night and cake cutting Monday in front of City Hall.
City Manager John Regan outlined city planning to commissioners Monday, saying the objective is "to celebrate the 450th to build community pride and passion, and to leverage the 450th to tell the whole story to ourselves and to the world."
Planning for the events and telling the story to the world will require hiring an events manager and publicist, he said. The commemoration "will be very specific," he added, "from September 4 to September 8."
In that Friday to Sunday period "we will be closing off Cordova to the bayfront and Cathedral to Orange Street, to create a festival area." He said there is consideration to closing King Street at some point "to connect Aviles Street" to the activity.
"Predominant programming will be local music," he said, and "We want to engage the community for decorative bunting." There will be architectural lighting like thematic colored lighting representing different periods of history - the colors of Spain, Britain and America.
Regan said the contract hiring will not require additional funding beyond the $938,000 currently budgeted.
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Misjudged foundation collapsed Fornells House
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A misjudgment "that could not have been determined without a full archaeological excavation prior to work being started" resulted in the collapse of a historic Fornells House wall and eventual demolition of the building," Planning and Building Director David Birchim explained to commissioners Monday.
Birchim said a trench along the west wall assumed there was an existing foundation, but the wall had been erected later, with the foundation to the east. "As a result the wall slid into the trench," he said.
It came up during discussion of protecting the city's remaining 32 historic structures. Birchim said jackhammer work at 107 St. George Street was vibrating to the adjacent historic structure at 105 St. George.
Commissioners said there should be safety plans developed by property owners to assure adjacent historic structures are not threatened in the future.
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Planning and Zoning Board workshop included members Carl Blow, Deltra Long, Chair Sue Agresta, Vice Chair Matt Shaffer, Sarah Ryan, and Cathy Brown
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Zoning revamp begins with
community communication
Increased communication with the community will come before developing zoning changes or hiring a consultant to advise on those changes.
More than a dozen residents, including two former PZB chairs, spoke during Tuesday's two-hour public workshop. Former Chair John Valdes noted, "We have a wealth of talent in this community. Go to individual neighborhoods and get volunteers (to study their zoning)." And Former Chair Steve Schuyler added, "Make sure you ask the right questions (like) We don't need a way to get more cars into town, we need less."
Public comment ranged through neighborhood-disrupting tours, building heights, vacant and abandoned properties, code enforcement and hiring of a consultant.
But PZB member Carl Blow summarized, "Let's hear from our neighborhoods before hiring a consultant. I don't want to hire someone until we know what we want him to do."
To do that, B.J. Kolaidi suggested, "Go into the neighborhoods. Knock on some doors."
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Genie's out of the bottle
and looking for a parking space
 "Our city's traffic problems are not going to fix themselves. They are going to become far worse than they are now unless we get out ahead of the power curve and figure out how were going to make it all work."
Contractor John Valdes, veteran of more than two decades on city boards and former chair of the Planning and Zoning Board, suggests our Entry Corridors should become "Entry Destinations" - anchored by parking terminals serving trolleys and sightseeing trains traversing roadways to and from the city center, a Park and Ride system paid for by citizens based on the number of uses, rather than minutes used, and a parking garage contiguous with Flagler College's three dormitory buildings on Malaga Street among ideas to ease traffic congestion here.
"Expansion of companies like Ripley's Sightseeing Trains and Historic Tours of America's Old Town Trolley and others should be encouraged to expand further into the private parking and transport business," Valdes suggests. And looking at other cities to see how they've handled the mix of cars, trolleys, trains, horse and buggies, Segways, mopeds, three wheelers, bicycles, skateboards, and pedicabs.
Read Valdes' full commentary here on how to find the genie a parking space. |
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History's Highlight
Florida's untapped historic data
238 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
Drawn from The Exploration of Florida and Sources on the Founding Of St. Augustine by Luis Rafael Arana, former supervisory historian at the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument
There are four contemporary Spanish accounts of the founding of St. Augustine by Pedro Menendez de Aviles. These include a letter written by Menendez himself dated three days after the founding, September 11, 1565, a narrative by Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, Menendez' principal priest, an unfinished biography of Menendez by Gonzalo Solis de Maras, Menendez' brother-in-law, and another biography by Bartolome Barrientos.
 Barrientos was a Salamanca University professor. Since he had not been in Florida, he relied on memorials, letters, decrees, and narratives.
The availability of such material on the founding of St. Augustine and their English translations has made this event one of the best known in Florida history. It's the result of work by several generations of students.
Excerpts from the Solis biography were printed for the first time in 1723, but 152 years passed before they were translated. The publication of the complete Solis manuscript followed the excerpts 170 years later, and the complete translation, another thirty.
Father Lopez's narrative, the source next published, came out 142 years after the excerpts, but fortunately was translated within ten years. Only one year intervened between publication of the Menendez letter in Spanish and in English. The translation, however, had been finished twenty-four years earlier.
The rest of Spanish Florida history could be as well known as the founding of St. Augustine were it not for the language barrier. The need, interest, and motivation are present, but inadequate linguistic knowledge often prevents direct investigation in the best Spanish sources.
The rich vein of data in the University of Florida's Stetson Collection and North Carolina's Spanish Records Collection waits to be tapped. At the same time, English translations are few and far between, and the lapse between availability of source material and workable translation is excessively long.
All this retards the growth of reasonably definite knowledge of an earlier phase of history, and it is Florida's pitiful loss.
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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 a former newspaper reporter and editor. Contact the Report at gardner@aug.com or gardnerstaug@yahoo.com
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