This week, while he's being sued for fraud by the Ponce family adn his financial empire is crumbling, New York real estate speculator ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD is moving dirt and building roads at the site of a 3000-4000 year old indigenous village, RED HOUSE BLUFF, on RED HOUSE BRANCH.
The report has been referred to EPA Region 4, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Coast Guard and the St. Johns River Water Management District. The report below is adapted and updated from the 2006 Collective Press article on the subject:
Possible Indian Chief’s Burial Site:
City Votes Condos, Strip Mall Over Wetland and Ancient Indian Village
By Ed Slavin
The Nation's Oldest City has ancient roots, including an Indian village here 2000 years before Jesus Christ was born, located near St. Augustine High School, with possible Indian burials.
On January 9, 2006 St. Augustine City Commissioners voted 4-1 to approve the proposal of developer Robert Graubard (Conch House Investments, Ancient City Realty), to build condominiums and a strip mall on a 16 acre property annexed into the city in 1997. Only then-Mayor George R. Gardner dissented.
ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD is now being sued by the Ponce family over alleged fraud involving the CONCH HOUSE condo project; one of his partners is a convicted bank and wire fraud felon who was under indictment when the CONCH HOUSE deal closed.
The vote approved deeding three acres of land to the city for a possible park. The 4-1 vote raises unanswered questions about building on a wetland that drains Twelve Mile Swamp and potentially destroying an ancient Indian village that is 4000 years old.
Commissioners noted that developers initially listed six acres as wetland, then claimed there were no wetlands. The change was not coherently explained.It is now being investigated.
United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Inspector General Bob Jones in Northern Virginia has referred the six acre wetland matter to the District Engineer in Jacksonville for possible enforcement action. USACE’s District Engineer has no application from the developer for a permit to fill in the wetland. Neither does the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD). The state and federal agencies are investigating.
Possible Indian Tribal Chief’s Burial Site
ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBARD hired the archeological consulting firm of Environmental Services, Inc. (ESI), which dug widely spaced holes on the land in 2003 and found large quantities of pottery and over a kilogram of long bone fragments in a 306 square meter rise. Then the work stopped, despite ESI’s recommendation for further investigation. The long bones were never chemically analyzed to determine if they were human. A state form was filled out claiming only animal bones were involved.The developer sidestepped the issue of possible Indian graves.
ESI concluded that Red House Bluff involved possible "prehistoric land altering activities" and a "largely intact cultural resource associated with the Late Archaic and Late Woodland periods," a time period that spanned 2000 years before Christ was born to 750 A.D.
ESI concludes, "Two dominant cultural concentrations, the Orange and St. Johns, yielded cultural concentrations that can contribute significant new information toward the better understanding of these periods in Northeast Florida." ESI concluded that the site is potentially eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and should be preserved. If preservation is not a viable option, then additional work would be necessary to determine eligibility status."
The project avoided archeological or wetlands scrutiny by state and federal officials until after it received City Commission approval in 2006. The Florida Archeological Site Form was filled out unconventionally in 2003 Three questions on whether the site is eligible for inclusion in local or national historic preservation listings are answered not with an X in a box marked yes or no, but with a notation, "Insufficient info."
A box checked on the form answered that bones found were animal, not human -- but no faunal chemical analysis was ever performed to determine the answer.
ESI typed on the unsworn form, "Phase I investigation revealed a moderate to high density artifact concentration south of Red House Branch. Pottery associated with the Late Archaic through Late Woodland [Periods] were recovered from intact strata. The potential for additional work to produce significant information is high."
The form also reiterates that "Further work is recommended." No further work was ever performed. University of Florida Anthropology Department Interim Chairman Dr. Kenneth Sassaman was surprised that there was no Phase II.
The’s state archeological form requires no signature or oath. How many government forms have you ever seen like that?
ESI’s consultant's archeology report was never sent to the state by the consultant or Graubard. Graubard is also the developer of Conch House Marina Resort condominiums, refusing to tell the St. Augustine Record names of out-of-county investors.
Florida's Bureau of Historic Protection (BHP) and Bureau of Archeology had no immediate comment on what steps might be taken. After Robert Handley, the ESI study author, was contacted by CP, he spoke with BHP’s Laura Kammerer, stating there was only an Indian "shell midden" (seashell disposal pit). ESI’s shell midden claim is contradicted [by ESI's own[ report and ridiculous, says Dr. Kenneth Sassaman (noting that the word shell does not appear in ESI’s report).
Dr. Sassaman says that the long bones found in the 306 square meter rise on the property and surviving long bone fragments in sand are consistent with an Indian burial site for an honored tribal member (chief, shaman, lineage head or elder). This fact may trigger laws protecting human remains and may explain why a park was deeded to the City.
Dr. Sassaman says that further study is required. I wonder why they didn’t investigate that rise a bit more -- it could be human ... it’s a business -- there are constraints upon how {ESI] operate{s].
If funding is available, UF may send graduate students to investigate.
