Published by former Mayor George Gardner July 6 2016
The Report is an independent publication serving our community
|
Crowds line the bayfront as fireworks begin July 4 in this image from First Coast.TV. Click here to see the video
5,000 shuttle to fireworks
 It was "way less" and "way more" for the city's pilot park and shuttle program over the July Fourth weekend, Mobility Coordinator Xavier Pellicer says.
"Saturday and Sunday were slow, but Monday, more than 5,000 used the park and shuttle," he says. "There were 2,000 on the west side and 3,000 from the Anastasia Island side."
The city arranged three free parking areas with shuttles at the county complex and on San Marco Avenue west of the city and numerous pickup points along St. Augustine Beach and Anastasia Boulevard on the east.
Pellicer says Elite Transportation Services provided eight shuttles on each of the west and east routes during what were considered peak periods - four hours before and two hours after the fireworks.
Two shuttles on each route handled off-peak periods.
It was "typical gridlock" after the fireworks, he says. "We had barricades up for the shuttle routes, but someone got through and everybody followed."
City officials will be digesting this pilot program in preparation for the next peak period - the crowd-drawing Nights of Lights weekend before Thanksgiving.
|
|
|
Friends of AlA raised a total of $805,000 over a 7-year period for a comprehensive Wayfinding/Way-showing Signage System for the 72 mile corridor.
The uniform sign system offers clear direction along AlA between Volusia and Duval counties. Significant stops along the route are highlighted and complemented by an audio tour.
The next phase is sign clutter removal. They hope to remove about 35% of the excessive sign clutter. If you would like to be part of the solution, contact (904) 425-8055 or email joan_kramer@scenica1a.org.
|
|
|
Mobility task force
sets meeting schedule
The 15-member Mobility Advisory Task Force will have at least three meetings over the next several months to digest and discuss ideas from the community.
Wednesdays, July 6, August 3 and September 7, they'll gather in the Alcazar Room, City Hall, 5 - 7 pm. The meetings are public and will be live-streamed on www.CoSATV.com.
Mobility survey, Round Two
One way to get survey responses is to keep them short.
The recent on-line mobility survey drew more than 1,200 responses.
A second online survey has 16 questions, covering the city's street network, streetscapes, land use and urban design, preferred routes, pedestrians and bicycles, and perimeter park and shuttle systems.
|
County to review
bed tax allotments
Correction. The current local option tourism development tax is 4%, not 6%, and the portion used for destination marketing is 44%.
Reducing the fuel for the engine that helps pay for St. Augustine city services rather than investing in the infrastructure that would allow for sustainable growth in the tourism sector will only increase the tax burden on residents.
Last year, commercial properties and seasonal residents of the City of St. Augustine paid more in property taxes than full time residents.
It is easy to blame our visitors for our woes over parking and congestion, but the solutions are in our power to embrace without cutting off the engine of our prosperity, including strong property values.
And we should consider Police Chief Loran Lueders' words shared publicly last year, "the problem with on-street parking is us; the tourists park and drive where we tell them to."
Richard Goldman, President & Chief Executive Officer
St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & The Beaches
Visitors & Convention Bureau
|
 |
Daron Dean moves on From Facebook
 My last day as a photojournalist at The St. Augustine Record was Friday (June 24). I mostly enjoyed my nine year, eight month visit there but it is now time to move on. Some of you know I have been teaching Advanced Photojournalism at the University of Florida in the fall semester for the last five years. This is where I have found most of my enjoyment recently. In order to become a real professor I must get a masters degree.
So as I sit in Starbucks, referred to as 'the library' for the next two years, I would like to thank all of you who have taken the time to read this, and more importantly made me who I am. Without you I would not be possible. I will work hard to make you proud.
|
|
|
|
|
A Working Blacksmith returns
 Picking up where the Spanish Colonial and Colonial Quarter have dropped off, the Fountain of Youth has opened a working blacksmith shop. "We are excited to bring another interesting facet of St. Augustine's past to the Park," says Managing Director John Fraser, "one where our guests can actually witness history being made, right on the actual site where history was made in 1565."
"St. Augustine's colonial blacksmiths were primarily repairmen," park blacksmith Greg Sikes tells visitors. "New goods arrived primarily from Europe, and when the implements broke, the blacksmith stepped in."
The exhibit's bellows are an oversized, horizontal double lung design feeding a custom-made forge to blacksmithing temperatures in excess of 2,500 degrees, says Sikes.
The blacksmith shop will produce Spanish Colonial iron goods of the First Spanish Period (1565-1763) of Florida's history.
|
St. Augustine's 1st years in Revolution
 Historian Roger Smith has been researching, and writing about, life "during the first five years of the (American Revolution) when historians tell us nothing was going on down here."
In the third of a series of books, Smith presents Women of the American Revolution: Lost Voices of America's First Generation, coming out this week.
"The first book, The 14th Colony: George Washington's Planned Invasions of East Florida, is about the importance of the southern colonies - particularly Washington's determination to capture St. Augustine - during the first five years of the war," says Smith.
"Our second book, Hope of Freedom: Southern Blacks and the American Revolution, is actually the result of the first book: when you find five years of missing military history, you find five years of missing African-American history. St. Augustine figures prominently into this book, as well."
|
|
History's Highlight
|
America's first anthem was here
July 4, 1781, St. Augustine was a British colony with a patriotic zeal. It was the last stronghold of the British Crown, its streets teeming with loyalist refugees from northern colonies taken over by American forces and its Fort St. Mark, the former Spanish Castillo de San Marcos, filled with captured patriots, including three signers of the Declaration of Independence - South Carolinians Arthur Middleton, Edward Rutledge and Thomas Heyward.
 Middleton came from one of the wealthiest families in South Carolina. He was one of the most cultured signers of the Declaration and a staunch supporter of independence, often pushing for harsh reprisals against Tories. Rutledge was a distinguished lawyer and partner of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who became one of the leading figures of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. At 26, he was the youngest man to sign the Declaration. Like Middleton, Thomas Heyward was from a prominent South Carolina family and was only 28 when he signed the Declaration.
Thirty seven political prisoners, all of whom backed American independence, landed in St. Augustine in September 1780.
In early July 1781 a prisoner exchange was announced, and the prisoners celebrated their coming freedom and the fifth anniversary of American independence with a banquet of speeches and toasts followed by singing and a desert in the shape of an American flag with 13 stars and stripes. Heyward had set to work that morning on a suitable anthem for the occasion, heard for the first time at this Fourth of July Patriot dinner in British St. Augustine.
Being set to the familiar tune of "God Save the King," the British guards, deceived by the familiar air, were impressed by what they took to be the rebels' sudden return to loyalty to King George.
The anthem had five verses, each more stinging to their captors than the last. Two decades later, today's National Anthem was written by Francis Scott Key during The War of 1812 - between the United States and Great Britain.
God save the thirteen states, Thirteen United States, God save them all.
Make us victorious, Happy and glorious; No tyrants over us; God save our States!
Image:Thomas Heyward
Find the complete anthem here. (American anthem)
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
