Published by former Mayor George Gardner August 8 2015

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Hotelier continues struggle

with off-site parking appeal

Hotelier Fred Ashdji goes before to the City Commission Monday on an appeal for additional off-site parking spaces for his planned Hyatt Place Hotel, to replace his Quality Inn/Magnuson Hotel on US 1.

The commission meeting begins at 5 pm after an afternoon of special commission meetings to discuss union negotiations in executive session 1-4 pm and 2015/16/ Strategic Action Items (Business Plan) in open session 4-5 pm.

Ashdji won Planning and Zoning Board (PZB) approval in January for a Planned Unit Development (PUD) with a 50 foot high, 5-story complex, and then returned in April with a modified 40-foot plan.

Now he seeks a use by exception for additional parking on an adjacent lot, which project advisor Mark Knight says can replace the need for a controversial PUD.

PZB members denied his request because, with a ten-year lease, they said there's no guarantee the space would be available later. Ashdji's attorneys argue the decision was based on opinion and not "competent substantial evidence."

Filling stations

to silent films

Seldom considered elements of history will be explored in the St. Augustine Historical Society's upcoming programs in the Flagler Room and Student Center Virginia Room.

All programs are free and begin at 7 pm.

Filling Stations of the Past

Monday, October 12, with Architect James Stege, Flagler Room

Floridanos, Menorcans, Cattle-Whip Crackers

Monday, November 9, with Author/Poet Ann Browning Masters, Flagler Room

Valentino in the Oldest City: Silent Film-making in St. Augustine

Tuesday, January 12, with Flagler College Professor of History Emeritus Thomas Graham, Virginia Room, Student Center. This will be the society's annual meeting

Image: Richardson's Gulf service station at the east end of Bridge of Lions; today Punch Jones Interiors, from Florida Memory

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More on Dow PUD

Those in favor of the hotel are eager to carve out of a residential neighborhood a place for affluent strangers, while disturbed at the prospect of apartments for the workers who serve the meals, make the coffee and change the linens for those who can afford a $600 a night suite.

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If you question how, and whether, another rental property will affect our precious neighborhood, ask the police department how many calls and complaints have been received by apartment housing versus the area B&B's. My research says the B&B's have been the most mannerly of neighbors.

Two St George Street residents go at it in letters on the proposed PUD zoning for the former Dow Museum of Houses, where Developer David Corneal, restoring eight original houses, hopes to win City Commission approval for PUD zoning to allow hotel use in the HP1 historic district.

Corneal's request goes to public hearing and final commission action August 24.

Read the letters here.

Commission to discuss

expansion of HARB

Commissioners Monday will discuss a proposal by Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline to expand the Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB) from five to eight members and allow "appointment of interested parties not fitting the qualifying criteria."

The current five members have three year terms and qualify in history, archaeology, historic architecture, architectural history or art history.

Established in 1974, HARB numbers and qualifications were last visited in 2005, when then Commissioner Don Crichlow, an architect, said he worried when, due to a lack of interest, boards that were critical to the historic City's future were filled with people without the expertise to make the correct decisions.

After a month of advertising recently, one applicant stepped forward to fill a fifth board seat, St. Augustine Architect Joseph Cronk.

Event fee scale

on city agenda

Commissioners Monday will consider a resolution to establish public venue event fees based on "an event's impact on the community," says Public Affairs Director Paul Williamson.

Adjustments under the resolution include half the base fee for minimum impact and one and a half for maximum impact.

Williamson has recommended giving the new process a year "to work through an annual events calendar, allow fees to be reflected in the budget, and provide opportunity to work in tandem with the efforts of livability and mobility."

Demolition delay faces public hearing

Public hearing and final action is on Monday's City Commission agenda for an ordinance to establish a 30 day waiting period after the Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB) approves a Certificate of Demolition.

The ordinance was sparked when Developer David Corneal got Historic Architectural Review Board approval to demolish the tilting Carpenter's House in the former Dow Museum of Houses and carried out the demolition days later.

Activist Ed Slavin later filed an unsuccessful appeal of the demolition approval.

