Don't waste funds on new visitor center

Don't waste funds on new visitor center



Publication Date: 07/01/09

Editor: I was taken aback by the front page article in this past Sunday's RECORD on the $500,000 initial funding obtained by U.S. Rep. John Mica for a "'world class visitors' center' planned to be across the street from the Castillo de San Marcos."

The information in the article came as a total surprise to me. What are "the powers that be" thinking? There already is a visitor's information center across the street from the Castillo, attached to the city's parking garage and only a short walk from the planned new "world class visitors' center."

The St. Augustine and St. Johns County Visitor Information Center is in a unique building that has its own real history (built as a federal WPA project in the 1930s). It is spacious and has been beautifully renovated to serve and provide information about our beautiful city to visitors. It seems to me to be a terrible waste of funding and duplication of purpose; now I have grave concerns over the fate of the current VIC building.

Anne Kraft

St. Augustine