Dr. Sassaman says what [ESI] recommended triggers the next step, which will include controlled test pitting and mapping, examination of layering, identification of other features present like pits, post holes, houses and mortuary remains Dr. Sassaman said that if the work was for a wetlands permit, the developer just can’t stop work. The new work will help the state determine what mitigation is required.
City Archeologist CARL HALBIRT told CP that, outside the ordinary course of business, he was never provided the ESI report by the City Planning and Zoning Department, of which his office is a part. Hirlibrt is now scrutinizing the report.
Hirlbirt said that the Indian village was known 20 years ago, but that there has still not been a thorough archeological investigation of artifacts that range in age from "4000 years ago to roughly 1000 years ago."
Preserving Indian History, Reconsidering Vote
Florida's Republican Governor Jeb Bush and Legislature starved archeological and historical agencies for funds. In today's political climate, historic Indian villages can easily be obliterated by developers. "That happens quite often," state archeologist Andrea White told us. Compared to construction, paving over a site is often "the best thing you can do." Limited imaginations sometimes confound, confine and cabin government officials’ options -- few think outside the box in the system in which they have worked for so long.
Of course, even the ESI report suggests that there are third and fourth options -- listing on the National Register of Historic Places and protection by the National Park Service (NPS) -- as was done with the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (1924) and NaNa (2004).NaNa is an ancient 60 foot sand dune in American Beach. NaNa was added to the NPS’ Timucuan Preserve under legislation sponsored by Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla) and supported by the late African- American activist MaVynee Betsch ( the Beach Lady ), preserving part of the traditionally African-American vacation community encroached upon by developers of Amelia Island Plantation.
The U.S. Government, State of Florida or City of St. Augustine may legally use eminent domain for public purposes. St. Augustine Historical Architecture Review Board (HARB) Chair Dana Ste. Clair proposed using eminent domain last year in a case where a landowner wanted to raze an historic home on Marine Street.
Mayor George Gardner told CP that the City's January 9, 2006 approval of a Planned Unit Development could be reconsidered, but that only one of the City Commissioners who voted in favor of it could make the motion under Roberts' Rules of Order. Mayor Gardner said, "Our city is all about history and we are all very sensitive to any archeological site" and that such sites help "to fill in the blanks in our history." He said he was "confident that staff archeologist Carl Hilbirt" now "will do it the right way... I appreciate that you were able to pick up on this and bring it to his attention... it might not have occurred otherwise... as with most laws and regulations, enforcement depends on us as residents of the area to make officials aware when these things occur... to make sure the right thing is done."
No public speaker supported the project and six were opposed (including Diane Mills, Debra Andrews, David Thundershield Queen and this writer). Attorney Debra Andrews represented neighbor Diane Mills, an adjoining resident who opposed the development. Attorney George McClure (Rogers Towers) represented Graubard. Efforts to obtain comment from Graubard, Andrews and McClure were unsuccessful.
Ms. Andrews’ and citizens’ videotape and photographs were unshared with the television audience (for "technical" reasons, the City staff claimed).This is flummery.
The city's pro-developer procedures are neither fair nor balanced.The process is Kabuki theater. It generates more heat than light.The developers nearly always win.McClure in particular has been blasted by the Folio Weekly Editor Anne Schindler for threatening even less desirable uses of land to get his client’s way. Pro-developer government lawyers and other public officials cave in at the slightest threat of developer litigation, while rarely rejecting proposals outright and rarely negotiating with any firmness.
Developer attorneys are unsworn and permitted the last word. Citizen time is artificially limited. Citizen questions and concerns are unanswered.
Developers are in control. In 2006, they are destroying the character of the Ancient City daily, moving faster than a speeding dump truck.
Sometimes a lot gets missed -- seaside splendor and historic structures.This time, the Ancient City’s Commissioners failed to protect a six acre wetland and a 4000 year old Indian village and possible burial site of a tribal chief or elder.
Asked to reconsider at their January 23 meeting, the City Commissioners did not ask a single question or make any comments or make any motions or take any vote.
Later, an ungrammatical and inaccurate "report" was provided by City Archaeologist CARL HALBIRT, who reports to PLANNING AND ZONING DIRECTOR MARK KNIGHT.
They have the right to remain silent, but we wish they wouldn’t.
Take Action:
The next Commission meeting is August 13, 2007: local activists are again expected to speak. Like all good diplomats, they won’t take no for an answer. Any one of four Commissioners Vice Mayor Susan Burk, Donald Crichlow or Joseph Boles or Errol Jones (who all supported the developer on January 9, 2007 ) may move to reconsider under Roberts’ Rules of Order. Then-Mayor George Gardner was the only dissenting vote on ROBERT MICHAEL GRAUBRD's RED HOUSE BLUFF PROJECT.
Come to the Commission meeting in the Alcazar at City Hall (the Lightner Museum Building). Fill out speaker cards at 5 PM and speak during public comment periods at the beginning and end of the meetings.
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