As if the St Johns County Sheriff hadn’t learned his lesson about the wisdom of issuing a “report card” to elected county commissioners, based on whether they agree or disagree with his version of what’s best for county residents, the resistance group Indivisible St Johns, has followed in his steps, issuing their own “report card” ranking of our Florida Legislators for the 2019 session.

On July 1, 2019 the City of St Augustine Beach held a Commission Meeting, discussing and presenting issues like the resident/ property owner survey results, Ordinances concerning environmental protection, paid parking, live streaming of meetings, the 2020 US Census, and a special budget meeting.

When Development Director Katie Bohnett reached out to Historic City News yesterday to officially announce the retirement plans of Barbara Petersen, president of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, our editor, Michael Gold, said that his own retirement, planned for next year, helped him deal with the clear sense of loss of one of our best soldiers on the front line of protecting the public’s right to oversee its government and hold it accountable to the electorate.

Communications & Events Coordinator Cindy Walker reported the results of last night’s special meeting of the St Augustine Beach City Commission to Historic City News today.  Pride month, the audit report, applications for the City Attorney, long-term financial plan, additional revenue sources, the upcoming fiscal year 2020 budget, and financial policies were discussed.

Rep. Paul Renner went into the Legislative Session with the strongest fundraising in the House.

The controversial left-driven League of Women Voters is disappointing conservative Florida residents, once again, as they rush to register ex-felons to vote before a July 1st deadline that requires criminals to have fulfilled all financial obligations associated with their sentence including court fees, fines and restitution to their victims.

St. Augustine’s first bike share program got a little closer to becoming a reality when the Historic Architectural Review Board issued “an opinion” of appropriateness to the city last week for the design of signage and locations for the first phase of docking stations for the bikes.

Historic City News readers have been cheering since learning the news that Assistant City Manager Tim Burchfield will retire in October.  Word that Meredith Breidenstein would replace him was confirmed by the St Augustine City Commission during its regular meeting on Monday, June 10th.