City agrees on policy shift for 450th

One thing was clear to Historic City News reporters during yesterday’s workshop meeting of commissioners and senior staff that the City of St. Augustine is moving forward with commemoration plans for signature events and marketing, with or without First America Foundation.

“I am suggesting a major policy shift,” City Manager John Regan told the participants. “We need to decide today if we want to sit on status quo.”

Ten months ago, the City contracted with First America Foundation, Inc. to provide planning and coordination of the 450th Commemoration of St. Augustine’s founding in 2015, to plan a 200-year anniversary of the 1812 Spanish Constitution, a 500th celebration of the 1513 landing of Ponce de Leon and a 50-year anniversary, in 2014, commemorating the 1964 signing of the Civil Rights Act.

“We are upping the work rate, upping the competition” Regan said. “We need to be watching First America Foundation over the next few months to see if they are going to be part of commemorations or not.”

Regan was very direct — he clearly was not pleased with the amount of time, and money, that have been invested to date with the Foundation that Commissioner Bill Leary has described as “hiding in a black hole”. Commissioners and city staffers have both expressed difficulty in reaching and communicating with the organization.

Likely one of the largest concerns leading to the “policy shift” has been the fact that, ten months later, the Foundation has yet to produce a working “strategic plan” or any new corporate sponsors to finance the planned events. In fact, the only money the private foundation has raised has been the $275,000 “seed money” and an additional $25,000 of re-allocated funds — a total of $300,000 that has all been given, in advance, by the City, according to comments made in yesterday’s workshop.

In a letter dated May 4th from Don Wallis, Chairman of First America Foundation, he wrote, “More importantly, our effort has yet to produce any results, i.e. “deliverables” to any of our audiences or constituencies.”

Regan sees the city taking action and taking it now. “If I have consensus from you today, my staff is ready to start tomorrow.” The role of the city, as described by the City Manager, should be to provide “space, time and knowledge”.

Regan said we need to work towards building relationships with local organizations like Romanza, and others, who are eager to sponsor their own events during the commemoration years. “They just want to come in under the umbrella of the 450th Commemoration,” Regan remarked; as he observed that some local efforts have found it difficult, if not impossible, to work out such arrangements with First America Foundation.

There seemed to be general agreement that the twenty-five member board of First America, together with its “Honorary Board”, represented some of the “best of the best” we could have assembled, however, it became clear that the board members had not been given clear direction or the necessary leadership to accomplish what was expected of them.

Regan iterated his list of priorities to avoid dropping the ball on celebrations he still feels are important to St. Augustine over the next four years. “We need an iconic logo for the 2015 commemoration,” Regan insisted. He pointed out that there are going to be bumper stickers and trinkets produced that the city could not control; and he wasn’t concerned about that.

He was concerned about establishing an “official logo” that could be licensed in the same way that Atlanta produced a logo for the Olympic Games. Regan held up a wine bottle as an example of the type of branding used in Atlanta — branding he believes is important to establish an identity for our events.

“We could have a contest,” Regan suggested — pointing out that there are many qualified graphic artists in our community who might compete for the honor of designing the selected logo. One of the very biggest disappointments expressed by Historic City News readers has been the 450th design adopted by First America Foundation; unveiled to lukewarm support at a much-hyped ceremony at River House earlier this year.

The first commemoration the city needs to step up, of course, is next year’s celebration of the Spanish constitution — a monument to which adorns a space of honor in the Plaza that was named for the historic event.

At one point each commissioner gave their own list of suggestions as did the Mayor. One member of the audience remarked that almost all of the ideas mentioned by the commission have been discussed before and there were comments questioning why First America had not done more to put such plans into action.

Regan went through a year-by-year list of selected examples of which he was aware and of which he felt there may have been no progress between the vendors and the foundation. He included what he called a “Fashion Show of the Americas” that could be done in collaboration with Morris Communications special publications such as EcoLatino.

Regan explained plans already in place by University of St. Augustine founder Stanley Paris who is building an extremely high-tech yacht in Annapolis that he will sail from the City Marina, under the Bridge of Lions and then on to circle the globe in a planned 110 days. If successful, Paris will be the oldest man to accomplish the feat.

Putting to better use the members of the federal 450th commission who have ties to a wealth of support organizations is important according to Regan; who suggested that, for example, commissioner and former astronaut Bill Nelson may be able to generate interest and possible cross-branding between the St. Augustine celebration and NASA.

“First America just doesn’t seem to be in operational mode,” Regan observed. There were formerly two employees — interim executive director Jamie Alvarez and one paid staffer; Laura Cryan. As of Friday, April 22nd, the foundation is back down to a “staff-of-one”, according to the Wallis memorandum.

“One of two things is going to happen if we move forward,” Regan told the commissioners. “Either First America Foundation is going to become relevant — or they are not.”

We need to renegotiate our contract with First America Foundation, according to Regan. “Don Wallis tells me that he would be willing to do that.” There were comments that of the $300,000 city contribution, there may be only $200,000 left and there were no guarantees that any or all of that money could be recovered by the city.

“We need to up the work rate, energize our staff, set up a working calendar and the City needs to be playing the lead role in our commemoration efforts,” Regan said to applause from the audience.

The commission agreed. Mayor Boles remarked that although he, personally, never thought the idea of an outside foundation was “the way to go”, he went along with the recommendation of Commissioner Leary. Both Boles and Leary agreed that it seemed like the best thing to do, given a threatened lawsuit at the time. “We tried it and it didn’t work out how we hoped,” Leary said. “I don’t think a private foundation could not lead such events — it just seems to be that this particular foundation may not be to one best to do it.”

Today, Regan told Historic City News that he is excited about the direction the city is going to take and that there are people and plans already in the works that will enhance the commemoration experience for the entire community . As promised, Regan has set a “Kick Off” meeting tomorrow afternoon to discuss those plans with department heads and senior staff members.

Photo credits: © 2011 Historic City News staff photographer