This year brings us closer to a consensus on the proposed St. Augustine National Historical Park and Seashore. www.staugustgreen.com
The St. Augustine National Historical Park and Seashore will be a gift to our grandchildren -- and their grandchildren -- one that will keep on giving.
Thanks to everyone who supports the proposal -- YES WE CAN!
Reprinted below is my my testimony before our St. Johns County Legislative Delegation on December 10, 2010:
STATEMENT OF ED SLAVIN TO ST. JOHNS COUNTY LEGISLATIVE DELEGATION,
DECEMBER 10, 2010
Chairman Weinstein, Senators Hill, Thrasher and Wise and Representatives Proctor and Renuart:
I’m Ed Slavin and I’d like to request your support for the proposed St. Augustine National Historical Park, Seashore and Scenic Coastal Parkway. With your help, we can save more than $3 million a year for state and local governments; revive our economy; create better-paying jobs with real futures; protect our historic and environmental heritage; teach our children about history, beauty and nature; better preserve our beaches; protect homes from erosion; raise our property values; protect wildlife; and properly celebrate our City’s 450th Anniversary – and Spanish Florida’s 500th.
Want to take some $33 million off the state and local taxpayers’ backs over the next ten years? We can do it. As Exhibit A shows, we have vast tracts of government-owned land suitable for a National Park and Seashore – more than 120,000 acres. In Woodie Guthrie’s words, “This land is our land” already – it is our county beaches, state parks and forests and water management district land and as Exhibit A shows, it costs us more than $3 million a year. Combined with the Castillo San Marco and Fort Matanzas, this land will make one glorious National Park and Seashore that will make us all proud and properly celebrate our City’s 450th birthday.
We can save more than $33 million over ten years for state and local taxpayers. (Exhibit A).
At the same time, we can put people to work and draw environmental and historic tourists, who spend more and visit longer, putting more “heads in beds.” How? By empowering our National Park Service – America’s favorite federal agency – and implementing what Ken Burns’ PBS documentary rightly called “America’s Best Idea” – our National Parks.
We can help teach history and nature to future generations, with a National Civil Rights museum here in St. Augustine, celebrating our 11,000 years of indigenous Native American, African-American, Spanish, Minorcan, French, English, Civil War, Minorcan, Roman Catholic, Greek, Jewish, Protestant, nautical, military, Flagler-era and Civil Rights history.
We can preserve endangered species, including right whales (only 400 left), turtles, bald eagles, manatees, beach mice and butterflies. This National Park and Seashore will rival Cape Cod National Seashore, the Everglades, New Bedford, Philadelphia and other tourist “hot spots,” giving teachers and parents the tools to teach children lessons that will keep them coming back for more. Since our state’s economy has suffered so much since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, we look to BP to pay for it all as part of its economic and environmental remediation to the State of Florida.
The first step would be for the Governor and Legislature to agree to donate this land to the federal government. Let us combine this land into one “public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” as Congress said in 1872 in creating Yellowstone National Park.
Will you please help us celebrate 11,000 years of history and protect what deserves protecting forever inviolate? For more, please read www.staugustgreen.com, attached FAQs and Exhibits A&B (cost savings, draft legislation),
Will you please share your suggestions about how to improve the first draft of the legislation? Let us work together to accomplish something we can all be proud of, for future generations yet unborn who will thank you.
Ed Slavin
EASlavin@aol.com
Box 3084, St. Augustine, Florida 32085
904-829-3877 (o-direct)
215-554-1187 (cellular)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About St. Augustine National Historical Park and Seashore
1. Will this park legislation violate private property rights?
No. The draft legislation provides for donations of government lands and donations or sales from willing sellers. Condemnation lawsuits are authorized only to “preserve [historic buildings and land] from destruction.”
2. How would the park affect local businesses, tourist attractions and churches?
Very positively. Historic and environmental tourists spend more and stay longer, studies show. This will create more good-paying jobs, in the Park Service, kayaking, tour guide companies, restaurants, hotels and guest houses. There’s a list of tourist attractions and places of worship in the legislation that the National Park Service would be authorized to assist with historic interpretation. It includes the churches where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Andrew Young spoke, working with local residents to create our 1964 Civil Rights Act.
3. Will this legislation take over the government of the City of St. Augustine?
No. But St. Augustine can donate a few parks to the cause. Our city needs help and cannot handle the 450th celebration alone. A greater National Park Service presence here will help better guide and orient millions of visitors. The park will help make our city a better place – just ask the residents of Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras.
4. What positive changes will creation of a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore make?
A. Increase property values and local tax collections. Property values increase near National Parks and Seashores. Bed tax and sales tax receipts will increase.
B. Grow our economy. Our local economy is stagnant. NPS will help get us out of the ditch.
C. Reduce spending by our state, local and water management district government.
D. Increase the quality of marketing -- greatly simplified by combining all this land into one National Park.
E. Improve the quality of historic and environmental interpretation, preservation and protection. Right now, tourists learn very little about our African-American and Civil Rights history, for example, or the heroic history of the Minorcans and other immigrants to our shores, or the endangered species that make this area a paradise. NPS is experienced at protecting nature and interpreting history while stimulating tourism. A National Civil Rights museum here in St. Augustine will attract more school groups and minority tourists – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is known world-wide and his legacy here will attract tourists.
5. Why take county beaches? NPS is experienced at managing seashores and will invest more in beach preservation and renourishment if NPS owns the land. Nothing can beat the “National Seashore” and “National Park Service” brands. County beach employees will be eligible for federal jobs, benefits and retirement.
6. How will this affect historic re-enactors? Good jobs await them at the National Park Service.
7. Is this legislation family-friendly? Yes. Residents and tourists will thank you for creating a wholesome place to take children where they learn about history and our environment, with a classroom that is as big as all outdoors, embracing 11,000 years of human history on these shores.
8. How will this affect beach driving? The legislation does not address it, either way. Elsewhere, as in Cape Cod, residents are licensed to drive on NPS beaches after proper training and could take tourists on beach tours.
9. Is there a potential downside? One. Proper transportation planning is required to avoid congestion. The draft bill requires a plan for “cost-effective, sustainable, carbon-neutral, environmentally-friendly means of transporting visitors and residents to and through the park’s locations, using trolley cars resembling those in use in St. Augustine, Florida in 1928, with the goal of reducing hydrocarbon consumption, traffic congestion, air pollution and damage to historic structures.”
10. When was the National Park idea first proposed? Some seventy (70) years ago, before World War II.
11. What are we waiting for? You tell me!
12. What do you want the Legislature to do? Authorize transfer of lands to the National Park Service, paving the way for Congressional action in the 112th Congress, in time for the celebrations starting in 2013.
13. What will this cost the state, county and local governments? Nothing. It saves us millions of dollars annually.
14. How do we learn more? Please see www.staugustgreen.com.
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