Published by former Mayor George Gardner May 4 2016
The Report is an independent publication serving our community
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Wrecked!
1782 shipwreck exhibit opens
Friday at Lighthouse Museum
We want you to leave this new exhibition feeling like you just broke the surface of the Atlantic after diving on your first shipwreck!
Lighthouse Archaeology Program Director Chuck Meide
 On New Year's Eve 1782, sixteen ships ran aground while attempting to enter the treacherous inlet of St. Augustine. They were carrying British evacuees from Charleston at the end of the American Revolutionary War. St. Augustine was the nearest British controlled port, so the group sought refuge there only to find their hopes dashed just short of arrival as their ships ran aground on the bar.
The Keepers' House at the Lighthouse Museum has been completely redecorated in an under-the-sea theme for the opening of Wrecked! all day Friday, May 6, as part of the 2016 Romanza Festivale of the Arts in St. Augustine.
Victorian chandeliers have been replaced with bubbles fixtures, their glass panels reflecting light from the room's windows and bringing a shine to prism mirrored wallpaper.
The basement is a sea floor, its sandbar giving the sense of rolling peaks and valleys on the real ocean floor. Beneath the sandbar are some of the artifacts recovered from the shipwreck and conserved at the Lighthouse.
In 2009, the St. Augustine Lighthouse Maritime Museum's archaeology team discovered one of those sixteen 1782 shipwrecks. Some 600 artifacts recovered from this vessel are featured in Wrecked!
Details of that discovery and the archaeology team's recovery and conservation efforts here.
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A new gate will swing open to the Tolomato Cemetery on Cordova Street Saturday May 7 at 9:30 am, with a formal dedication of the entry and street front fencing at 10 am.
Father Tom Willis of the Cathedral Basilica will dedicate the fencing, replacing a hurricane fence in place since the 1940s.
Tolomato Cemetery Preservation Assn. President Elizabeth Duran Gessner says replacement of the back and side fencing will be next, along with a crushed coquina pathway and a removable bollard in front of the gate "so that people don't back into the gate. Believe me, we don't want anything to happen to the gate!"
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Halls, Rangs to receive
de Aviles Awards May 9
 Veteran living historians Robert and Gudrun Hall and Carl and Patti Rang will formally receive one of the city's highest awards, the de Aviles Award, May 9 at the start of the regular City Commission meeting. The two couples, considered among founders of St. Augustine's reenactment community, both date their involvement with living history interpretation here to 1972, when Robert Hall, an art professor at Flagler College, joined the fledgling East Florida Rangers to "make St. Augustine a place where history lives" and the Rangs moved here from south Florida for the chance "to rekindle a love for history." Robert founded the Historic Florida Militia, which today is the umbrella organization for nearly a dozen groups representing 16th thru 18th century St. Augustine. Gudrun developed skills in creating authentic period clothing for the volunteer units. Patti as well became an authentic "kit" seamstress, as period clothes and accoutrements are described, along with leadership roles in the variety of militia events. Carl stepped in when a fledgling fife and drum corps was organizing and distinguished himself with both drum and fife. The Halls will receive the 2015 award and the Rangs the 2016 award under the award procedure of one award annually. The de Aviles Award shares distinction with the La Florida Award as the city's highest honors.
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Graham is Florida's Public
Works Director of the Year
 St. Augustine Public Works Director Martha Graham has been named Public Works Director of the Year for 2016 by the Florida Chapter of the American Public Works Association (APWA).
Graham manages the city's largest department, working with 120 employees in eight divisions including Streets and Grounds, Solid Waste and Sanitation, all water operations, engineering services for a wide variety of projects, environmental compliance and most recently mobility.
Award winning projects directed by Graham since joining the city in 2008 include the Avenida Menendez Seawall Project and Downtown Improvement District rehabilitation of underground utilities and the streetscape of Hypolita, Treasury and Spanish streets.
Both projects were state award winners as 2015 and 2016 Public Works Projects of the Year in the Historic Restoration/Preservation.
Before joining the city Graham held leadership positions in Melbourne, Sebastian, and Cocoa Beach, Florida and Harford County, Maryland.
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I'm just a little septic tank with acid indigestion, so I hope you will not mind my making this suggestion; as paper towels and cleaning wipes cause me to raise this issue, please confine disposal here to gentle toilet tissue.
Notice in rural restroom
The Public Works Department has rolled out a campaign to reduce the amount of non-dispersible products entering the city's wastewater collection system and wastewater treatment facility.
The message is simple: a toilet is not a trash can. Flushing items that don't break up properly can cause costly clogs and back-ups, even contributing to sewage spills into our waterways.
The only things that should be flushed are toilet paper and human waste. Many products today are marketed to consumers as "flushable," but these items do not break up like toilet paper and should not be allowed down any toilet or drain.
