The St. Johns Tattler

Driver killed in fiery I-95 crash near International Golf Parkway

2026-11-08T00:00:00.000Z

A driver was killed early Saturday on southbound Interstate 95 in St. Johns County, according to Florida Highway Patrol accounts carried by two Jacksonville outlets. The St. Johns Citizen reported that the crash happened around 1:30 a.m. near mile marker 325, and that troopers said the sedan veered onto the right shoulder. The car ran off the interstate, struck several trees and came to rest burning in the tree line west of the highway, the same report said.

News4JAX reported the crash happened shortly after 1 a.m. just before International Golf Parkway, and said the two right southbound lanes stayed blocked while crews worked the scene. The station updated its report at 6:41 Saturday morning and said the patrol had released no additional details.

The patrol had yet to identify the driver as of the Citizen’s report on Saturday afternoon, and the station’s account likewise carried no name. The crash remains under investigation, according to both outlets, and neither account reported any other vehicle as involved.

St. Augustine weighs $17 million Monday for a new A1A fire station

2026-11-08T00:00:00.000Z

The city is asked Monday to borrow up to $17 million for a new fire station on A1A.

Resolution 2026-34 authorizes not to exceed $17,000,000 in Capital Improvement Revenue Bonds, Series 2026. It is item 9.B.1 on the agenda, in the section that requires no public hearing.

The title begins on page 7 of the packet. The cost of carrying the debt appears nowhere in its 251 pages.

The project, as the draft bond documents describe it, is a new 12,790-square-foot resilient structure on A1A, replacing the station at A1A and Red Cox Road. The documents say it would serve Anastasia Island and downtown, double as a community point of distribution during a natural disaster, and allow traffic and pedestrian improvements at that intersection.

The security is worth a reader’s minute. These are not property tax bonds. The city covenants to budget and appropriate legally available non-ad valorem revenues each year, which is a promise to find the money in the rest of the budget rather than a pledge of the millage. The same draft documents say the city expects to carry the same kind of covenant for a parking garage lease with West Augustine Gateway, LLC, on terms a memorandum of understanding set in January 2026.

What the packet does not say is what the borrowing costs. The truth-in-bonding statement on page 68 is a form with its numbers missing: the repayment period, the true interest cost, the total interest and the average annual debt service are all blank lines. They get filled in when the bonds sell at competitive sale.

Interest starts running April 1, 2027.

One other item returns. Resolution 2026-38, a policy for preserving and reusing the historic paving bricks in city streets, was moved off the Oct. 26 agenda “to allow for additional revisions,” per the draft minutes of that meeting. The revised version starts on page 197.

The consent agenda carries the draft minutes of Oct. 12 and both Oct. 26 meetings. What the Oct. 12 draft records, and what it does not, is its own story.

The meeting is Monday at 5 p.m. in the Alcazar Room at City Hall. The packet runs 251 pages by its own footers.

The one number a reader would most want is the annual payment, and it is not in there yet. It arrives after the vote, which is fine. That is how a not-to-exceed works.

The city's draft Oct. 12 minutes do not record two of the night's votes

2026-11-08T00:00:00.000Z

The written record of the city commission’s Oct. 12 meeting reaches the board Monday, on the consent agenda, as a draft waiting for approval. Two of the night’s decisions are in it without a vote.

This paper could not report that meeting from a city record in October, because no city record of its votes existed anywhere. The release the city posted carried no roll, and the account of the carriage vote ran here attributed to the St. Johns Citizen. The draft minutes are the city’s own version, four weeks later, arriving for approval on Monday’s consent agenda, and they are worth reading closely.

The carriage franchises

Most of the carriage item is recorded in full, roll by roll. Eight applications came in, three were denied on background checks, and the applicants appealed. Two appeals were granted, each 4/1, with Vice Mayor Barbara Blonder the nay both times. One denial stood, and the staff summary counts it plainly: 8 applications, 1 denial upheld, 7 possible franchise agreements, 10 medallions, one per applicant and the remaining three by lottery.

The record of that third appeal argues with itself. The motion as drafted reads “UPHOLD the appeal,” and the draft marks it approved unanimously, two paragraphs after a discussion concluding the applicant was ineligible. Three items later the summary says one denial was upheld. A reader gets to pick which sentence the board meant, and a minute book is not supposed to offer the choice.

Then the award itself. Commissioner Jon DePreter moved to award the seven applicants one medallion each, send the last three to a lottery, and limit the agreements to three years. An amendment, on cost evaluations and the city manager’s discretion over idle franchises, carried 3/2: DePreter, Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline and Commissioner Cynthia Garris for, Commissioners Jim Springfield and Blonder against.

The vote on the award motion itself is not in the draft. The amendment’s roll is the only 3/2. The Citizen reported the franchises carried 3 to 2, and this paper printed that with the attribution on it. The city’s own record, as drafted, stops one motion short of saying so.

That is the gap.

The interim city manager

Item 13.A is the appointment of Reuben Franklin, the assistant city manager, as the interim manager of the city. The draft records that one person applied, that the board discussed it, and then prints the heading MOTION. Nothing follows it. No mover. No second. No roll. No words moved. The next entry is the following agenda item, in which a commissioner congratulates Franklin on being appointed.

The term has the same problem it had in October, with a new date in it. The memorandum on the dais that night asked for a term running from Dec. 17, 2026 to June 17, 2027. The city’s release gave Dec. 17 twice and no end. The draft bond paperwork in Monday’s packet now prints a third version: Birchim is expected to retire Dec. 15, and Franklin becomes interim city manager starting Dec. 16, “until such time as a new City Manager is selected by the City Commission.” No end date, and a start one day earlier than the item the board acted on.

What the draft does settle

Plenty. The park at 865 Fish Island Road is named Stone Cutters Creek Park, by unanimous voice vote. Resolution 2026-36, letting Flagler College issue up to $18,000,000 in refunding bonds, carried with four ayes and Blonder recused as a college employee. Ordinance 2026-23, which raises the parking fine from thirty-five to one hundred dollars in an expanded downtown and Davis Shores boundary, passed first reading Oct. 12 with Garris not present, and the Oct. 26 draft in the same packet records it passing second reading unanimously. A commissioner credited the Florida Inland Navigation District representative with helping the city land $425,000 in grant funds.

A draft is a draft. The commission can amend the minutes Monday before it approves them, and the two blanks are exactly the kind of thing an amendment fixes.

The record is the only part of a meeting the public gets to keep.

Monday the board is asked to keep this one.

Satsang under the oak at 6, and the free rooms carry Sunday until 1

2026-11-08T00:00:00.000Z

The room tonight is Colonial Oak Music Park, 21 St George Street, the outdoor yard under the big oak, and the band is Satsang, out of Montana, which the venue’s own description files under folk and soul. Satsang plays 6 to 10. Ticketed. The park’s own page prints no price, and the Eventbrite page it links to read “From $28.41” tonight. Sunday shows here end early enough to get you home.

You want to be in by 6.

There is no opener on the card.

Out at the beach, The Original Cafe Eleven, 501 A1A Beach Boulevard, has Sons of Paradise with Stylie at 7:30. All ages, under 18 with a parent, $5 under-21 fee at the door, standing room. The kitchen serves until the music starts, then it is drinks and desserts. The page prints no ticket price. That number lives at the door or the ticket link.

The free rooms carry the rest of the night, and no page prints a cover for any of them.

Prohibition Kitchen has Reggae Collective at 6, off the venue’s own calendar.

Tradewinds, 124 Charlotte Street, runs all day. Shayla Nelson opens on the venue’s own Sunday grid, Sizemore plays 5:30 to 8:30 on the bureau’s calendar, and Mike Johnson and Brad Burns take the 9 o’clock, the only 9 on either page, running to 1 a.m. by the bureau’s listing. The grid says to check the bar’s Facebook for last-minute changes, so do that before you walk over for the late set.

The Milltop has Gabby Samuels noon to 4 and Jon Q 4:30 to 8:30, off the tavern’s own page. Those are daylight sets.

Sarbez has Friends Like Us at 8 on the bureau’s calendar, one hour. The bar’s own page does not list it. Worth knowing before you build a night on a set only one calendar carries.

No car: the STAR shuttle is free and runs 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. tonight. The loop is 18 stops, from the Visitor Information Center over the Bridge of Lions to St. Augustine Beach and back. That covers the oak, Prohibition Kitchen, Tradewinds, the Milltop and Cafe Eleven on one route. It stops at 9. The late set at Tradewinds and the last hour at Cafe Eleven are on you to get home from.

Monday: Sam Pacetti at Prohibition Kitchen at 6, and The Garcia Project opens two seated nights at Cafe Eleven at 8, with table seating reserved for reserved-seat tickets and the same under-21 fee at the door.

Bike share opens with 14 stations and two answers on the price

2026-11-07T00:00:00.000Z

The bike share opened Friday morning with a ribbon-cutting at 10 in the Plaza de la Constitucion, on the day the city’s Oct. 27 release named. It is run by Drifters, the local rental operator, on public land the city made room for under its Mobility Plan. When this paper previewed the launch on Oct. 28, the city’s release said pricing was published on the app and the program website, and the website carried no price of any kind as retrieved that morning.

The prices are up now. There are two sets of them.

The system is 14 stations and 170 docks, by the operator’s own count, from the Downtown Marina and the Lightner Museum to Lighthouse Park and the Amphitheatre, with stations in Lincolnville and Uptown. News4JAX, which covered the launch Friday, reports the city launched the program through local company Drifters Inc. with at least 90 bikes across the city. A rider downloads the app, unlocks a bike at any station, and docks it at any other. Up to four can be rented at a time, and the operator’s FAQ says the frame fits riders from about 4 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 6 inches.

