Published by former Mayor George Gardner June 3 2015
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Commentary
Battle of the ages
Tourism guru Peter Yesawich told a "State of Tourism" annual meeting last Wednesday more millennials (18-35) are interested in St. Johns County as a destination than are baby boomers. "This is the crowd to watch because they will become the new market makers."
Meanwhile, Tourist Development Council Executive Director Glenn Hastings convinced county commissioners a week earlier it should be easier for re-enactor groups to access bed tax dollars "with the intent of making these living slices of history more visible downtown," according to a St. Augustine Record editorial.
St. Augustine's leadership has long since gotten the millennial message - from limiting reenactments in the historic district to promoting millennial-friendly events ranging from a Mumford and Sons concert on 2013 to a Celebrate 450 weekend next September filled with American pop, rock and country music.
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St. Johns Historic Resources Coordinator Robin Moore needs our letters of support for a grant to create interpretive panels in county parks like Treaty and Canopy Shores to tell the history and archaeology of each area.
Write your letter to Mr. Robert Bendus, Director, Division of Historical Resources, Bureau of Historic Preservation, Grants and Education Section, 500 South Bronough Street, Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0250 but mail or email them to Robin E. Moore, St. Johns County Environmental Division, 4040 Lewis Speedway, St. Augustine, FL 32084 remoore@sjcfl.us
"Visitors currently have no context from which to understand the history that is preserved within these parks," Robin says. "This project of interpretive signs can more fully offer the public access to these community assets and stimulate heritage tourism into the broader region surrounding St. Augustine."
Photo: Treaty Park Pier
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The Visitor and Convention Bureau annual report estimates 5.3 million visited St. Johns County in 2014, and Yesawich predicted, "You're going to have a wonderful 2016 and probably a wonderful 2017. All indexes suggest a robust 2016 and 2017."
Yesawich said St. Augustine can keep its authenticity while staying fresh. He said the area's push to bring in regional and national musicians and artists is an example of how to keep the experience unique.
"Getting them here and convincing them to come back will require the county to reinvent itself on a regular basis in order to keep the experience fresh" he said. "It's a challenge for a place that prides itself on being historic.
"The way you refresh it is you continue to introduce new themes, new festivals, new entertainment."
"Our relevance and resonance with our audience continues to grow," Goldman said, and our audience continues to grow." He acknowledged the major challenge but noted, "Parking and traffic are not Tourism's problems. Tourism is doing fine."
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Authenticity for visitors
Hastings, long an advocate for authenticity in the visitor experience, won county commission approval for a revision to the 2016 Arts, Culture & Heritage Grant Program Guidelines for those period-dressed soldiers, sailors, Indians and townsfolk to earn $21.61 per volunteer hour as in-kind contributions to match bed tax grants.
He said the figure was estimated from what an outside vendor might charge for an event.
It recognizes that true reenactors, as living historians, are already invested in thousands of dollars and hours preparing their "kit" - their clothing and accoutrements - and study of period history. The living historian is "living history."
Hastings said the revision should put more living historians on the streets to upscale the visitor experience with more history and culture, and fewer more commercial and much less authentic events and venues.
"History shouldn't hurt our visitors," a St. Augustine
Record editorial enthused. "Neither should it bankrupt those walking summer streets in wool trousers and coats, serving up an entertaining and legitimate look into how the Nation's Oldest City took root and thrived."
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The threat of a 7-Eleven gone with the city's purchase of the site, now the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is looking for public input on some fixes for the congested intersection.
A public meeting June 16 at the Holiday Inn on US 1 beginning at 4:30 pm will not include a roundabout, suggested at an earlier FDOT meeting, but several alternatives:
Adding a westbound left turn lane on West San Carlos at US 1
Re-aligning May Street and West San Carlos
One-way West San Carlos going east and Dismukes Street going west
Project Manager Steve Browning says, "We may have an additional alternative but as of now that's all we have developed."
