GUEST COLUMN: All aboard for Fish Island Park (by Ed Slavin, SAR)

My column from the Sunday St. Augustine Record. . Come speak to the Monday, September 24, 2018 St. Augustine City Commission. PARK NOW.





GUEST COLUMN: All aboard for Fish Island Park
By Ed Slavin / St. Johns County
Posted Sep 21, 2018 at 10:57 AM
Updated Sep 21, 2018 at 10:57 AM


St. Augustine woke up to wonderful news on Sept. 8, 2018, our 453rd anniversary. No appeal was filed by the developer of the proposed Fish Island gated community.

Thanks to Matanzas Riverkeeper Jen Lomberk and everyone else who organized, attended and spoke at the July 3 and Aug. 7 PZB hearings, and to those who tried to attend and speak. It was standing room only Aug. 7, with dozens waiting/watching TV on the loggia.

Decisions are made by people who show up. Three cheers for all who spoke, including Sierra Club and Audubon Society witnesses who photographed the active bald eagles’ nest, former St. Augustine Beach Mayor S. Gary Snodgrass and former St. Augustine City Archaeologist Carl Halbirt.

Thanks also to D.R. Horton, Inc., Fish Island Development LLC, Jim Young, and RogersTowers Attorneys at Law lawyer Ellen Avery-Smith for not appealing from PZB’s wise final decision.

For doing their jobs independently, based upon the law and facts, without fear or favor of vast corporate power and wealth, thanks and praise to PZB Chair Sarah Ryan and PZB members Grant Misterly, Karen Zander, Susan Agresta and Matthew Shaffer — the five PZB members who unanimously voted down the PUD. Thanks also to PZB member Carl Blow, who bailed on voting/participating after staff stigma/pressures in response to his asking questions of the applicant, in one of those ex parte meetings city officials must stop holding with developers.

Three cheers for PZB members’ independence, despite pestilential pressures from certain city staff and commissioners, some of whom expect PZB members to be louche lapdogs, not watchdogs (as when Commission adopted 4-1 Ordinance 2018-11, allowing “at will” firing of PZB. members).

What’s next? Preserving Fish Island as a public park. The City of St. Augustine Beach bought two parks with available state funds.

Why does it matter? Your future Fish Island Park embraces beautiful, natural waterfront and iconic viewshed; pristine, 75-acre Matanzas River wildlife habitat; homes for our bald eagles and other threatened and endangered species; historic site of Florida’s first citrus agriculture industry (mid-1700s), the burial place of Jesse Fish and his slaves, the site of remains of Fish’s mansion and some eight slave cabins; the last undeveloped, unprotected property bordering our pristine Matanzas River, a prime oyster-growing waterway (and perhaps Florida’s only remaining pristine estuary).

Prediction: Our Fish Island Park will become part of the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore, first proposed by Mayor Walter Fraser in 1939, introduced by then-Sens. Claude Pepper and Charles Andrews and Rep. Joseph Hendricks. Fish Island Park will help protect us from floods amidst ocean level rise, preserve Matanzas River water, wildlife and oyster quality and enhance environmental and historic tourism,

Do it for your grandchildren, and for their grandchildren: Now’s the time for organizing and action to help create Fish Island Park. Help out. Contact commissioners at both St. Augustine and the Beach, your five county commissioners, your state and federal legislators, and candidates — today.


Comments
Edward Adelbert Slavin
Some 50 people showed up and spoke at the August 7, 2018 PZB or July 3, 2018 hearings, also including: Joe Blewett, Amy Koch, Tim Lyman, Rhonda Lovett, Adam Morley, Gregg Feldman, Steve Parkin, J.R. Valentine, Brandon Murawski, Dr. Virginia Quelch, Dr. Greg Smith, Marsha Chance, Tammy Johns, Brian Paradise, Susan Hill, Jon Hodgin, Sara Bailey, Trey Asner, Richard Hardy, Erin Finney, Patricia Scott, Genarro Schiavelli, Kay Lee, Craig Williams, Karen Carter Lewis, Carl Halbert, Dorothy Barrett, Marcia Daniels, Logan Williams, Karen Lane, Gina Burrell, Carolyn Smith, Eric Smith, George Ellis, Tonya Salyer, Alex Barr, Tim Lyman, Tom Brinton, Christopher Wiggin, Lisa McGreevy, Diane Lewitt, Bob Lane, Ed Slavin, BJ Kalaidi, Doug O’Conner.