The price depends on which of the operator’s own pages you read. The homepage prices a one-hour ride at $5.50, with each hour after at $4.50. The FAQ answers the same question this way: “$5.50 + $4.50 for the first hour = $10 and $4.50 for each hour after.” Those are different first hours, five and a half dollars apart. Same company, same day. News4JAX’s account matches the homepage, rental fees starting at $5.50 for the first hour.

The membership has the same problem. The FAQ’s cost answer gives the Local Passport at $18 for one month, $90 for six months or $180 for a year, and the answer directly below it gives six months at $99.

The yearly figure, $180, is the only one both answers agree on.

Ten of the ninety bikes are pedal-assist. The motor helps to 15 mph. The price is the same as a pedal bike, for now. All major credit cards are accepted, per the FAQ, and the fare is charged in the app from the moment a bike unlocks.

The operator is not new to this. By its own timeline, Drifters opened in St. Augustine in 2017 and ran a small bike share called Out Post starting in 2019. Owner Ian Guthrie told News4JAX the app is built to point riders at local businesses as much as to move them: “when you get a bike, great, but now you know where to go and what to do, and that’s what’s going to set this apart.”

The city’s part is the land and the plan. The operator’s site quotes the city on its Mobility Plan: “The bike share program is an important part of the City’s Mobility Plan that envisions making bicycling an integral part of daily life for St. Augustine residents and visitors.” One promise from the city’s October release is still outstanding. That release said Flagler College student discounts were available, with the information on the app and the program website. Neither operator page retrieved tonight prints a student rate. It may live in the app, which this paper cannot read, and the website is where the city pointed readers.

The stations are live now.

What a first hour costs is a question the operator’s two pages answer two ways, and this paper has printed both until one of them changes.

Five county teams open the regionals Friday, two draw the FIT

2026-11-07T00:00:00.000Z

The pairings are posted. Seven of the eight county schools play next week.

Five open the regional quarterfinals on Friday, Nov. 13. Two are home.

St. Augustine (9-1) hosts Lincoln (4-6) at H.L. ‘Foots’ Brumley Stadium in Class 4A, after a 5-0 run through District 4 left the Yellow Jackets first in it.

The statewide board’s card carries no kickoff. MaxPreps lists 7:30 p.m.

Lake Mary (2-8) comes to Creekside (8-2) in Class 6A. Creekside High School Stadium, 7:30.

The other three travel, all in Class 5A.

Bartram Trail (7-3) at Evans (7-3). Trojan Field, Orlando, 7:30.

Ponte Vedra (3-7) at Buchholz (9-1). Citizens Field, Gainesville, 7:30.

Nease (7-3) drew the long one. Pace (7-2) sits in Santa Rosa County in the western Panhandle, which keeps Central time, so the two boards split the clock: FloridaHSFootball prints the Patriots Stadium kickoff at 8:30, MaxPreps at 7:30.

Beachside (6-4) and Tocoi Creek (3-7) play a night earlier, Thursday, Nov. 12, and in a different bracket.

The board cards both games as FIT 6A-4A North Quarterfinals.

The FIT is the Florida Invitational Tournament. That is the FHSAA’s own name for it, and the 4A-6A bracket runs beside the class regionals.

Yulee (6-4) comes to Barracuda Stadium. 7:30.

Tocoi Creek goes to Lake Howell (6-4) in Winter Park. Same night, same clock.

The two roads end in different towns, which is the tell that they are different tournaments: the FIT championships run Dec. 3 to 5 at The Range at H.G. Morse Stadium in The Villages, and the class state championships run Dec. 9 to 12 at South Dade Kia Field at Pitbull Stadium in Miami.

Menendez is on no card. The school’s name appears nowhere in the week 13 file.

Seven games. Four bus rides.

The first one kicks off Thursday.

Saturday: A Flock of Seagulls at 8, and the music runs to 1:30

2026-11-07T00:00:00.000Z

Forty-seven listings on the county calendar today. I counted the rows myself.

Here is the night, latest first.

Tradewinds holds the latest slot in town. The county calendar has Blistur there from 9 to 1:30 in the morning, at 124 Charlotte Street. The bar’s own page is looser than that, and its Saturday row reads “Weekend Band 9:00 Check our Facebook Page.”

The bar’s November weekend table names nobody tonight.

The page prints no cover anywhere.

Nine is solid. The band’s name is the county’s word.

Prohibition Kitchen has Mandalla at 10.

Their own calendar says midnight. The county’s page says 1 a.m. Plan on midnight. Be glad past it.

Shine plays the early slot, 6 to 9.

Mill Top, 19 1/2 St. George Street, runs Alan Dalton & Terry Campbell from 9 to 11:59 on its own page. ZaZa Flamenca holds 17 King from 9 to midnight, per the county calendar.

Both of the ticketed shows start at 8 tonight.

A Flock of Seagulls, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall. Doors 6:30. Tickets run $52.79 to $81.14 on the venue’s page.

Not a twelve-dollar night. I am just the messenger.

Ellis Paul plays Cafe Eleven, beach side. Doors 7, show 8, seated. All ages, under 18 with a parent. Under 21 pays a $5 fee at the door.

The page prints no base ticket price, and it prints one very usable line instead: half price happy hour every day, 3 to 7. Food is served until the show starts, then it is drinks and desserts only, so eat first.

The Mudtown set at Sarbez runs just an hour, 8 to 9. Papercutt plays Colonial Oak from 6 to 11, with no cover printed.

Daylight options, if you are reading this early.

The St. ARTistine Art and Food Festival runs 10 to 5 at Francis Field.

The Hastings Fall Harvest Festival runs 9 to 4 at 408 Main Street in Hastings.

The ride home tonight is the STAR shuttle.

It is free until 11 tonight. That is its published Saturday schedule, downtown and the island stops both. After 11 you are walking, pedaling, or paying up.

The order, on my twelve dollars: Colonial Oak at 6, Mill Top at 9, last set at Tradewinds.

Covers spent: nothing anybody printed.

St. Augustine pays $40,000 and takes down gun signs to end lawsuit

2026-11-06T00:00:00.000Z

The signs are down and the case is over. The St. Johns Citizen reports St. Augustine has removed the signs prohibiting firearms at its public buildings, will pay $40,000 to settle the lawsuit Florida Carry, Inc. brought over them, and saw the case dismissed this week.

The vote was 5 to 0 on Oct. 26, the Citizen reports, after the commission met behind a closed door on litigation costs and strategy. That session is the one this paper reported the day before it happened. The notice set it for 3 p.m. in the Alcazar Room, estimated fifteen minutes, and named all five commissioners, the city manager, the city attorney and a certified court reporter.

Nobody else.

The notice called Case No. CA26-1218 “the pending eminent domain matter,” which is fine. The case was about gun signs. The notice never said the words. Florida Carry argued the city’s signs and the way employees enforced them ran into section 790.33, the statute in which the Legislature declares it occupies the whole field of firearms regulation, to the exclusion of every county and municipal ordinance. The existing ones it declares null and void.

What the city bought for its $40,000 is an ending. City Attorney Isabelle Lopez told commissioners the payment covers Florida Carry’s attorney fees, the Citizen reports, and the group agreed in exchange to dismiss with prejudice. The same claims cannot be brought again. No refiling and no sequel. A city spokesperson declined to comment Thursday.

The group’s own timeline runs about five months, as the Citizen carries it. Florida Carry says it wrote the city in late February about a sign at the Visitor Information Center on South Castillo Drive, and later learned of similar signs at other municipal buildings. It sued in St. Johns County Circuit Court in July. The complaint held a photograph of the visitor center sign and alleged more signs at City Hall.

One document comes due because of the ending itself.

Everything said behind that door was taken down, because the statute allows no portion of a shade session off the record. Under paragraph (8)(e) of the Sunshine Law, the transcript becomes part of the public record upon conclusion of the litigation, and that condition is now met. The Tattler will read the transcript when the city files it, and will report what the room was told the case would cost against the $40,000 it did.

Art Walk runs 5 to 9 tonight and the music goes past 1 a.m.

2026-11-06T00:00:00.000Z

Friday night, ranked.

1. First Friday Art Walk, 5 to 9, free. The galleries open their doors, pour something, and let you wander. Tours start at 22 Marine Street and the maps are free at any participating gallery. Go early if you want room to actually see the walls. The Cathedral Basilica carries an Art Walk concert from 6 to 7, which is a lot of ceiling for free.

2. Bruce Cockburn at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall. Doors 6:30, show at 8, Livingston Taylor opening, and the room is seated. Tickets run $55.06 to $108.35 on the venue’s page, still on sale. That is real money. It is also the only show on tonight’s list with a printed price.

3. The free-music circuit, if the Art Walk is not your speed. Tangled Orchid at Colonial Oak Music Park, 7 to 10. Griffin House at Cafe Eleven at 8; the calendar prints no price for it, so check before you drive to the beach. None of the bar rooms on tonight’s calendar prints a cover.

4. The late shift. Chillula at Prohibition Kitchen, 10 to 1. Blistur at Tradewinds from 8:30 to 1:30 in the morning, which is the last music standing in the county tonight. The Mill Top runs Jon Q from 4:30 to 8:30, then Alan Dalton and Terry Campbell from 9 to midnight. Three rooms, zero printed covers. All a ten-minute walk apart.

5. Hastings, today and tomorrow. The Fall Harvest Festival runs at 408 Main Street, 9 to 3 today and 9 to 4 Saturday. Jacksonville Today reports admission is free: growers selling direct, food vendors, live entertainment, old tractors. The $100 farm tour and the $125 farm-to-table dinner are the ticketed extras, and the outlet reports the tour covers four working farms with lunch in it. The free part is the point. Skip the tour unless somebody else is paying.

