St. Augustine Record Endorses Nancy Sikes-Kline for City Commission

Editorial: Sikes-Kline has expertise where it's needed most on St. Augustine City Commission
Posted: October 16, 2014 - 11:34pm
In the Seat 5 City Commission race, political newcomer Grant Misterly seeks the seat of Nancy Sikes-Kline, who’s asking voters for a third term on the board.
Misterly isn’t a newcomer to city issues. He served six years on the Planning and Zoning Board, including a stint as its chairman. He’s worked on the entrance corridor committee and is on the Vision steering committee. In his professional life, he’s spent 15 years working on municipal engineering, including work on some local projects.
Misterly is well spoken on city issues and certainly has the makings and credentials to be an effective commissioner.
His mantra centers on proactively working to improve the city’s infrastructure in a sustainable, affordable manner. He sees governance in the Oldest City as a special challenge, especially in terms of infrastructure issues. He says that means city government needs to be “nimble and creative.”
On the hot-button issue of the 450th celebration, both candidates believe the process is losing focus and costing the city too much money.
Misterly has concerns about an $83 million, five-year capital improvement plan recently put together by the city. Sikes-Kline is proud of her role in pushing it toward adoption. We see it as a position-neutral: A road map, not a budget item; the pace of adoption, based on the strength of the budgets year-to-year — flexible as feasible.
Sikes-Kline has served six years (she was seated mid-term when Joe Boles vacated a seat to run for mayor).
Her resume is thick with local service, including being a founding board member of the North Davis Shores Neighborhood Association, founding chair of the Archaeological Maritime Program, chair of the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum board and past president of the Junior Service League. The vice-mayor is an urban land use planning consultant.
But her interests are clearly on the history and preservation of the city. She is deeply invested in the Department of Historic Preservation.
But practically, her real clout on the board may stem from her chairmanship of the North Florida Transportation Planning Organization. She’s helped guide substantial grants for local transportation projects to the area, and is in a position to bring more dollars here in the future. It’s a job that takes time and effort.
In our endorsement of Todd Neville in Wednesday’s The Record, we tried to make clear that both candidates were talented and committed. We made the decision to back one over the other because Neville better fit what we saw as a need on the board — currently “two lawyers, two architects and a preservationist” is a popular term tossed around by the candidates.
By the same reasoning, we do not believe that the board should be without the strongest possible advocate for the issue around which every other consideration should revolve — the stewardship of our history, heritage and historic properties. Nancy Sikes-Kline is that person. She been a solid protector of these treasures, while expanding her sweep of relevance well outside those confines, forging relationships at the state and national level in the transportation and preservation arenas. She has continually sought extra training in municipal government and metropolitan planning while in office — growing as a commissioner.
She has, we believe, proven to be a quietly effective commissioner — advocating for the past and bringing home the bacon for the future. We recommend that voters return her to her seat to continue that work.