Indivisible St Johns appears to be divided in their endorsement for Florida’s next governor. In fact, according to an announcement to Historic City News yesterday, statewide voting by local Indivisible groups resulted in a national gubernatorial endorsement of Andrew Gillum. “Please know that this national office endorsement does not constitute an endorsement by our group,” the locally divided-indivisible group wrote to its members.

St Johns County Supervisor of Elections Vicky Oakes reported to Historic City News that her office mailed 23,000 requested “vote-by-mail” ballots for the August 28th Primary Election. According to the Supervisor, voters should begin receiving them on Saturday.

For four-years, Historic City News has hoped that Vice Mayor Todd Neville would make good on his campaign promise to increase transparency and accountability in city government. Since he did not qualify for re-election this year, he is officially a “lame duck”, but you wouldn’t know it given his performance at tonight’s St Augustine City Commission meeting.

St Johns County Supervisor of Elections Vicky Oakes reminds Historic City News readers that new voter registrations and party changes for the August 28, 2018 Primary Election must be completed by Monday July 30th.

Historic City News readers are encouraged to mark their calendar for a series of meetings coming in August. These meetings will provide an opportunity for the public to address city officials concerning the Fiscal Year 2019 budget.

These meetings will be held in the Alcazar Room of City Hall, located at 75 King Street, and will be available for live and on-demand viewing via www.CityStAugTV.com.

Not yet out of the woods on contextualization issues related to their plan to patronize a favored local vendor under a tortured theory of the governing municipal ordinance, the city’s manager, John Regan, and attorney, Isabelle Lopez, are again dancing around a controversy that threatens the taxpayers of the City of St Augustine with a lawsuit that could run into hundreds-of-thousands of dollars.

Historic City News learned today that in an email last Thursday to City Manager John Regan, Harold Bishop of Red Moon Properties, LLC, explained; “Due to the latest discovery work done on the building at 9 Aviles, and the resulting steps needed to be in compliance with local and state requirements, we are open to changing our approach from a very selective demolition to a revised demolition plan that would expedite the work.”

This week, one of seven of St Augustine City Manager John Regan’s hand-picked panelist, chosen to serve on an ostensibly impartial, unbiased and “balanced” committee, whose task it was to recommend “contextualization” of the city’s 1879 American Civil War memorial, tried to marginalize Mayor Nancy Shaver’s reaction to his recommendation to use inflammatory language on plaques proposed to be attached to the 139-year-old historic artifact.