Tomorrow, so you can plan: the St. ARTistine Art and Food Festival takes Francis Field from 10 to 5, the Botanical Garden throws itself a third-birthday party from 10 to 5 with a band in the afternoon, the Harvest Festival runs its second day, and A Flock of Seagulls plays the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall, same room as tonight.

One warning, same as every week. No printed cover is not a promise of no cover. Bring a little cash and nobody can strand you.

Board denies 250,000-square-foot Inman Road business park twice in one day

2026-11-06T00:00:00.000Z

A business park of up to 250,000 square feet on Inman Road is dead for now, denied twice in one sitting. The number that killed it was not the square footage. The St. Johns Citizen reports the County Commission voted the plan down on Nov. 3, agreed at the applicant’s request to hear further testimony, and then denied it a second time, 4 to 1.

The mechanism first, because the mechanism is where this one was decided. MAJMOD 2025-12 asked for a major modification to the Last Mile Distribution Facility PUD at 3960 Inman Road, north of State Road 16 near Interstate 95. A PUD, a planned unit development, is the custom rule set a builder trades for the standard zoning. The modification would have renamed the project FL St. Augustine Inman and allowed up to 250,000 square feet of light industrial and flex warehousing on approximately 58.74 acres, of which 32.38 acres are wetlands the plan would have left as they are.

The staff report’s traffic assessment frames the vote, and its figures are worth printing exactly. Staff estimated the development would generate 1,318 average weekday trips, 154 of them in the evening peak hour between 4 and 6 p.m. The two road segments the site touches are already over capacity: SR 16 from I-95 to Inman Road operates at 126.2 percent of capacity on existing 2026 evening peak traffic, and SR 16 from Inman Road to Four Mile Road at 131.3 percent. Counting development already approved and committed but not yet on the road, those figures become 184.3 percent and 179.3 percent. None of that arithmetic includes this project. The same assessment notes it is non-binding. Non-residential development of this kind is exempt from concurrency under section 11.00.05 of the Land Development Code, so a failing segment did not by itself require a denial.

The board denied anyway.

The entitlement this vote leaves in place has its own history on the parcel. Ordinance 2006-136 rezoned 39.7766 acres to PUD, a later amendment added 18.97 acres to reach the current 58.74, and Ordinance 2020-43 renamed the development Last Mile Distribution Facility in 2020. The Citizen reports that Amazon’s plans for a distribution center there came and went, and that the denied proposal would have doubled the floor space of the distribution center once planned while lowering the building height cap from 50 feet to 35.

The hearing itself, as the Citizen reports it, turned on who would carry the traffic. Prospective buyer Michael McNaughton told the board his estimate of the property’s annual tax revenue would rise from about $22,000 to nearly $600,000, and confirmed the family’s sale of the land hinged on approval. He said a denial was tantamount to the tract being constructively condemned. John Stephens of Ponte Vedra Beach, whose late father-in-law bought the property in 2014, told the board the family had spent millions pursuing projects that never got built. On the other side, Commissioner Ann Taylor said she had received at least 40 emails opposing the plan. Ron Faircloth, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge, which operates an adjoining shooting range, pointed to the developer’s estimate of 400 to 600 workers and asked what their commutes would do to a road the county’s own report rates past capacity. The applicant’s traffic engineer told the board the signals could handle the additional turns.

The plan arrived carrying a recommendation of denial by default rather than by vote. At the Planning and Zoning Agency on Oct. 15, a motion to recommend approval conditioned on prohibiting all on-site distribution centers failed 3-4, no further motion was made, and under the county’s procedure that failure is deemed a recommendation for denial.

The same meeting settled a date this paper left open on Nov. 4. The Citizen reports the data center moratorium passed 5-0 and takes effect Nov. 15, which matches the draft ordinance’s effective date rather than the immediate start another outlet had reported; the enacted ordinance itself is still not in the Clerk’s 2026 ordinance book, which this paper checked again Nov. 6. The Citizen also reports Deputy County Attorney Kealey West said staff will consult utility providers and the St. Johns River Water Management District during the pause, with a state study expected in July 2027.

What no reachable record yet carries is the roll. The Citizen’s account gives the second Inman tally as 4 to 1 and does not name the dissenter, and the outcomes of the three agricultural enclave certifications and the Planning and Zoning Agency appointment from that same agenda are in no record this paper can read tonight. The draft minutes ordinarily arrive as backup to a consent item about three weeks on, which puts them at the Nov. 17 meeting, and each of those outcomes will be reported with its roll when they do.

Marcus Stokes of Nease wins Davey O'Brien quarterback of the week

2026-11-06T00:00:00.000Z

Memphis 49, Army 22. The quarterback came out of Nease.

Marcus Stokes is the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback of the Week for week nine.

The foundation announced it Nov. 3 in Fort Worth. He is the first winner from the American Conference this year.

The line: 29 of 35, 371 yards, four touchdown passes. That is 82.9 percent. Seven carries, 30 yards, a fifth score. No turnover.

Memphis says no player in program history had accounted for five or more touchdowns in back-to-back FBS games.

The St. Johns Citizen reports he is the first Memphis quarterback to take the weekly O’Brien honor since Brady White in 2020.

The season underneath the week is the part this county will recognize, and the school publishes it plainly: 2,532 passing yards, fifth in the country, a 178.5 efficiency rating, third, and 25 touchdown passes, tied for the national lead.

Fifth 300-yard game of the year. Third in a row.

The same Monday brought the American Conference Offensive Player of the Week award, a Manning Award star listing and a second straight Great 8 nod.

The road was not straight. The Citizen traces it: St. Augustine native, Nease, Division II West Florida, then Memphis.

The Tigers sit at 7-2, 4-1 in the American.

Semifinalists for the season award come Nov. 17. Three finalists on Nov. 24.

School board passed the enrollment plan 5-0, draft minutes show

2026-11-05T00:00:00.000Z

The school board approved controlled open enrollment for this school year on Oct. 13, and the vote was 5-0. The first document that records that vote surfaced this week, as draft minutes riding inside the agenda packet for the board’s next meeting.

That gap matters, so here is the timeline plainly. The board voted Oct. 13. No text record followed. The district publishes no written account of a meeting until the draft minutes are written, and the draft minutes arrive as an attachment to the meeting that approves them. That meeting is Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 4:30 p.m. in the School Board Auditorium at 40 Orange Street, and on WebEx.

The plan the board approved is the one this paper walked through on Oct. 11. Its capacity list names twelve elementary schools and two K-8 academies, and no middle school or high school appears anywhere on it.

Here is what the vote means for your kid. Nothing changed between the published plan and the approved one that the minutes record. If you have an elementary student, there are seats, a handful at a time, mostly in kindergarten. If you have a middle schooler or a high schooler, controlled open enrollment is not a door this year. The other doors, hardship transfers, programs of choice and career academies, are still in the same plan, and the registration window for career academies and programs of choice opens Jan. 5 and runs to Jan. 25.

The minutes give the vote its shape. Beverly Slough moved approval and Linda Thomson seconded it. All five members voted yes: Kelly Barrera, Beverly Slough, Anthony Coleman, Jennifer Collins and Linda Thomson. The draft records no discussion on the item.

Nobody argued it from the floor either: three residents spoke at public comment that night, two about a facility usage fee and one to thank the district for services. The minutes record no speaker on the enrollment plan.

The Bartram Grove money passed the same night, on consent. Thomson moved the consent agenda, Anthony Coleman seconded it, and it carried on the same five votes. Inside that single motion was the school mitigation agreement for Bartram Grove, in the Bartram Park DRI, where a developer wants to add 90 single family and 90 multi-family homes.

That agreement is worth restating now that it is approved, because it is the district’s own arithmetic about room. It says those 180 homes would generate 38.5 elementary students, 20.5 middle schoolers and 26.5 high schoolers. It says there is capacity for the first two groups. For the high schoolers it says adequate capacity is not available at the level of service standard, not in that service area and not in any one touching it, and that the room “will not be in place or under actual construction within three (3) years after the approval of the Development Proposal.” So the developer pays, and the agreement sets the mitigation at $329,860.00, which it also writes as $1,833.00 per dwelling unit, both printed in bold.

The same consent motion carried the increased architectural scope for High School JJJ, the unnamed high school whose growing design bill this paper reported on Oct. 17.

One more thing rides in Tuesday’s packet. The board is asked to approve the minutes of three meetings at once: the Oct. 6 workshop, the Oct. 13 regular meeting and the Oct. 27 workshop. Until that vote, what this story quotes is a draft. Any change will run here.

Light-Up Night honorees named, and downtown STAR service ends at 3

2026-11-05T00:00:00.000Z

The four people who will turn on this year’s Nights of Lights run a brewery on West King Street, a restaurant on San Marco Avenue, two Anastasia Boulevard rooms that share a name, and a bar on Aviles Street, and the mayor who picked them says the geography is the point. Steve Mendoza of Bog Brewing Company, Misty Lake of Sunday, Erica Thompson of Osprey Tacos and Osprey Tapas, and Philip Castillo of The Bart on Aviles will share the single ceremonial switch in the Plaza de la Constitucion at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 21.

Naming the honorees belongs to the mayor, a privilege the office has carried since the tradition began in 2003, when one switch first lit the holiday tree and the canopy of live oaks around the plaza together. Nancy Sikes-Kline, making what the city’s release calls one of her final official acts in the job, chose to spend hers on what she calls the city’s “emerging business districts.”

“Our business districts have really been flourishing in the past few years, each with their own unique identities that host activities highlighting the character of the district,” she said in the release. “These districts are critical to the year-round vibrancy of the city, and Light-Up! Night is a perfect opportunity to recognize them.”

Read as a map, the four picks trace the commercial streets that ring the tourist core rather than sit inside it: West King west of the rail spur, San Marco north of the fort, Anastasia Boulevard across the Bridge of Lions, and Aviles, the oldest street of the four and the only one inside the historic district proper. The release describes the four as “leaders among their peers, respected by fellow business owners in and outside their district,” which is the mayor’s language and worth preserving, because it names the thing being honored as the street rather than the storefront.

