Category: Government

In what turned out to be a “darts and laurels” letter submitted to St Johns County Tourist Development Council Executive Director, Glenn Hastings, the St Augustine Beach Civic Association has questioned the rationale used to reduce bed tax funding of its “Music by the Sea Concert Series” by 20 percent, and to deny bed tax…

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Diane Bradley, president of the St Augustine Art Association, is not happy with the way the Category II funding panel, under the direction of the St Johns Cultural Council, and its new director, Andy Witt, have handled the 54-year-old, local non-profit organization’s application for bed-tax funding for the 48th Annual St Augustine Art and Craft…

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At the St Johns County commission meeting today, two agenda items concerned requests from the City of St Augustine for their September Gentlemen of the Road concert event; they consumed the morning session with mixed public comment but unanimous commission support.

A day after Tony Bennett resigned as Commissioner of Education; Historic City News was notified that members of the Florida Board of Education had selected 60-year-old Pamela L. Stewart of St Augustine, by unanimous vote, to serve as interim education commissioner while it recruits Bennett’s replacement.

Although it was not released to the public prior to the last City Commission meeting, Comptroller Mark Litzinger included a breakdown of spending categories with his final request to the St Johns County Board of Commissioners for payment of $129,485 from bed tax funds for transportation of the 25,000 Mumford and Sons concertgoers.

On the very day that Rep. Ron DeSantis introduced a constitutional amendment prohibiting Congress from exempting themselves from the laws they pass, it was reported to Historic City News that the Office of Personnel Management will rule that the health care plans of members of Congress, and their staffs, will receive a special subsidy.

Historic City News has received scores of e-mail and comments, on historiccity.com and our facebook, from readers responding to an editorial we ran after the July 22nd meeting of the St Augustine City Commission, titled “Hold on to your wallets”.