From paper towels to cat litter, check out the list of flushing no-nos here.
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$541,548.49 legal fees in lengthy lawsuits
The four year old Whetstone lawsuit ended in success for the city - along with $215,008.47 in legal fees for outside counsel.
The six year old Wendler case continues, with outside counsel fees at $326,540.02 and counting.
"When a plaintiff does not make a demand for monetary damages," City Attorney Isabelle Lopez explains, "for instance in a case to quiet title or to seek a declaratory judgment such as the Whetstone matter (to build a dock over city-owned bottomlands), the City's insurance carrier does not provide litigation coverage, so the City has to retain private counsel to represent it in litigation at its own cost.
"These types of cases follow what is known as the 'American Rule' which means each party has to pay their own attorney's fees."
The Wendler case is at the Bert Harris Property Rights Act stage: the Wendlers were denied permits to demolish several historic properties for a boutique hotel. They sued, but voluntarily dismissed their court case on the demolitions and never filed an appeal on the denial of planned unit development (PUD) zoning for the project They now seek compensation for lost income as their project was stopped.
"For Bert Harris Act cases," says Lopez, "the City's insurance carrier now provides coverage for newly filed cases, but not for prior existing cases. The Harris Act does provide for the winning side to seek attorney's fees from the non-prevailing party."
Bottom line: the city cannot seek attorney fees from Whetstone but it can, if successful, in the Wendler case.
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Beginning to look like summer
Opening the Willie Galimore Center Community Pool and beginning Concerts in the Plaza are sure signs summer is here.
 The Galimore Pool opens Friday of Memorial Day weekend, May 27, and continues through Labor Day, September 5, with free swimming once again. Find the schedule here.
The pool is operated by the St. Augustine Family YMCA and features lap lanes, a swim instructional area, locker rooms and showers, and ADA standards featuring handicap pool lift.
The Galimore Community Pool is part of the Willie Galimore Community Center on Riberia Street.
 Concerts in the Plaza, St. Augustine's summer-long music series, returns on June 2 for its 26th season.
The free concerts, held in the Plaza de la Constitución's Gazebo, run every Thursday at 7 pm between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The Driftwoods will be performing June 2.
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Bedtime Stories now in two formats
 St. Augustine Bedtime Stories, dramatic accounts of famous people and events in St. Augustine's history, are now available in e-Book as well as print format.
Twenty-four 1,000 word briefs, written by former newspaperman -also former St. Augustine Mayor -George Gardner (2002-2006), highlight major people and events through 450 years of St. Augustine history.
The e-Book is marketed as The Oldest City. Read a sample here. The print format is individual boxed bookets in two 12-booklet series designed to fit the bed table for quick reads before bed. Find a synopsis of the 24 accounts here.
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History's Highlight
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The legend of the fountain
Drawn from The Exploration of Florida and Sources on the Founding of St. Augustine by Luis Rafael Arana, former supervisory historian at the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument
Cranach el Viejo (1472-1553), painted the most famous European depiction of the Fountain of Youth, showing how people bathed in the waters of the Fountain of Youth and emerged rejuvenated. Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
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The legend about a fountain of youth seemed to have been connected with Ponce de Leon in Spain rather than in America.
Ponce and Captain Juan Perez Ortubia reported in person the results of their expedition to discover Bimini to King Fernando in April 1514, but they could display no treasure or rare and valuable finds such as had come from the West Indian islands.
It was actually Perez who had continued the search and discovered Bimini at Ponce's orders, while Ponce returned to Puerto Rico to secure claims to his discoveries.
Perhaps it was Perez who talked about the Indian legend, and in jest the Court said that Ponce had indeed gone searching for a fountain that guaranteed perpetual youth rather than mundane things like gold or precious gems.
Whoever was the author of the report, it is true that as early as December 1514 Peter Martyr, the historian, was writing the Pope about the rumored existence in the New World of a spring whose water rejuvenated old men. Martyr, however, did not attempt to link or connect this story to Ponce de Leon.
It was the historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo who, in 1535, originated the story that Ponce had wasted time searching for the fountain of youth during his voyage.
Escalante de Fontaneda, survivor of a Florida shipwreck, exaggerated the legend so much in his report in 1575 that the historian Antonio de Herrera, in 1601, regarded the search for the fabulous spring as important as the true objective of Ponce's expedition.
Contemporary manuscripts so far uncovered do not mention the fountain of youth nor indicate that Ponce de Leon was even aware of the fantasy.
Certainly if he had believed the Indian legend, he would hardly have delegated the search for Bimini, reputedly the location of the fountain, to another captain. He would certainly have saved such a great prize for himself.
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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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