The second announcement arrived the same day, in a separate release, and it is the one to build an evening around. The STAR Circulator, the free city shuttle whose published hours ordinarily run to 9 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, will end its downtown runs at 3 p.m. every day of the season, from Saturday, Nov. 21 through Monday, Jan. 18. The city attributes the change to increased traffic and congestion during the holidays.

What survives after dark is the island. Beginning Sunday, Nov. 22 and running through Jan. 18, the STAR keeps its nighttime route on Anastasia Island, Sunday through Thursday until 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday until 11 p.m., with one exception the release spells out: Stop 17, at Blackfly Restaurant, is off the night map. Island riders are delivered to the east side of the Bridge of Lions, at 107 Anastasia Blvd., and the release recommends the arrangement as a walk-and-ride for island and beach residents, for visitors staying at hotels on St. Augustine Beach, and for anyone within walking distance of a stop.

So the season’s transportation sorts itself by geography, and both halves of it are free. If you are coming from the island, the STAR runs at night and drops you at the bridge, and the walk from 107 Anastasia Blvd. to the plaza crosses the Bridge of Lions and arrives in the middle of the lights. If you are coming from anywhere else, the city’s published answer is the free Park and Ride shuttle, which runs 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. from three perimeter lots to the Visitor Information Center on its 23 listed service dates, a list this paper printed on Oct. 28 along with the one date missing from it.

The shape of the evening itself has been public since Oct. 30: Showtime USA at 4 p.m. in the Parque de Menendez at City Hall, the All Star Orchestra at 5:30 at the gazebo, and the lighting, promptly, at 6:30. Cathedral Place loses its parking all day and closes to vehicles from 5 to 8 p.m., which is the hour everyone will be walking anyway.

Regular STAR hours resume Tuesday, Jan. 19, the day after the lights come down.

The switch itself is thrown at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 21, in the plaza, by a brewer, two restaurateurs and a barman. The season it opens runs through Monday, Jan. 18, which is the day before the buses go back to normal.

County and city offices close Nov. 11; garbage collection unchanged

2026-11-05T00:00:00.000Z

Veterans Day is Wednesday, Nov. 11. The county’s release is dated Nov. 4. The city’s is dated Nov. 3. Together they give the holiday schedules for county and city services on the day. The rows in the table below follow the two releases in their own order.

Service	Nov. 11 status
County departments, administrative offices, libraries, bookmobiles	Closed. Standard hours resume Thursday, Nov. 12
Supervisor of Elections Office	Closed
Property Appraiser’s Office	Closed
Tax Collector’s Office	Closed
Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller’s Office	Closed
County garbage, recycling, yard waste collection	Not delayed
Tillman Ridge and Stratton Road transfer stations	Open, standard business hours
City of St. Augustine offices	Closed
City Solid Waste collection	Regular schedule
City-owned lots and on-street parking	Free for the holiday
Historic Downtown Parking Facility	Fee charged. Waived for active-duty and retired military with valid military ID

The county closure reaches every department of the Board of County Commissioners. It also reaches administrative offices, libraries and bookmobiles across the whole county system. Three constitutional offices close with the county offices, each named in the release. Those are the Supervisor of Elections, the Property Appraiser and the Tax Collector. The Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller’s Office closes with them. Standard business hours resume Thursday, Nov. 12, at every county office listed.

Collection is the exception in both schedules, and neither government delays a single route. County garbage, recycling and yard waste schedules are not delayed. The Tillman Ridge and Stratton Road transfer stations keep their standard business hours. City Solid Waste collection services remain on their regular schedules through the holiday. The county points residents to the Recycle Coach app and to recyclestjohns.com for curbside schedules.

The city’s parking rows carry conditions worth reading before Wednesday morning arrives. City-owned lots and on-street parking are free on all national holidays. The release names two exceptions to the free line. One is the Castillo lot. The other is the garage. The Historic Downtown Parking Facility charges its fee. The fee is waived for active-duty and retired military with valid ID.

The city release says many private lots carry strict towing policies. The city release tells drivers to confirm a lot is city-owned before parking. Enforcement continues Wednesday for any vehicle parked illegally anywhere inside the city limits. The listed enforcement examples are delivery zones, sightseeing and taxi reserves, sidewalks and yellow curbs. Nothing else in either release changes a schedule.

Compiled by The Ledger from public records. Automated, then checked. Corrections: corrections@stjohnstattler.org

Voter guide counts were refiled Nov. 2, the county paper reports

2026-11-05T00:00:00.000Z

The St. Johns Citizen reported Wednesday afternoon that the refiled charging documents in the voter guide case were filed on Nov. 2, in St. Johns County Court. The Citizen’s account carries two facts the first report did not, the filing date and the assignment, and the case is before County Judge Casey Woolsey.

According to the Citizen, the Nov. 2 filing charges the five defendants with conspiracy and unauthorized voter guide offenses. Three of the five are officeholders this paper has named throughout: County Commissioners Sarah Arnold and Christian Whitehurst, and St. Augustine Beach Commissioner and former Mayor Dylan Rumrell. The other two are a political consultant and a campaign manager, and this paper does not name them under its standing rule on private individuals in criminal cases.

One count did not come back, by the Citizen’s account, and it is the one that could not come back. Circuit Judge William E. Davis dismissed the campaign manager’s felony evidence tampering count with prejudice on Oct. 16, and the Citizen reports the new filing does not include it. The misdemeanor counts against the other four defendants were dismissed on Oct. 2, without prejudice, for want of circuit court jurisdiction. The refiled case now sits in the county court that the October orders said misdemeanor counts standing alone belonged in.

The underlying allegation is unchanged from the circuit case, as the Citizen describes it, and it concerns the August 2024 Republican primary. Investigators allege the defendants helped distribute voter guides that resembled official St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee materials while promoting candidates the local party had not endorsed. The Citizen also reports the defense position of Whitehurst’s attorneys, that permission was not required because the party’s names and symbols were registered only after the mailings.

First Coast News had reported the fact of the refiling on Nov. 3, in a feed item naming the court and the number of defendants and nothing else. The Citizen’s account is the fullest public record of the filing tonight, and every fact not drawn from a court order this paper has read is attributed to it.

What this newsroom still cannot read are the charging documents themselves, which hold the case numbers and the counts as pleaded against each defendant. Whether the state addressed the time limitation question in refiling is a fact in those documents, and the Clerk’s case search requires an authentication this newsroom does not have. The paper will report the documents when a readable record exists, whatever they carry and however long that takes.

This newsroom asked the prosecuting office in writing on Oct. 22 whether it intended to refile, who chose circuit court in July, and whether it considered that choice an error. The refiling answers the first question in the only form the public has, and the office has not answered the other two.

Every refiled count is on this paper’s disposition watch, and the outcome of each one will be published at the prominence of the original story. The next entry in this file will be the charging documents themselves, or the first court date the record shows, whichever becomes readable first.

Conservation bond passes three to one; Dascomb takes Beach Seat 3

2026-11-04T00:00:00.000Z

The land conservation bond passed, and it did not pass narrowly. The unofficial count the Supervisor of Elections published through the state’s election night reporting system puts the referendum at 110,300 votes “Yes, For Bonds” and 36,215 “No, Against Bonds,” which the feed prints as 75.28 percent to 24.72, with all 55 precincts participating. The question asked whether the county should issue up to $100 million in general obligation bonds for conservation land, repaid with a property tax of up to 0.15 mills. The board put it on the ballot 3/2 in August, over two dissents on the timing. The answer came back three to one.

The numbers that follow are the feed’s own, as of its last update at 10:54 p.m. on election night. The count is unofficial. The election day and early voting columns were completely reported at that update, the vote by mail column was partially reported, and provisional ballots are not in it. Nothing in this story is a projection. These are the counted totals, and the certified result follows when the canvassing board finishes its work.

Turnout was 64.32 percent, with 156,860 ballots cast of 243,889 registered voters.

The two cities. Jacob Dascomb carried St. Augustine Beach Commission Seat 3 with 2,144 votes to Undine Celeste George’s 1,483, which the feed prints as 59.11 percent to 40.89, with one precinct participating and 3,627 votes cast. The city’s charter amendment carried 3,270 to 453, at 87.83 percent. In St. Augustine, Matt Brown carried Commission Seat 5 with 4,033 votes to Julie Settle’s 2,168, at 65.04 percent, in 4 of 4 precincts. The precinct column matters beside every number here. It says who was allowed to vote. A Beach seat is decided inside one precinct, a St. Augustine seat inside four, a countywide seat inside 55. The electorates behind those percentages differ by an order of magnitude.

School Board District 4. Tammie McClafferty carried the seat with 17,563 votes to Jillian Tozer’s 11,314, at 60.82 percent, with 9 of 9 precincts participating. School board seats here are voted by residence area rather than countywide, and the race drew 28,877 votes.

The countywide boards. All of these ran in all 55 precincts. On the Anastasia Mosquito Control District board, Tim Burton carried Seat 2 with 45,956 votes, 36.85 percent, over Sandra Fein’s 34,357, Catherine Brandhorst’s 34,292 and Ed Slavin’s 10,090. Gary Howell carried Seat 4 with 47,516 votes, 39.11 percent, over Jason Smith’s 40,092, George Tom Anagnos’s 22,779 and Merrill Paul Roland’s 11,115. On the Airport Authority, Jerry Dedge carried Group 2 with 66,486 votes, 57.26 percent, over John H. Wilson’s 49,625, and Sean Griswold carried Group 3 with 53,616, 43.97 percent, over Sean Hess’s 37,857 and Christopher Cannan’s 30,468.

