Published by former Mayor George Gardner January 13 2016
The Report is an independent publication serving our community
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Colonial Quarter
Living history or food court?
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It's almost as if they were operating a food court, rather than an immersive, captivating journey through centuries of St. Augustine history
Chris Fulmer, addressing the City Commission Monday
 The Colonial Quarter's "latest update is to close the gift shop and open a chicken and donut shop," resident Chris Fulmer told city commissioners at Monday's meeting, "making it the third food service on this site, this one not even pretending to have any historical accuracy."
The University of Florida manages 34 state-owned historic properties including the Colonial Quarter. Linda Dixon, liaison for the University of Florida Historic St. Augustine support organization, said yesterday, "No change has been approved at this time by UF or the UFHSA board of directors."
Commenting on the lack of living history downtown, Chris said of the Colonial Quarter, "It's almost as if they were operating a food court, rather than an immersive, captivating journey through centuries of St. Augustine history, brought to breathtaking life in the sights, sounds and smells of three centuries (quoting from the website).
"It's obvious the University of Florida has no concern or interest in what happens here, so let's please let the city do what it can to keep our history alive."
The university in 2009 took over management from the city of the properties and leased the former Colonial Spanish Quarter to the Pirate Museum's Pat Croce.
"On the positive side," Fulmer noted, "the Fountain of Youth is working to take up the slack in bringing back artisans and craftsmen. Let's give them our support."
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St. Augustine Civil Rights leader Dr. Robert B. Hayling will be honored in the rotunda of the State Capitol in Tallahassee Thursday at noon.
Mayor Nancy Shaver will represent the city at the ceremonies for Hayling, who died December 20 at his Fort Lauderdale home. He was 86.
Among immediate words of praise for his work, fellow activist J. T. Johnson said, "His legacy will be [as] a person who gave it all to try to better mankind."
Hayling came to St. Augustine to open a dental practice at the corner of Bridge and Oneida streets, but soon took up the battle for equality in the early 1960s.
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A good start
to the New Year
"It's a great way to start the New Year," Mayor Nancy Shaver said at Monday's City Commission meeting after unanimous passage of ordinances establishing two public parks and creating a definition and designation of Undeveloped Conservation Park Lands.
Designated parks include Riberia Pointe and a Lighthouse Park parcel on Lew Boulevard between Santa Monica and Altadena avenues.
Three Lighthouse Park parcels will be conserved park lands "for the enjoyment of current and future city residents," says Planning and Building Director David Birchim. They're near the city's Lighthouse Park and Boat Ramp and J. Edward "Red" Cox Park.
The adopted code states, "Undeveloped Conservation Park Lands means a property that shall remain in a natural, undeveloped state in order to preserve and protect the natural resources of the property for the benefits of wildlife, the ecosystem and for future generations to appreciate and study."
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Citizen dig permits:
Commission - No!
It took little persuasion for city commissioners to approve a resolution Monday opposing state legislation to allow citizen permits to dig on state submerged lands, but four speakers representing the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP) and Florida Public Archaeological Network spoke anyway.
Commissioners voted to send the message to Tallahassee against State House and Senate bills which would allow, as LAMP Director Chuck Meide expressed it, "looting of archaeological sites on submerged lands."
"The City of St. Augustine passed one of the earliest municipal archaeology ordinances in the country in 1986 and is a national model for cultural resource preservation efforts," the resolution notes.
"Archaeologists at the state's Division of Historical Resources demonstrated the economic, criminal, and detrimental impacts on cultural resources of citizen archaeology permits in other states as well as Florida's own Isolated Finds that was unanimously voted to be abolished by the Florida Historical Commission in 2005 with a follow up published report in 2013."
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Recognizing good works
What began as commentary on one award approved by commissioners Monday swelled into thoughts of an appreciation day and perhaps a web page dedicated to citizen service in the community.
Commissioners approved an Adelaide Sanchez Endowment Award for the St. Augustine Garrison, but City Manager John Regan noted, "We honored the Garrison but there are so many people. Maybe there could be a way to recognize the body of work of the individuals who are doing great things for us - perhaps an appreciation day."
Commissioner Leanna Freeman added, "With the new city website being developed, maybe we could dedicate a page to the many people who serve," and Mayor Nancy Shaver concluded, "The more ways we can do it the better."
