Arts, Entertainment and Honoring 10,000 Years of St. Augustine History

Arts, Entertainment and Honoring 10,000 Years of St. Augustine History
St. Augustine needs to encourage our artists, musicians, entertainers and culinary artists (cooks) while doing a better job of presenting our history. Here are a few thoughts:
1. The Spanish Quarter Museum, St. George Street and Visitor Information Center need live, authentic Spanish guitar music and dancers. Truly welcoming people and saying hello needs to bring them back into the 16th century with authentic music -- live music (not tape). The acoustics of the VIC will help showcase talented authentic Spanish guitarists.
2. We need murals by local artists in alleys between buildings.
3. We need to vote on whether to adopt all of the 2003 recommendations of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, including the $1 surcharge on guided tours. This will help fund historic preservation purchases and should not discourage visitors (City Commissioners recently approved higher fees for the Tour Trains and Old Town Trolleys). The demand curve for tours is sufficiently inelastic that the tour companies asked for a raise in their fees.
4. We need more "dining in the colonial manner," like in Colonial Williamsburg. The Taberna is a good start, but we need larger historic taverns/restaurants, with candlelight, live authentic Spanish music, food, menus, furnishings and costumed servers. We need more outdoor restaurants, with live music. St. Augustine's reputation as a city of artists and entertainers must be respected and not neglected.
5. We need to emphasize our 10,000 years of indigenous and Spanish and history and truly welcome visitors to the Nation's Oldest City, starting with signs proclaming 10,000 years of history and an historic preservation park on the entire 17 acre Red House Bluff site next to St. Augustine High School, a site that Commissioners voted January 9 to turn into condos and a strip mall operated by developer ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD (Mayor George Gardner dissenting).
Today's City Commission workshop on Spanish Quarter Village and VIC were very constructive, with good ideas and participation. We need more of that in our town.
After years of efforts by special interest and City managers, the artists and entertainers were kicked off St. George Street by City Commission ukase. People failed to talk and compromise, empowered by the demonizing of artists and entertainers.
People on both sides, like J.D. Pleasant (artists and enterainers) and Dana Ste. Claire (historic preservation), encouraged compromise.
Those efforts to compromise were unavailing, leaving St. George Street today too plastic, with too many inauthentic stores and too little of our history.
History and arts/entertainment are two parts of the same rich cultural tradition. We must honor both and plan a better City in the 21st century.
We can do better.
What do you think?