The closest result of the night anywhere on the ballot. The St. Augustine Port, Waterway and Beach Commission runs in 20 precincts, and Lynda I. Kirker carried Group 1 with 16,161 votes to Melanie Sunshine Neale’s 13,125, at 55.18 percent. Group 5 is the one to watch through certification. The feed puts Clay M. Hansen at 14,089 votes and Tom Rivers at 13,899, which is 50.34 percent to 49.66. The difference is 190 votes, with vote by mail still partially reported.

The community development districts. Eleven CDD seats were on county ballots, most decided inside one or two precincts. Barbara Little carried Brandy Creek Seat 3, Michael James Manzione carried Bannon Lakes Seat 5, Patricia Jacob carried Julington Creek Plantation Seat 1, David Parrish carried Marshall Creek Seat 3 and Kristen Cohen carried Sweetwater Creek Seat 1. Anthony Vetter carried Tolomato Seat 5, Bud Laudenslager and Vincent Sajkowski carried Trout Creek Seats 1 and 2, and Bertram Kamin carried Twin Creeks North Seat 4. The narrowest count in the county sits at Heritage Landing Seat 2. The feed there puts Christine Mallatt at 648 votes and Brad Thompson at 639. Nine votes separate them.

How the county voted on the state ballot. These are St. Johns County’s counts alone. Statewide contests are decided on statewide totals this feed does not carry. In this county, Byron Donalds took 61.09 percent for governor, Ashley Moody 62.59 for U.S. Senate, James Uthmeier 63.24 for attorney general, Blaise Ingoglia 63.21 for chief financial officer and Wilton Simpson 62.72 for agriculture commissioner, while John H. Rutherford took 62.30 percent in the county’s 49 precincts in Congressional District 5 and Randy Fine 60.46 in the 11 precincts of District 6. In the legislature, Kim Kendall took 65.16 percent in House District 18, Sam Greco 53.52 in District 19 and Judson Sapp 66.28 in District 20. The county voted yes on all four retention questions, went against Amendment 1 with 60.69 percent voting no, and backed Amendments 2 and 3 at 60.85 and 65.37 percent yes.

The canvassing board’s certified result, and anything the remaining vote by mail and provisional ballots move, will be reported when the Supervisor publishes it.

Data center moratorium passes unanimously, Jacksonville Today reports

2026-11-04T00:00:00.000Z

The county’s data center freeze is law. Jacksonville Today reported that the Board of County Commissioners approved the one-year moratorium unanimously on Tuesday. The vote came five weeks after first presentation. Commissioner Ann Taylor first brought the idea to the dais in June, and the board directed the ordinance on Sept. 1.

What the board was handed is an ordinance that stops the county from accepting, processing, reviewing, scheduling for hearing or approving any discretionary development application for a medium-scale or large-scale data center project. The freeze reaches from comprehensive plan amendments down to building permits that require a prior discretionary approval. Applications already determined complete and sufficient before Nov. 1 are exempt, as are existing lawful data centers, their routine maintenance and emergency work. While the freeze runs, staff is assigned a study covering land use, water demand, backup generation, noise, setbacks and decommissioning, among other subjects. The ordinance expires on the earliest of Oct. 31, 2027, the adoption of permanent regulations, or repeal.

One date needs the adopted text to settle. Jacksonville Today’s account says the ban “goes into effect immediately.” The draft ordinance in the agenda backup carried an effective date of Nov. 15, 2026. Boards amend ordinances at enactment, and whether this one moved its own start date forward is a fact that lives in the adopted ordinance, which the county had not published when this story was filed. Both versions are printed here with their sources, and the ordinance number and its effective date will be reported when the enacted document posts.

Taylor’s argument for moving quickly, as the outlet quotes her from June: “By doing nothing, St. Johns County has a massive target on our back. If our neighboring counties shut their doors to AI data centers, we become the path of least resistance, and we are turning ourselves into sitting ducks to the exact projects our neighbors were smart enough to reject.” The outlet reports Commissioner Christian Whitehurst was originally skeptical of the need for the moratorium and wound up supporting it, saying St. Johns County is unlikely to be targeted for data center development, and adding: “As we all know, the power on whether or not data centers are even necessary, more data centers, bigger data centers, lies with we the people. To post AI-generated memes opposing data centers is the height of hypocrisy. You are generating more need for data by doing that.”

The county is not alone in this. Jacksonville Today reports that Nassau and Clay counties approved moratoriums in the summer, and that Flagler, Lake and Volusia counties have also passed bans of their own.

The moratorium was item 13 on a heavy land agenda, and the rest of that agenda has no readable record anywhere tonight.

The board was also set Tuesday to decide three agricultural enclave certifications, ENCERT 2026-12 Star IV on a continued hearing and the two Osceola Lakes applications, the Inman Road warehouse plan that arrived with a recommendation of denial, 169 more homes at Bartram Park, and a Planning and Zoning Agency appointment from nineteen applicants. The Clerk’s index carries no video for the Nov. 3 meeting tonight, and the draft minutes arrive as backup to a later consent agenda, ordinarily about three weeks on. Each of those outcomes, with the roll on each vote, will be reported when a record exists to read.

Three county kitchens were ordered closed in the last week of October

2026-11-04T00:00:00.000Z

The Nov. 1 inspections table in this paper ended on an open question. Three county inspections in the last week of October were recorded as “Emergency order recommended,” and whether any license was actually ordered closed was a row in a weekly state file that had not posted. The file has posted. All three were ordered closed.

The Emergency Order of Suspension weekly extract for the week ending Nov. 1, 2026 carries 30 populated rows statewide, dated Oct. 26 through Oct. 30, and three of them are St. Johns County licenses. Every row carries “Yes” in the column the state heads “Approved for Closure.” The rows are printed below with the state’s own column labels. The file records dates as day numbers and times as fractions of a day; they are converted here to calendar dates and clock times and nothing else about the rows is changed.

Column, as the state heads it	Terra & Acqua	South A Philly Steaks and Hoagies	Main St Pizza & Ice Cream
License Number	6502009	6501916	6502545
Business Address	134 Sea Grove Main St	1 King St #104	125 N Main St
Business City	St Augustine	St Augustine	Hastings
Date	Oct. 26, 2026	Oct. 27, 2026	Oct. 28, 2026
Time approved to Close	18:04	14:39	16:13
Date of order to vacate	blank	Oct. 28, 2026	Oct. 29, 2026
Time approve to re-opened	blank	10:05	13:22
Conditions for Closure	Roach & fly activity	Roach activity	Rodent activity
Approved for Closure	Yes	Yes	Yes

The Terra & Acqua row carries nothing in the “Date of order to vacate” and “Time approve to re-opened” columns. That is what the file shows as of the week ending Nov. 1. It is not a statement that the restaurant is closed today: the inspection file of Nov. 1 recorded an “Emergency Order Callback Not Complied” at that license on Oct. 29, and any later row belongs to a later weekly extract. What the next extract carries for license 6502009 will be reported when it posts.

The Main St Pizza & Ice Cream row is the second closure row for license 6502545 in eight days. The prior weekly extract, reported with the Nov. 1 table, recorded the same license approved to close at 14:13 on Oct. 21 on rodent activity, with an order to vacate dated Oct. 22 and a reopening time of 10:55.

The department’s inspection file recorded the three underlying visits on Oct. 26, 27 and 28, at 21, 7 and 4 total violations. The department states that an inspection is a snapshot of conditions present at the time of the inspection and that establishments are not graded or rated.

Compiled by The Ledger from public records. Automated, then checked. Corrections: corrections@stjohnstattler.org

Voter guide charges refiled in county court, First Coast News reports

2026-11-04T00:00:00.000Z

First Coast News reported Tuesday evening that charges have been refiled against the five defendants in the St. Johns County voter guide prosecution. The station’s account states that the five will now face the charges in county court, and that sentence is the whole of what it publishes. The fact of the refiling, the court and the number of defendants are attributed to the station, which published the item at 4:48 p.m.

County court is the court a circuit judge said the misdemeanor counts belonged in when he dismissed them without prejudice last month. All five sets of charges were filed in circuit court in July of this year, and Circuit Judge William E. Davis dismissed the first four sets of misdemeanor counts on Oct. 2 for want of jurisdiction. The dismissed counts were against County Commissioners Christian Whitehurst and Sarah Arnold, Beach Commissioner and former Mayor Dylan Rumrell, and a consultant this paper does not name. The last three counts, against a campaign manager this paper also does not name, were dismissed on Oct. 16 in the order that ended the circuit case. That order dismissed her felony evidence tampering count with prejudice, which is permanent, and it ruled that misdemeanors standing alone belong in county court. A dismissal without prejudice leaves refiling open only as far as the law of limitations allows, and no order the public can read has decided that question.

What the refiling contains is not readable from this newsroom tonight, because the station’s item does not print the counts and the Clerk’s search requires authentication. Which counts came back, against which of the five defendants, on what filing dates and under what case numbers are facts that live in the charging documents. The paper will report those documents when a readable record exists, and it will say plainly whether the state addressed the limitations question in bringing the counts.

The counts the circuit court dismissed were misdemeanor conspiracy and unauthorized voter guide charges, brought under Florida’s voter guide statute. The guides at the center of the case resembled official St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee materials while promoting candidates the local party had not endorsed, according to the Citizen’s account of the orders. The circuit judge rejected the defense challenge to the constitutionality of the voter guide statute in the same Oct. 16 order that ended his court’s part of the case. Whether the refiled counts rest on the same alleged conduct is a question only the charging documents can answer.

This newsroom asked the Eighth Circuit State Attorney’s office in writing on Oct. 22 whether it intended to refile any of the dismissed counts in county court. The same letter asked who made the decision to file the misdemeanors in circuit court in July, and whether the office considered that filing an error. The office transmitted investigative records against the paper’s standing records request the following day, and it has answered none of those questions to date. The station’s account now answers the refiling question in the only form the public has, which is a report of the filing itself.