The Adelaide Sanchez Endowment left in the will of its namesake supports an award for significant achievement in the restoration, preservation, education and interpretation of City of St. Augustine Historic Resources. The City Commission would make the award at any time with any amount from endowment interest.
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Sophisticated survey of community
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A sophisticated survey process that will not only record community sentiment but geo-code it to areas in the community was described to commissioners Monday by Finance, Budget and Management Director Mark Litzinger.
The National Research Center was selected to conduct the survey which was discussed at last year's budget meetings, Litzinger said.
The 17-question survey will go to 3,000 preselected homes, with an expected response rate of 25%, he said. The anonymous feedback "will provide a guiding document for the City's strategic planning and resource allocation for the coming year."
Planners get a 'well done' for workbooks
St. Augustine's planners were praised by Planning and Building Director David Birchim at Monday's City Commission meeting for "a remarkable job" creating zoning workbooks for each city neighborhood. "I don't know of any other community that's done this," he said in recognizing the work of Senior Planner Amy McClure Skinner and Community Planner Erin Minnigan.
Birchim said one goal of commission discussions was to develop overlay districts to address particular neighborhood needs. Rather than a single workbook, the planners developed packages recognizing each neighborhood's unique needs.
"These will give empowerment to each neighborhood to rule their own destiny and address their own needs," he said.
Until the workbooks can be placed on the city website hard copies are available for review in the Planning and Building and City Manager's offices.
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Arbor Day Friday at Francis Field
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 St. Augustine will celebrate its 33rd year as a Tree City USA in annual Arbor Day ceremonies at 11 am Friday at Francis Field. The festivities will include the planting of trees by city officials and presentations by the Street Tree Advisory Committee, while Ketterlinus Elementary School students will offer several musical selections and Smokey Bear will help distribute a variety of saplings. Crape Myrtle and Sycamore will be planted at the field. Arbor Day is celebrated nationally on the last Friday in April, but states hold ceremonies on dates better suited to their own tree-planting season. Florida's Arbor Day is celebrated on the third Friday in January, this year that January 15.
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History's Highlight
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Black Jacks - Early America's Mariners
The following is drawn from an account by Cliff Odle on the Freedom Trail website.
The enslaved were sold into it, the free choose it. In the late 1700s, as shipping activity for a young nation grew, they made up ten percent of the sailors and dockworkers. By the 1830s, twenty percent of all maritime workers in the country were of African decent.
 "Black Jacks" were in their late twenties or early thirties. Most were slaves hired out by their masters when work on the plantations and farms became scarce.
White or black, life on a ship was hard. They had to respond to orders filled with unfamiliar words, and know the difference between a baggy wrinkle and a boot top, between a chock and a chine.
The basic hierarchy was able seamen, ordinary seamen and boy. The sea was one of the few places that a 40-year-old man, white or black, could be called boy without offence.
At sea they faced everything from pirates and privateers to shipwrecks and sharks. And there were ship-borne diseases like scurvy. Impressments, or sanctioned kidnappings, were another danger. One of the triggers of the War of 1812 was the impressment of four sailors from the Chesapeake by the HMS Leopold.
Imprisonment was a routine for black sailors who arrived in southern ports. Landing in cities like Newport, Virginia, or New Orleans would mean shore leave behind bars.
There were those bold enough to rise in the ranks. Captain Paul Cuffe was born free in 1759 in Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts. At 16 he went to sea, and at 24 became part owner and captain of his own ship. In 1780 he and his brother refused to pay taxes on their property because they did not have the right to vote. They lost their case, but paved the way for all free men to have the right to vote by 1783.
James Forten of Philadelphia served on the privateer Royal Louis when it was captured by the British HMS Amphyon. He was twelve years old. The captain's son took a liking to Forten and asked his father to spare him. Offered a home in England, he refused, stating, "I am a prisoner for the liberties of my country. I will never, never prove a traitor to her interests." After the war, He invented a sail handling device, and later started his own sail making company to become the richest African American of his time.
Crispus Attucks was an escaped slave. His seamanship as well as his size and stature garnered him enough respect that several white sailors were willing to follow him as he attacked a line of armed British redcoats with only a stick.
The need of earlier years was reduced by the early 1900s as powerful dock unions and Jim Crow laws excluded blacks from the docks and other maritime work, and the legacy of the "black jacks" faded in the collective memory.
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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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