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Published by former Mayor George Gardner                     August 12 2015
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Event fees go back
to the drawing board
   Albert Syeles, Romanza - If you do raise the fees, please make it worthwhile. ... like putting up a higher fence ... We could use trees around the perimeter, more shade trees would make it more parklike.
   Dominic Mercurio, Lions Seafood Festival -When we decide that nonprofits, service organizations and volunteers in the community are creating a nuisance, we have to seriously think about our priorities.
   Lee Pallas, Ancient City Privateers - Suggestion. Satellite parking; shuttle service, utilizing independent shuttles  such as the green trolleys, red trains, Sunshine Bus ...
   Mayor Nancy Shaver - We're still struggling with this.
   City commissioners decided Monday, after hearing from community nonprofit event organizers, that a plan to increase public venue fees needs more detail.
   Public Affairs Director Paul Williamson, after several visits to the commission in past months, prepared a matrix for fees based on "an event's impact on the community."
   "One of the things I hear sitting on the TDC (Tourist Development Council) and VCB (Visitors and Convention Bureau)," said Mayor Nancy Shaver, "is that events have multiple impacts, that are positive for bed and breakfasts, positive for heads on beds, negative in terms of retail, and often negative in terms of restaurants.
   "We're asking Paul to basically provide what the costing was, what are the current costs of the (Francis) field. We've heard what people want. How does that mesh up with the fees, and the ideological divide."
Bunting
Order your
bunting
   City Hall's effort to brighten the 450th with Spanish flags and bunting is catching on.
   Businesses, residents, the University of Florida managing 34 state-owned historic properties, and the county can join in with their choices through the city's supplier, at the city's original bid price.
   Contact AGAS Manufacturing, 866.269.3524 ext. 6505, email bids@agasmfg.com, and reference Bid #GS2015-14. 
Valdes Dow property
Tour St Aug
Trolley adv
adv EMMA
PUD adv
Commission supports
hotelier's parking appeal
   Commissioners Monday didn't overturn a Planning and Zoning Board decision to deny off-site parking spaces for a proposed Hyatt Hotel on US 1, but hotelier Fred Ashdji did win his appeal on a modification.
   Commissioners in a 4-1 vote upheld the appeal if Ashdji, the neighboring lessee Historic Tours welcome center and landowner First Colony Transport can work out a 15-year lease for 25 spaces for the hotel.
   Vice Mayor Roxanne Horvath voted against, holding out for ten spaces rather than the 25. While the welcome center has ample parking area for cars to park and use the sightseeing trolleys, Horvath was shocked to learn that city code only requires 11 parking spaces for the welcome center.
   Ashdji plans to replace his Quality Inn/Magnuson Hotel with a Hyatt.
Darlene
Demolition delay
Wins approval 4-1
   A 30-day delay on approved demolitions was approved by commissioners Monday, Commissioner Todd Neville opposed, saying the process can extend final demolition too long and be a hardship on property owners.
   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.

HARB expansion
needs more details
   Commissioners Monday decided to hold off on proposals to expand the Historic Architectural Review Board from five to seven members and consider opening appointments to residents without specific board qualifications.
    Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline made the proposals, saying many times board members have to recuse themselves due to involvement with the property before the board.
   Vice Mayor Roxanne Horvath suggested an alternate might be appointed to fill in for members who recuse themselves, but her fellow commissioners want more information on how big the problem is before making changes.
Chalupa donation
Commemorating a forgotten war
   Lost in the folds of time, a major war terrorizing settlers and drawing in most of the young nation's military into subtropical Florida for its longest and most costly Indian conflict will be commemorated this weekend, along the route that carried seven flag-draped wagons drawn by elegant mules 173 years ago.  
Dade procession
   Appropriately the West Point Society of North Florida, commemorating the service of many West Point graduates, will host what it calls Out of the Shadows, a commemoration of the reinterment of remains of 1,468 soldiers, gathered from shallow battlefield graves, in vaults covered by three pyramids at the St. Augustine National Cemetery.
    A host of commemorative units will gather some 70 reenactors and speakers for the two-day event, beginning Friday with displays of those war years at the Ximenez-Fatio House Museum on Aviles Street. At 6 pm in the Florida National Guard Officers Club, Dr. Michelle Sivilich will present the results of her dissertation on how well a West Point education prepared graduates for the war.
   Saturday opens with assembly at a reviewing stand on the St. Francis Barracks parade. At 10:30 a funeral procession will enter Marine Street and pass in review on its way to the National Cemetery. At 11 am the Commemoration Ceremony will include remarks by Sherman L. Fleek, West Point Command Historian, wreath laying, Cadet Prayer, volley fire, and taps.
   A noon luncheon at Trinity Parish's Trinity Hall (for reservations Jerry Casale at: fitzgerard@aol.com) will include the debut of Florida Seminole Wars Heritage Trail Guide, published under a grant from the Division of Historical Resources). 
   Joining the West Point Society of North Florida in sponsoring the event are The Seminole Wars Foundation, Inc., The Dade Battlefield Society, and 450th Military Commemoration Committee in cooperation with The Ancient City Chapter, Military Officers Association of America and Veterans Council of St. Johns County.

History's highlight

7 wagons drawn by elegant mules

29 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary

    Dade monument July 25, 1842, By order of Colonel William J. Worth: The remains of officers who have been killed in battle or who have died in service, including those of the non-commissioned officers and soldiers (being the command save two) who fell with Major Dade ... have been gathered and transferred to St. Augustine, where suitable vaults are constructed for the final reception. ... For this purpose sufficient pecuniary means have been raised by the voluntary subscription of the soldiers and officers of this command.
August 14, 1842. Seven wagons drawn by "elegant" mules and each covered with an American flag carried the soldiers to their final resting place.
From Niles' National Register of September 3, 1842:
The St. Augustine News of the 20th Aug. says: The burial of Major F. L. Dade's martyr'd dead, and those officers and soldiers who have died in Florida, took place on Monday last.
At half past 10, a gun was fired from the battery in front of the green, by a detail of 3d artillery under lieutenant Churchill; when the mayor and council, the masonic fraternity, and St. Augustine City Guards, Capt. P. R. Lopez, proceeded to the St. Sebastian bridge, to await the arrival of the remains.
 In a short time, the melancholy wail of music was heard in the distance - the bright glitter of arms was seen glancing among the deep green of the woods, and the wagons covered with the stars and stripes, containing all that was of the honored dead, moved slowly onward.
It was indeed a brilliant, a melancholy spectacle. On arriving at the public square, the cortege wheeled to the right, and proceeded up George street, continued down St. Francis street, when moving up Marine street they were brought to the spot appropriated for interment, the garden of St. Francis' Barracks.
The remains were removed from the funeral train amid the firing of minute guns, and the religious services were performed by the Rev. Mr. Waters, the Rev. Henry Aztell, and Mr. John Beard, Esq. A monody on the dead was pronounced by Dr. W. Whitehurst, Esq. of the masonic fraternity.
Half hour guns were fired until sunset, closing the solemnities of the day.
The tombs, three in number, erected by the troops of the post, in which the remains are deposited, are vaults each about ten feet square, surmounted by a pyramid of five feet height, rising from a grassy mound, enclosing the body of the tomb.
It is designed to cover these pyramids entirely with marble, on which will be placed the names of all other officers who have died or been killed in Florida, in addition to those deposited beneath.
   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