Every refiled count goes onto this paper’s disposition watch tonight, and the outcome of each one will be published at the prominence of the original story. That promise followed the original counts to their dismissals last month, and it attaches to whatever the state has now brought back.

Some polling places moved since 2024, and polls run 7 to 7 today

2026-11-03T00:00:00.000Z

Voting today is free, and the one condition that may have changed on you is the place. “Some Election Day polling locations have changed since the 2024 election cycle,” the Supervisor of Elections wrote Saturday, and today you vote at your assigned polling place only. The lookup is the My Voter Status tool at votesjc.gov, or the office phone, 904-823-2238. Polls run 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 42 locations.

The ID condition: a current photo ID with your signature on it. The voter information card the office mailed you is not a valid form of identification. The release points to votesjc.gov for the list of what counts.

The mail ballot condition is the expensive one. A vote-by-mail ballot has to be received at the office, 4455 Avenue A, Suite 101, by 7 tonight, and it will not be accepted at a polling place. A ballot still on your desk at 6 is a drive to Avenue A, not to your precinct.

After the polls close, the bureau’s calendar lists five rooms with evening music and no cover printed for any of them. Jeremy Weinglass plays Michael’s from 6 to 9, Smokin’ Joe Schauer is at Ann O’Malley’s from 6 to 10, and Buddy Crump and Joshua “Tennessee” Worthy split Pierre’s Pub from 6 to 10. Damon Slaughter plays O.C. White’s from 6:30 to 9:30, and Ancient City Rock is at Tradewinds from 9 to 1. The calendar is an aggregator and asks you to verify with the room, so call before you make a long drive.

To Kill a Mockingbird plays the Limelight at 7:30 tonight, and the ticketing page labels it Terrific Tuesday. No price is printed beside the label. The run’s final performance is Sunday at 2, so tonight is one of the last chances, and the availability to check before you go is on the theater’s own ticketing page, not on the calendars that list it.

Free trivia runs tonight in rooms from Ponte Vedra to US 1. The standing list, with days, start times and addresses, lives at /scene/trivia/.

The beach is out.

The rip current risk stays high into late tonight, the high surf advisory runs to early Wednesday morning, and the surf forecast is 4 to 5 feet. Polls close at 7 tonight, and everything else on this list runs later than that. Do them in that order.

The sand Ponte Vedra Beach lost to Milton is due back in 2028

2026-11-03T00:00:00.000Z

The county has a new page up for putting sand back on Ponte Vedra Beach, and the two dates on it do the measuring. The restoration it repairs was finished in the summer of 2024. The new sand is not expected until the summer or fall of 2028. Four years sit between them.

The page, added to the county’s coastal projects index since this paper last read it on Oct. 26, describes a FEMA Category G project. Sand would be dredged from an offshore borrow area and placed on the beach, restoring what the page calls “a portion of the original North Ponte Vedra Restoration project that completed in Summer 2024.”

The work would also widen the seaward face of the existing dune, plant sea oats and supporting vegetation, and leave what the county describes as a more uniform front to the dune system. The erosion it answers is attributed on the page to Hurricane Milton and recent nor’easters. The page puts no dates on those.

The money is settled before the design is. The page says the project is fully funded, and prints the split: 75 percent FEMA, 12.5 percent state, 12.5 percent local. It prints no dollar figure, no volume of sand and no project boundary, and the county does not publish any of those three yet.

The schedule it does publish is early, with the county still selecting an engineering firm for the permitting, engineering and design phase, and “construction is expected to occur summer/fall 2028.”

One beach south, the same program is further along, and it is waiting on paper. Twelve easements remain. The South Ponte Vedra Category G project’s design phase is wrapping up, its page says, with solicitation under way and construction expected to begin in the spring of 2027. That project’s page publishes its measurements: a dune crest at least 15 feet wide at an elevation of 14 to 16 feet NAVD88, the federal survey datum, and a 40-foot berm at 11 to 12 feet, running from 2539 to 3175 South Ponte Vedra Boulevard. The storms on that page are older. Its list is Ian, Nicole and Debby.

The county’s own pages give this coast’s recent calendar: the Ian and Nicole dune project finished its last approved reach in January 2024, and the North Ponte Vedra restoration finished that summer. If the schedule holds, the next sand arrives in the summer or fall of 2028.

The School Board workshops six topics today on one page of packet

2026-11-03T00:00:00.000Z

The School Board sits down at 9 this morning with six topics on its workshop agenda and one page of packet behind all six. The one page is the agenda.

The six, as the agenda prints them: Student Progression Plan Updates, High School Connect, Professional Leadership Days for fall 2026, a CHARACTER COUNTS! update, a Health Services Plan, and a Dental MOU, which is a memorandum of understanding. Each topic carries a strategic plan label and nothing else. Nothing is published under any of them.

Nothing on today’s list carries a date, a dollar figure or a school name.

Here is what that means for your kid, as far as the record lets anyone say. The Student Progression Plan is the item with the widest reach on that list, and what the district wants to update in it, the packet does not say. A workshop takes no votes, so nothing changes today. If any of the six turns into a change, the vote would come at a regular meeting, and the next one is Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 4:30 p.m.

The meeting runs in the auditorium at 40 Orange Street and via Webex, with the link on the district’s meeting notice. If you want to be heard on any of it, the workshop has a public comment item, section D of the agenda.

The workshop is also the third meeting in a row headed for a gap in the written record. The district’s own minutes page ends at Sept. 22. Nothing newer is posted. The Oct. 6 workshop, the Oct. 13 regular meeting and the Oct. 27 workshop have no posted minutes, which means the votes the board took Oct. 13, on the controlled open enrollment plan and on a $329,860 Bartram Grove school mitigation agreement, priced in the packet at $1,833 per dwelling unit, are still published only as a video. Minutes are ordinarily approved at a later regular meeting, so the earliest a parent can read what the board did Oct. 13 is likely the Nov. 10 meeting’s consent paperwork.

Two more dates sit behind this one, and both are on your calendar already. Today is also election day, and the District 4 school board seat is on the ballot, Tammie McClafferty against Jillian Tozer. The polls on that race close at 7 tonight. The board’s reorganization meeting is two weeks out, Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 9 a.m.

Data center freeze and three farm enclaves go to the board Tuesday

2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z

The County Commission meets Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the County Auditorium at 500 San Sebastian View, on the same day the county votes. The agenda is one of the heaviest land use dockets of the fall. The board will also recognize Commissioner Sarah Arnold for her years of service, which the agenda lists among the morning’s opening items.

The item with the widest reach is number 13, enactment of the temporary planning moratorium on data centers. The ordinance before the board would, effective Nov. 15, stop the county from accepting, processing or approving any discretionary development application for a medium-scale or large-scale data center project. The freeze reaches from comprehensive plan amendments down to building permits that need a prior discretionary approval. Applications already determined complete and sufficient before Nov. 1 are exempt, as are existing data centers and their maintenance. The ordinance expires on the earliest of Oct. 31, 2027, the adoption of permanent regulations, or repeal, and it assigns staff a study running from water demand and backup generation to noise, setbacks and decommissioning. The board directed the ordinance on Sept. 1 and heard it on first presentation Oct. 6. Tuesday is the enactment vote.

Three agricultural enclave certifications are up, totaling about 214 acres by this paper’s addition of the three acreages the agenda prints. ENCERT 2026-12 Star IV, 70.83 acres west of State Road 16 between Grand Oaks and Windward Ranch, returns as a hearing continued from Oct. 20. The two new ones sit side by side south of Wildwood Drive and north of Watson Road, about a mile west of US 1 South: Osceola Lakes North at 103.29 acres and Osceola Lakes South at 40 acres. The staff reports on both carry the same preliminary conclusion, that the application does not appear to demonstrate that the parcel satisfies the statutory definition of an agricultural enclave in Section 163.3164(4), Florida Statutes, and each report records one letter of opposition received at the time it was written. Both backups carry a drafted motion to approve and a drafted motion to deny, so the board can go either way on the day.

What is not on the agenda matters as much as what is. ENCERT 2026-10 Adler Creek, 2026-11 Carter Road Associates and 2026-13 Pacetti Oaks, the three applications this paper reported on Oct. 21, appear nowhere on Tuesday’s docket. The staff letters in the Oct. 20 backup respond to applications received Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, which by this paper’s count off a calendar puts their ninetieth days at Nov. 29 and Nov. 30. Section 163.3162(4)(c) of the Florida Statutes provides that an application not approved or denied within 90 days of receipt must be certified as an agricultural enclave by operation of law. Nov. 17 is the only regular meeting left inside that window.

The Inman Road warehouse plan arrives carrying an unusual posture. MAJMOD 2025-12 would allow up to 250,000 square feet of light industrial and flex warehousing at 3960 Inman Road. The agenda records what happened at the Planning and Zoning Agency on Oct. 15: a motion to recommend approval, conditioned on prohibiting all on-site distribution centers, failed 3-4, with Perkins, Matovina and Green in support and Hilsenbeck, Spiegel, Labanowski and Olson opposed. No further motion was made, so the decision is deemed a recommendation for denial, and the agenda notes staff received no application update prohibiting the distribution centers.

Bartram Park and Bartram Grove, both in District 5 on Race Track Road, would together reshape that corridor’s entitlements. The Bartram Park DRI modification adds 42.3 acres, raises the commercial ceiling to 500,000 square feet, and converts 20,000 square feet of commercial entitlement into 169 residential units, taking the development from 646 to 815 homes, with the agenda carrying the applicant’s position that no additional external vehicular trips are added. The two Bartram Grove items at 5404 Race Track Road would replace a 2017 policy allowing 175,000 square feet of recreational and 125,000 square feet of commercial use, capped at 700 new evening peak hour trips. The replacement is 180 dwelling units and 50,000 square feet of commercial and office, capped at 400 trips. The PZA recommended all three 7-0.