FDOT controls both major streets as state roads, and is in the project development and environment study phase.
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'Gentle Voice of Our Community'
We want to be seen as St. Augustine's TV station.
Video Producer Jorge Rivera
"What I saw," says Jorge Rivera of his move to St. Augustine in 2006, "was that Jax had several news stations but no news, and a lot of negative stories.
"Then I looked at St, Augustine and saw that St, Augustine was in the total opposite situation."
Rivera decided, "This was my chance to start a website with a TV feel, the advantage being that stories could be seen on demand, and seen often, and sent to other people. We could also use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to take advantage of social media."
Tall order well executed by the self-taught producer, whose videos at firstcoast.tv range from events like the recent unveiling of Historic Tours' Creature from the Black Lagoon to music like the St. Augustine Chorus and orchestra and interviews like his one-on-one with St. Augustine Bishop Felipe Estevez. And they're produced in both English and Spanish.
A world traveler, Rivera moved here from Hawaii and had lived in Europe for 14 years, and did volunteer work in Czechoslovakia, Russia and Sarajevo, Bosnia.
Up since November, the website is "getting so much attention and so many people come up to me and express how happy they are that we are online and how needed we are."
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Visioning goes to commission
St. Augustine will be a livable, authentic, waterfront city that builds upon its rich history and environment to create a distinctive community character founded on a healthy and vibrant economy, a diverse mix of people and experiences and a valuing of its natural assets.
 The Visioning 2014 & Beyond steering committee brings its vision statement to the City Commission Monday in a session beginning at 1 pm in The Alcazar Room at City Hall.
That mission statement will be accompanied by four goals: Livability, Character, Authenticity and Vitality.
The latest visioning process began two years ago with Vice Mayor Roxanne Horvath chairing a 15-member committee. They'll be prepared with expanded statements on the four goals and proposed first steps to move toward the vision's realization.
The last vision process, in 1995, involved 200 residents and produced this vision statement:
St. Augustine, as the nation's oldest city, is a community of great heritage. With emphasis on tourism as its main economic driving force, the city enjoys a superior residential quality of life enhanced by a unique architectural history and an ambiance which is preserved to attract the arts, culture and a flourishing downtown business sector. St. Augustine is surrounded by thriving modern communities which recognize the importance of the historic downtown to overall economic vitality.
Find details on both visioning efforts here.
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Menendez - good guy, bad guy?
98 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
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 From William Dewhurst's 1880 History of St. Augustine
Philip II determined not to allow any encroachment on the territory, which he claimed by the right of his subjects' former expeditions of discovery and by gift from the Holy See.
Not only was he unwilling to see Florida occupied by foreigners, but of all persons none were more objectionable than Protcstants, whom he looked upon as those without the pale of Christianity, who only lived as enemies of God, to disseminate a wicked creed, and war upon His holy faith.
The very instrument for the execution of the plans of this bigoted monarch seems to have been at hand. Don Pedro Menéndez dc Avila had acquired wealth and distinction as a naval officer. This knight was now desirous of the honor of driving the French from Florida.
Menendez was of aristocratic birth, a man of great firmness of will and tenacity of purpose; a brave commander, with a superior sagacity and knowledge of human nature, and withal a most zealous and devoted Catholic.
The name of Menendez has been held up to the world as the symbol of all that is malignant, heartless, and cruel. If we arc to judge of men's actions in the past by tbc motives that prompted them, as we arc asked and expected to do in all things which happen in our own day, then by such a test the actions of Menendez must be less harshly considered.
That he believed the rooting out of the Protestant colonization and their faith from the shores of the New World was God's work, there can be no doubt. His devotion to the propagation of the catholic religion in Florida, and the sacrifices which he made to extend and continue the teachings of that faith, prove beyond a doubt his sincerity and fervent zeal.
His conciliatory measures toward the savages so entirely within his power, and his efforts to instruct the tribes all over Florida, which met with such marked success, will go far to prove that his nature was not wantonly cruel.
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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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