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Published by former Mayor George Gardner                    September 12 2015
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Riberia street rebirth
meets growth concerns
134 Riberia Street   The owner, 134 Riberia LLC, says it, "would like to compliment and add to the mixture of uses that exist on the property today."
   But the Planning and Zoning Board (PZB) fears the possibility of parking garages, heavy traffic generation and increased intensity of uses.
   The PZB recommendation to deny rezoning from Maritime Use to Residential and General Office (RGO) zoning goes before the City Commission Monday for first reading and a decision whether to move it to later public hearing.
   The regular commission meeting begins at 5 pm in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.
   Attorney Ellen Avery-Smith will try to make the case for the owner of the property adjacent to the St. Augustine Distillery and Ice House Restaurant which opened last year.
   Development was anticipated along Riberia near King Street when Sebastian Inland Harbor was created ten years ago and, after the economic downturn, resold last year to a hotel development corporation.
   But Lincolnville residents turned out two years ago to oppose several development plans for Riberia Pointe at the south end of Riberia Street and most recently, at a meeting of the Lincolnville Community Redevelopment Agency Steering Committee, a straw vote rejected proposals for overlay zoning to create commercial corridors in the neighborhood.   
911 ceremony in 2011
911 
   The historic 1900 fire bell tolled 14 times Friday morning, once for each year since 9/11, as St. Augustine remembered the losses on that September day in 2001.
   The bell tolling at the main fire station came at 8:45 am, the time the first plane hit a tower of the World Trade Center.
   That moment was preceded by presentation of the colors and brief remarks by Mayor Nancy Shaver, St. Augustine Fire Chief JC Costeira, and St Johns County Fire Chief Carl Shank.
Tour St Aug
Trolley adv
Local Heroes
    Six runners to be honored
Among other benefits, running gets the heart rate up. City Commissioner Todd Neville said, "We definitely got our heart rates up much more than we had planned" after he and five fellow runners sounded the alarm and helped put out a house fire at 11 Riberia Street June 2.
To receive heroism awards from Fire Chief JC Costeira at Monday's City Commission meeting are Neville and Dave Williamson, Steve Lawrence, Andrew Birchall, Dr. Carlos Sanches, and Dr.Benoit Pineau.
The six were at mile three of a five-mile morning run at 5:45 am when they discovered a porch on fire at the two-apartment building. 
Chief Costeira says, "These six men immediately jumped into action by calling 911 for the fire department, banging on doors to wake the residents, and finding a nearby garden hose to attempt to extinguish the flames.
"Had it not been for their quick actions that morning, this situation could have been dire. They were able to alert the four occupants of two apartments and quell the flames until the fire department arrived on scene."
Muster 2015
2016 millage, budget pass 1st hearing
   A millage rate of 7.5, unchanged from the current fiscal year, and budget of $25 million won City Commission approval Thursday in the first of two state-mandated public hearings - the second and final hearing Sept. 24 at 5:05 pm in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.
   The city's General Fund or operating budget is $25,263,947 with revenue of $21,619,539, the $3,652,145 shortage covered by interfund transfers, officials explain.
   The greatest source of revenue for the General Fund is property taxes, $9,132,325, and greatest expenses police $6,281,295 and fire $3,291,920.