Smaller but concrete: Fruit Cove Baptist Church’s 9.5 acres in District 2 come up for a plan amendment and rezoning to commercial, on an expedited hearing the applicant requested after waiving an updated staff report. The Shoppes at Mill Creek Forest would convert 120,000 square feet of never-built office entitlement into 41,500 square feet of retail, recommended 6-0. And 9.16 acres on County Road 210 West would go from Open Rural to Commercial General, also 6-0.

The board will also fill the Planning and Zoning Agency seat left by the expiration of Greg Matovina’s term. Nineteen applications are attached, listed by name and district, along with nine applications for five seats on the Construction Board of Adjustment and Appeals.

On consent, the money lines are these:

Consent item	Amount	What it buys
8	$1,220,000.00	Four Mile Road and SR 16 intersection, Halifax Paving
9	$7,301,402	Northwest Water Reclamation Facility expansion design, CDM Smith
12	$976,387.20	Stratton Road transfer station tipping floor repair
2	$131,024.94	Turn lane at Holmes Boulevard and Norwood Drive
3	$712,014	Six replacement transit vehicles, federal grant
17	$35,002	Local match, Ponte Vedra Beach Coastal Storm Risk Management design agreement with the Department of the Army

Consent item 22 approves the minutes of the Oct. 20 meeting, whose draft rode in as this item’s backup and has already been reported in these pages. Public comment comes early in the meeting, after the proclamations, and the auditorium doors are at 500 San Sebastian View. The meeting starts at 9.

Polls run 7 to 7 Tuesday and mail ballots are due at the office by 7

2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z

St. Johns County votes Tuesday. Early voting ended Oct. 31. Polls open at 7 a.m. They close at 7 p.m. The county’s preparation report lists 42 precinct sites for one twelve-hour day. Election day voting is by precinct, where early voting ran at any of ten sites. A voter unsure of their precinct can ask the Supervisor’s office by telephone.

A mail ballot has one way home now. The office is at 4455 Avenue A, Suite 101. Its number is 904-823-2238. The ballot must reach that office by 7 on Tuesday evening to be counted. A ballot postmarked Tuesday and arriving Wednesday does not count under that rule. The Supervisor’s release says plainly that mail ballots will not be accepted at polling places.

Identification is required at the polls, and the rule is specific. A voter needs a current and valid photo ID with a signature. A voter information card is not a valid form of identification.

The countywide question is the land conservation bond. The ballot title reads:

ST. JOHNS COUNTY GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS FOR LAND CONSERVATION TO PROTECT WATER QUALITY

It asks whether the county may issue up to $100 million in general obligation bonds, maturing within 20 years. The county’s own page says the legislature placed a property tax amendment on this ballot as well. Nine contested local races follow, from the Supervisor’s qualified candidate list:

Contest	Candidates
School Board, District 4	Tammie McClafferty, Jillian Tozer
St. Augustine Commission, Seat 5	Matt Brown, Julie Settle
St. Augustine Beach Commission, Seat 3	Jacob Dascomb, Undine Celeste George
Anastasia Mosquito Control, Seat 2	Catherine Brandhorst, Tim Burton, Sandra Fein, Ed Slavin
Anastasia Mosquito Control, Seat 4	George Tom Anagnos, Gary Howell, Merrill Paul Roland, Jason Smith
Airport Authority, Group 2	Jerry Dedge, John H. Wilson
Airport Authority, Group 3	Christopher Cannan, Sean Griswold, Sean Hess
Port, Waterway and Beach, Group 1	Lynda I. Kirker, Melanie Sunshine Neale
Port, Waterway and Beach, Group 5	Clay M. Hansen, Tom Rivers

Every candidate in those nine races qualified with no party affiliation. Some neighborhoods will also see community development district seats on their ballots.

The top of the ballot is federal and state. Three state house seats are up too. It carries United States Senator, two congressional seats, and Governor and Lieutenant Governor. It also carries Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer and Commissioner of Agriculture. One Supreme Court justice and three appeals judges appear as merit retention questions.

No county commission race appears anywhere on this ballot. Districts 2 and 4 were settled at the Aug. 18 primary. School Board Districts 1 and 3 do not appear, for the reasons this paper reported Oct. 21. The Tattler will report the results, with precinct participation beside each contest, when the Supervisor publishes them.

Three rooms have live music tonight and trivia starts at six

2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z

Monday night in St. Augustine, ranked.

Nothing on tonight’s list prints a cover.

1. Prohibition Kitchen, 6 to 9. Kristen Kearns, off the venue’s own calendar. Their own page calls it a pub with live music every night, and a 6 o’clock set is the right shape for a Monday: one room, done by 9. Go at 6. The address on the venue’s page is 119 St George St.

2. Tradewinds, if you want the late one. They are at 124 Charlotte Street, and the Monday music grid runs three named acts deep. Reggie Starrett has the early show from 1 to 4:30, and Mark Hart has happy hour from 5 to 8. Mike Johnson/Brad Burns at 9, and that 9 o’clock slot is the only live music in this county’s registry still going after the Mill Top stops. That matters on a Monday. The page prints no cover anywhere on it. Check their Facebook for late changes first.

3. Trivia, eight rooms, pick by your side of the county. Kingfish Grill and The Boathouse both run general knowledge games starting at 6. A1A Asian Kitchen, Donovan’s Irish Pub, both Mellow Mushrooms and Treylor Park all start at 7. Pick one. Treylor Park’s game is pop culture, which is the one to bring your group chat to. Sit down by 6:45. Cafe Eleven closes the night at 7:30 out on Anastasia.

4. The early sets, if your Monday ends early. Jim Lamb plays the Mill Top at noon, and Josh Tennessee Worthy takes it from 4:30 to 8:30, at 19 1/2 St. George Street. The bureau calendar adds two more rooms: Kevin Edwards at Hurricane Grill and Wings on Anastasia, 5 to 8, and Bob Patterson at O.C. White’s, 6:30 to 9:30.

One for the skip list, and it is short. Sarbez! has Doubleside from 8 to 9 tonight, per the bureau calendar. One hour. If you are already on San Marco it works, but do not drive across town for sixty minutes of show. Your call.

One more thing before you head out the door. The polls open at 7 tomorrow morning and they close at 7 sharp. If you have a mail ballot sitting on your counter, it has to be AT the elections office by 7 p.m. tomorrow, not postmarked, and they will not take it at your precinct. Vote before the trivia final starts, not after. The full details are in tonight’s news section. Three rooms with live music, eight quiz tables, one ballot waiting: that is the whole Monday.

Jaguars 42, Colts 7, and the first laugher of the season

2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z

Jacksonville 42, Indianapolis 7.

At EverBank. First football in fifteen days. First since Wembley.

It did not go like Wembley.

The first quarter was one drive that mattered. Twelve plays, 98 yards, seven minutes and change, and Thomas at the end of it from twelve yards out. 7-0, and nothing about it said what was coming.

The second quarter said it.

Boerkircher from 31. Tuten on a 39-yard run. Then Lane took a Jones pass back 92 yards the other way, which is the kind of touchdown that arrives when an afternoon has already turned. 28-0 at the half, and the half was the game.

Rodriguez added one from 28 in the third. Tuten caught one from 25. Indianapolis got its touchdown in between, Downs from six, and that was the scoring.

Here is the line worth reading twice: Lawrence threw fourteen passes. All day. Ten of them landed, for 210 yards, three went for touchdowns, and none went to the other team. Fourteen attempts in a 42-point game is a team that never once needed the pass to rescue it.

Because the run was the rescue. Tuten carried sixteen times for 104 yards and scored on the ground and through the air. Rodriguez went for 41 on six carries of his own. The team page headlined it Run to Win, which for once is a slogan the box score agrees with.

And the time of possession line is a comedy. Indianapolis held the ball longer, 30:22 to 29:38.

They held it longer and lost by thirty-five.

Now the thread this column has been pulling all season, the gap between the yardage and the scoreboard. Jacksonville outgained Indianapolis 366 to 243, which is roughly 120 yards of daylight. Against Philadelphia they outgained by nearly 200, 433 to 242, and won by two. At Wembley, Houston gained slightly more and won by three. This was the first Sunday all year the yardage and the final margin told the same story at the same volume.

The record is 5-2.

The Colts are 2-6.

The rest arrives fast. Thursday night, 8:15, at Baltimore, on a short week after a long rest. The schedule gives with one hand.

Former St. Augustine assistant chief pleads no contest to grand theft

2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z

A former assistant chief of the St. Augustine Police Department pleaded no contest on Oct. 28 to one count of third-degree grand theft, the St. Johns Citizen reported Sunday. A circuit judge accepted the plea, ordered a presentence investigation, and deferred sentencing until Dec. 23, according to the Citizen’s account of the court record. The case concerns money taken from a benevolent fund whose finances the former officer had managed as its treasurer since 2003, according to that same account.

The Tattler is not printing the name, under the standing rule that crime coverage in this paper names no private individual. The conduct alleged here was as treasurer of a private nonprofit rather than as a police official, which is why the public-figure exception does not reach it. The office the person held and the organization the money came from are both described here as the record describes them.

The organization is the St. Augustine Police Benevolent Organization, which the police department describes as a private nonprofit funded by officers themselves. It assists department members and their families in times of need, according to that description, and it receives no taxpayer money. Investigators allege that checks totaling $22,722 were written from the charity’s account to the treasurer, according to the Citizen’s report. They also flagged $17,632 in cash deposits to a personal account that they suspect came from the organization, the same report says. According to the arrest affidavit as the Citizen quotes it, the person described the money in a January interview as loans to self, with a stated intention of full repayment.