Celebrating Gullah Geechee culture

Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters present a compelling fusion of counterclockwise dance-like movement, call-and-response singing, and percussion consisting of hand claps and a stick beating the rhythm on a wooden floor. African in its origins, the ring shout affirms oneness with the Spirit and ancestors as well as community cohesiveness.

Bin Yah: There's No Place Like Home is a documentary presented by The ChasDOC Film Society that explores the potential loss of important historic African American communities in Mt. Pleasant, S.C due to growth and development. Through the testimonies of the residents themselves, the film explores the culture, the history, the importance of land and the concept of home, giving a voice to those who seldom have had a chance to be heard.

Gullah "sweet grass baskets" are coil straw baskets made by the descendants of slaves in the South Carolina Low country, and are almost identical to coil baskets made by the Wolof people in Senegal. They'll all be presented October 29 in a Mende Film Festival 10-5 pm at the Corazon Cinema Caf� on Granada Street, hosted by the nonprofit Gullah Geechee Group, created in 2009 to provide education and communication about this unique culture, one of 49 (and the only African American) National Heritage Areas.

Here's the schedule:

10 am Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters

10:30 Quilt making Demo/Rice History

11 Bin Yah: There's No Place Like Home

12- 1 Lunch - Gullah cuisine, other vendors; traditional health remedies; Ring Shouters

1-1:30 Basket making demonstration

1:30-2:30 Language You Cry In

2:30-3 Florida Crossroads: Underground Railroad

3-4 Open discussion - Mother Emanuel AME 9 martyrs, domestic terrorism, hate crime, Gullah Geechee

4 Closing; Ring Shouters

6-9 St. Augustine Lighthouse Museum - Films, demos, discussion: Derek Hankerson, MC; Sherry A. Suttles, GGG, Karla Wagner, Derek Hankerson, Herb Frazier.

Visit www.gullahgeecheegroup.com.

History's highlight

Six years after Tristan de Luna's failed expedition to establish a permanent settlement in Florida, King Phillip II called on the greatest seaman of the age, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, to continue the settlement effort. It began with an asiento.

King Phillip's decision to contract with Pedro Menendez to establish a settlement in the new territory of La Florida was twofold. As with Tristan de Luna, need continued to convert the Indians to Christianity and give refuge to Spaniards shipwrecked on the coast.

But now, with word the French had founded a settlement along the northeast coast, the king instructed, "You will explore and colonize Florida; and if there be settlers or corsairs of other nations not subject to us, drive them out."

The asiento was a legal contract. Governments in the 16th century had no standing armies but rather contracted for necessary services.

Menendez' asiento with King Phillip II specified, "Take, with a year's supplies, 500 men, of which 100 farmers, 100 sailors, rest skilled men-of-war; must, within 3 years, place a total of 500 settlers, including skilled tradesmen, 10-12 religious, and 4 addl. Jesuits, 100 horses, mares, 200 calves, 400 hogs, 400 sheep; take galleass San Pelayo."

In exchange, the king gave this trusted, albeit headstrong seaman extraordinary concessions, among them, governmental and military powers in this new world "for two lives," land grants of "25 leagues squared," and "1/15th of profits, perpetual," largesse well beyond that granted to four previous, failed expeditions.

In modern terms, Menendez' investment in this voyage in the summer of 1565 was $5,920,625, while the Spanish Crown invested $4,622,625.

From the signing of the asiento on March 20, 1565, to the final departure June 29, Menendez pulled the pieces together. His title of adelantado, representing the king, his reputation as a keen businessman, and his proven ability as a commander at sea, gave him extraordinary capability to assemble an extraordinary fleet.

Flagler College's Eugene Lyon's The Enterprise of Florida describes a command hierarchy of family and friends and commercial and shipping barters - the complexities of the asiento that made Menendez' historic voyage possible.

Abundant record-keeping gives historians a vivid picture of 16th century events. Menendez, outfitting his ships with munitions and soldiers to fight a war, and tools and settlers to establish a colony, also made room for an Escribano P�blico - a Notary Public - and 12,000 sheets of paper, to record the expedition's formal actions.

Image: Pedro Menendez

Excerpts from The Asiento in St. Augustine Bedtime Stories. Click for details 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 a former newspaper reporter and editor. Contact the Report at gardner@aug.com or gardnerstaug@yahoo.com

Asiento

32 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary