Photo credit: Greg Travous & Hans Holbein the Younger
Locals get royal treatment
By Sheldon Gardner
Posted at 2:01 AM
St. Augustine Record
More than 10 years ago, a few local officials gathered at a table at Barnacle Bills in St. Augustine and started hashing out plans on a napkin.
Their goal: to come up with a series of celebrations over the years leading to St. Augustine’s 450th anniversary that would put the city and its history on an international stage.
Then-Mayor Joe Boles and Dana Ste. Claire, who ultimately led the city’s 450th anniversary department, were among those at the table. Ste. Claire said Thursday that while the goals that came out of that lunch meeting were big, most of them came to fruition.
“That included bringing in the king and queen of Spain ... which the naysayers said we’d never be able to do,” he said.
Boles and Ste. Claire are the latest public officials awarded the Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic by Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. The award, created by Spain’s King Ferdinand VII in 1815 and named for Queen Isabel, recognizes their roles in the 450th celebrations and for increasing awareness of the city’s Spanish history.
Spanish Ambassador Pedro Morenes presented the award on behalf of the royals during a ceremony in recent months in Coral Gables. Spanish Consul General Candido Creis also attended the event.
Morenes later traveled to Washington, D.C., to give the same award to U.S. Senator Tim Kaine. Kaine leads the U.S. Spain-Council and introduced St. Augustine officials to the king and queen of Spain at a dinner in Malaga, Spain.
Creis gave the same award to City Manager John Regan in 2016 for his role in organizing the 450th. During an interview at the time, Creis called the award probably one of the most important recognitions that Spain can give to a foreigner.
Boles served as mayor of St. Augustine until 2014, when he lost the election to current Mayor Nancy Shaver. While he wasn’t able to host the culmination of events in 2015, he said things turned out nicely.
“I felt like the groom at the wedding instead of a wedding planner,” Boles said.
Boles is an attorney with a firm in St. Augustine. Ste. Claire is an archaeologist and heritage tourism specialist, which includes designing and developing museums and attractions.
The royals visited St. Augustine in September 2015. Before the royal tour, the city hosted a multi-day festival for the 450th anniversary and several years of events leading up to the big day. Those events included celebrating in 2013 the 500th anniversary of Juan Ponce de Leon’s founding of Florida and in 2014 celebrating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act — the demonstrations and violence that occurred in St. Augustine played a role in the success of the measure.
The city also hosted exhibits such as Journey: 450 Years of the African-American Experience in 2014, and officials helped draw the U.S.-Spain Council international summit to the area.
″[Those years] turned out to be a wonderful period of time in our nation’s history,” Boles said.
Both Boles and Ste. Claire said they accepted the awards on behalf of everyone in St. Augustine who contributed to the events.
“We did this as a community,” Ste. Claire said.
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Edward Adelbert Slavin
1. This on page one, two (2) months after ceremony, three (3) years after 450th. Why?
2. What level of the Order did the pair receive?
3. This "puff piece" is dull PR for controversial disgraced ex-Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR. & his sidekick, DANA STE. CLAIRE, a/k/a "PRIMA DANA," who in 2009 -- during the terrible time when the City Manager was WILLIAM BARRY HARRISS -- was hired by Commission outside the City Charter, with NO advertising of the job vacancy.
4. In 2016, City Manager John Patrick Regan, P.E. rightly received this same award in a ceremony at City Hall. http://www.staugustine.com/news/local-news/2016-09-09/spain-honors-city-manager. Mr. Regan deserved it; do BOLES & STE. CLAIRE. Their sleazy no-bid contacts and poor planning nearly doomed the 450th. Thanks to Mr. Regan & Mayor Nancy Shaver, our City was able to salvage it. The 450th effort was misbegotten, with BOLES in 2009 expecting a $50 million federal museum, like in Jamestown, Va. BOLES did not support the St. Augustine National Historical Park & National Seashore, leaving the City with not much of a legacy from 450th.
5. Why did BOLES & STE. CLAIRE get the award in Coral Gables in 2018?« less
Edward Adelbert Slavin
6. Is disgraced ex-Mayor JOE BOLES running for Mayor? Please investigate.
7. Is this PR "puff piece" partial payback for BOLES' advertising with the Record?
8. Again, WHY is this dumb 'ole PR puff piece on page one?
9. A "prima dona" is "a very temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance."
10. Two influential but tawdry "prima donas," disgraced ex-Mayors (CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR. & JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR.) STILL benefit from below-market rate lease of valuable City-owned commercial property at 81 St. George Street, ably exposed by investigative reporting in Folio Weekly Magazine in 2014. http://folioweekly.com/THE-BLOGGER-THE-LEASE-AND-THE-ST-AUGUSTINE-MAYORS-RACE,10719.
11. WEEKS destroyed DON PEDRO FORNELLS HOUSE on September 25, 2014, working without permits, fined only $3700, wiht City Attorney ISABELLE CHRISTINE LOPEZ hugging WEEKS after conclusion of the Code Enforcement Hearing.
12. Our beloved small town's history, culture and nature are under attack by greedy developers.
13. Yet the St. Augustine Record STILL devotes a disproportionate amount of ink and electrons to such pompous "prima donas," and advertisers as JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR. and DANA STE. CLAIRE, a/k/a "PRIMA DANA."
14. GateHouse/Austin: do you support this editorial judgment?
15. Where is the investigative reporting that we all expect, and which we were promised? Sheldon? Craig?
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