$500,000 for dredging projects
Florida Inland Navigational District (FIND) and St. Augustine Port, Waterway and Beach District will present checks totaling $506,800 to the City Commission Monday for dredging projects in the San Sebastian River Channel and Salt Run.
FIND representative Carl Blow and Port Authority Chair Jerry Dixon will make the presentations.
General Services Director Jim Piggott says $380,066 is coming from FIND and $126,734 from the Port Authority.
Sure bets for PZB appointment
   Terms of both Chair Sue Ellen Agresta and Vice Chair Matthew Shaffer on the Planning and Zoning Board expire September 30.
   There are two applications for appointment by the commission Monday - Sue Agresta and Matt Shaffer.
   End of story.
   Appointments to this important seven-member city board are for three years and are limited to two consecutive full terms. The board handles zoning exceptions and variances and makes recommendations to the City Commission on rezoning, such as the recent PUD request for the former Dow Museum of Historic Houses.
Belonging: The Civil War's South  Confederate soldiers
   Judy Shearer, whose family owned slaves, and St. Augustinian Derek Hankerson, a descendant of slaves who were Gullah Geechee, ask why G. A. Henry, who defended a slave in court, would fight for the Confederacy just years later.
   And how Sgt. A.M. Chandler and his slave, Silas Chandler, came to be posing side by side in uniforms of the 44th Mississippi.
   "They reveal a part of the war not spoken about," the authors suggest in Belonging: The Civil War's South We Never Knew. "But both understood belonging. They were where they were because they wanted to be, in a land of cavaliers and cotton fields,
Hankerson and Shearer
lands where color didn't matter sometimes, but belonging did."
  Through extensive research and filled with quotes by those who were there in that fateful conflict, Shearer and Hankerson paint a vivid picture of a seldom written side of the Civil War.  
   The book is the second in an envisioned trio, beginning with Shearer's All Bones Be White published in 2011 and, Hankerson promises, a third book drawing from the St. Augustine 450th exhibits Journey: 450 years of the African American Experience and Tapestry: The Cultural Threads of First America.
   Belonging is available at Anastasia Books and Barnes & Noble.
History's highlight
Matanzas
   Having overtaken the French Fort Caroline, the triumphant Menendez returned to St. Augustine, but he knew the French fleet was still out there with the bulk of the French military force.
   This account was written by Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, Chaplain to Pedro Menendez
 
   On Friday, the 28th September, and while the captain-general was resting after all the fatigues he had passed through, some Indians came to camp, and made us understand by signs that on the coast toward the south there was a French vessel which had been wrecked.
Matanzas    We set off immediately to descend the river to the sea, in search of the enemy. When we had reached the sea, we went about three leagues along the coast in search of our comrades. It was about ten o'clock at night when we met them.
   Not far off we saw the campfires of our enemies ... on the other side of the river, and we could not get at them.      
   The general marched his troops forward to the river, and we arrived before daylight. We concealed ourselves in a hollow between the sand-hills, with the Indians who were with us; and, when it came light, we saw a great many of the enemy go down the river to get shell-fish for food. Soon after we saw a flag hoisted, as a war-signal.
   Our general, who was observing all that, said to us, "I intend to change these [clothes] for those of a sailor, and take a Frenchman with me (one of those whom we had brought with us from Spain), and we will go and talk with these Frenchmen. Perhaps they are without supplies, and would be glad to surrender without fighting."
   As soon as he had called to them, one of them swam towards and spoke to him; told him of their having been shipwrecked, and the distress they were in; that they had not eaten bread for eight or ten days and, what is more, stated that all, or at least the greater part of them, were Lutherans.
   Immediately the general sent him back to his countrymen, to say they must surrender, and give up their arms, or he would put them all to death. A French gentleman, who was a sergeant, brought back the reply that they would surrender on condition their lives should be spared.
   Our brave captain-general answered "that he would make no promises, that they must surrender unconditionally, and lay down their arms, because, if he spared their lives, he wanted them to be grateful for it, and, if they were put to death, that there should be no cause for complaint."
   Seeing that there was nothing else left for them to do, (they) brought all their arms and flags, and gave them up to the general, and surrendered unconditionally.
   Finding they were all Lutherans, the captain-general ordered them all put to death; but, as I was a priest, and had bowels of mercy, I begged him to grant me the favor of sparing those whom we might find to be Christians. We found ten or twelve of the men Roman Catholics, whom we brought back.
   All the others were executed, because they were Lutherans and enemies of our Holy Catholic faith. All this took place on Saturday (St. Michael's Day), September 29, 1565. 
   Image: Menendez and Ribault (lower right) at Matanzas
 
   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