The discrepancies surfaced during a review conducted after the treasurer retired from the department in November 2025, the Citizen reported. The person joined the department in 1997 and rose to assistant chief over a career of more than two decades, according to the same account. Court records reviewed by that outlet do not show the terms of any plea agreement and do not indicate whether restitution has been paid. The defense attorney did not respond to an email from the Citizen seeking comment before that outlet published its report.

This paper could not read the court file itself, and the sourcing above is therefore the Citizen’s reporting, attributed throughout under the fair report posture. The circuit court’s public case search is gated behind a CAPTCHA that this newsroom cannot pass, which has been true since this paper first measured it in September. The State Attorney’s announcement feed, which this paper reads every cycle and read again Sunday night, carries no entry for this case among its twenty newest items. A presentence investigation is a background report prepared by probation officers for the sentencing judge, in the Citizen’s description of the order. The sentence that follows it will be the next public event in the case, and the court has set it for Dec. 23.

The Tattler has entered the case in its disposition watch, which is checked against the available records every cycle. The sentence will be published at the same prominence as this story when it is imposed, which is the promise this section carries.

Beachside 57, Westside 0: the season's last missing final lands

2026-11-01T00:00:00.000Z

Beachside 57, Westside 0.

That is the final from Barracuda Stadium on Friday night, and it took two days to exist.

The night after the game, FloridaHSFootball printed the card with no score and the words Status Unknown, and MaxPreps said no result had been reported. The record stayed blank for a night. Both boards carry 57-0 now.

This paper said the final would run when somebody reported it.

Somebody did.

The card has Beachside at 6-4. Westside finishes 1-9. Those are the card’s numbers. FloridaHSFootball prints records next to every card it runs.

The regular season is over for all eight county schools.

What matters now is the bracket. There is not one yet. Not anywhere we read.

No school’s own calendar lists a fall game after Oct. 30, no MaxPreps page here carries a November row, and the week 12 statewide board, pulled overnight, carries no county school by name. St. Augustine and Creekside each finished first in a district. Nothing we read posts where they are sent, or who else draws a game.

When the pairings post, they run here. With kickoff and venue.

Hastings library computers shut off Monday ahead of the Nov. 13 move

2026-11-01T00:00:00.000Z

The county is moving the Hastings library from East Harris Street to North Main Street, and the first services go dark Monday.

Computer and printing services at the Hastings Branch go first: the county’s Oct. 30 release has both unavailable starting Monday, Nov. 2. The last day to pick up a hold at the Harris Center is Saturday, Nov. 7. The branch and the Health and Human Services satellite office at 400 E. Harris St. close Monday, Nov. 9. The ribbon gets cut that Friday.

The Hastings Community Center and Library at 401 N. Main St. runs 10,000 square feet, and the county says it carries a full-service library, a dedicated children’s area, a drive-up book drop, meeting spaces, a seed library and an HHS satellite office. The release calls the design inspired by the former Hastings Community Center. The dedication ceremony is Friday, Nov. 13, at 9 a.m., and the doors open to the public after it.

The terms of the move favor the reader holding a library book. Nothing checked out from the Hastings Branch comes due during the closure, late fees do not accrue, and hold pickup deadlines run seven days past the grand opening. Book drops at both locations are inaccessible during the move, and donations cannot be accepted. The books stay home until then.

“This new space is something that the residents have been waiting on for a long time,” Debra Rhodes Gibson, the county’s director of library services, says in the release. “A community is stronger when help is within reach,” Shawna Novak, the county’s director of health and human services, says in the same release.

The money paragraph names three sources and no amounts. The release says the building was made possible through the Board of County Commissioners by way of Housing and Urban Development grants, with additional support from the Department of State Division of Library and Information Services and the state of Florida. None carries a dollar figure.

Between the Monday it closes and the Friday it opens, Hastings has no library at all.

Nothing comes due, which is fine. Nothing can be returned either.

Forty-eight restaurant inspections, Oct. 26 to Oct. 29

2026-11-01T00:00:00.000Z

The state recorded 48 food service inspection visits in this county between Oct. 26 and Oct. 29, 2026. Six of them ended in a recommended administrative complaint and one call-back recorded that recommendation again. Seven ended in a warning. Three ended in the disposition “Emergency order recommended.” The 48 visits name 42 separate licenses. Thirty-six were visited once and six twice. Thirty-four of the 48 visits in the window are recorded as Routine - Food. Seven are Complaint Full, four are Complaint Partial and three are a Food-Licensing Inspection.

Oct. 29 is the newest county date anywhere in the file. Oct. 23, Oct. 24 and Oct. 25 carry no county visit of any kind. The file carries 6,341 District 5 rows, 719 of them this county. It runs July 1 through Oct. 29. It writes the county as St. Johns. A search for Saint Johns finds nothing. District 5 covers more than this county.

Three licenses carry the emergency order disposition in this window. At Terra & Acqua in Saint Augustine, a Complaint Full visit on Oct. 26 found 21 total violations and 7 high priority. That visit was recorded as “Emergency order recommended.” A second visit on Oct. 29 found 2 and 1 and was recorded as “Emergency Order Callback Not Complied.” The second is South A Philly Steaks and Hoagies in Saint Augustine. A routine inspection on Oct. 27 found 7 total violations and 3 high priority. That visit was recorded as “Emergency order recommended.” A return visit on Oct. 28 found no violations at the license. It was recorded as “Emergency Order Callback Complied.” The third is Main St Pizza & Ice Cream in Hastings. A Complaint Partial visit on Oct. 28 found 4 total violations and 3 high priority. That visit was recorded as “Emergency order recommended.” A return visit on Oct. 29 found 1 violation at the license. It was recorded as “Emergency Order Callback Time Extension.”

A recommendation is an inspector’s recommendation and not an order. The file that records an actual closure order is the department’s weekly emergency suspension extract. The newest posted extract covers the week ending Oct. 25. It carries one St. Johns County row. That is the Main St Pizza & Ice Cream closure of Oct. 21, reported in last week’s table. The closure extract shows the place allowed to reopen the next morning. The extract covering Oct. 26 through Nov. 1 is not posted as of this writing. Whether any license in this window was ordered closed is a row in that file. This paper will report what it says when it posts.

The department says that establishments in this state “are not graded or rated.” It says an inspection is “a snapshot of conditions present at the time of the inspection.” Names and cities are printed exactly as the state writes them in the file. Street addresses are carried in the inspection file. They are not reprinted here. The one exception is the closure row, where the state’s own closure extract prints one.

Date	Name on the license	City	Inspection type	Visit	Total violations	High priority	Result recorded by the state
Oct 26	ALICE & PETE’S PUB	PONTE VEDRA BEACH	Routine - Food	1	4	2	Administrative complaint recommended
Oct 26	AMERICAN GATOR CLUB	PONTE VEDRA BEACH	Routine - Food	1	0	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 26	BEST WESTERN HISTORICAL INN	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	2	3	0	Call Back - Extension given, pending
Oct 26	CAFFE ANDIAMO	PONTE VEDRA BEACH	Routine - Food	2	0	0	Call Back - Complied
Oct 26	DENNY’S #7047	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Complaint Partial	1	1	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 26	FORD’S GARAGE	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	8	3	Warning Issued
Oct 26	KOI	PONTE VEDRA BEACH	Routine - Food	3	1	0	Call Back - Admin. complaint recommended
Oct 26	LA COCINA BISTRO	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	7	0	Warning Issued
Oct 26	M&K PHO	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Food-Licensing Inspection	1	1	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 26	MOES SOUTHWEST GRILL #198	ST. JOHNS	Complaint Full	2	0	0	Call Back - Complied
Oct 26	OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE #1034	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	4	2	Administrative complaint recommended
Oct 26	ROMANO’S PIZZERIA AND RESTAURANT	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	6	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 26	SANTIAGO’S	SAINT AUGUSTINE BEAC	Routine - Food	2	1	0	Call Back - Extension given, pending
Oct 26	SUSHI 99	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	2	2	0	Call Back - Extension given, pending
Oct 26	TACO’S QUEEN	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Complaint Full	1	7	3	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 26	TERRA & ACQUA	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Complaint Full	1	21	7	Emergency order recommended
Oct 26	VERNON’S RESTAURANT	PONTE VEDRA BEACH	Routine - Food	1	11	4	Administrative complaint recommended
Oct 27	@CORNER SUSHI	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	8	2	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 27	AGUSTIN INN	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	0	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 27	ASADO LIFE	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	8	3	Warning Issued
Oct 27	FORD’S GARAGE	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	2	0	0	Call Back - Complied
Oct 27	SOUTH A PHILLY STEAKS AND HOAGIES	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	7	3	Emergency order recommended
Oct 27	UMAI JAPANESE	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	9	2	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 27	VINCE’S SANDWICH SHOP	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	2	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 28	ANASTASIA DINER	ST AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	17	4	Warning Issued
Oct 28	BRONX HOUSE PIZZA	SAINT AUGUSTINE BEAC	Routine - Food	1	6	2	Administrative complaint recommended
Oct 28	GATORS DOCKSIDE AT MURABELLA	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Complaint Full	1	16	5	Warning Issued
Oct 28	GREATFULL BREAD	ST AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	0	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 28	INN ON CHARLOTTE BED AND BREAKFAST	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	6	1	0	Call Back - Complied
Oct 28	INN ON CHARLOTTE BED AND BREAKFAST	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	2	0	Warning Issued
Oct 28	LONGHORN STEAK OF ST AUGUSTINE 5098	ST AUGUSTINE	Complaint Full	1	7	3	Warning Issued
Oct 28	MAIN ST PIZZA & ICE CREAM	HASTINGS	Complaint Partial	1	4	3	Emergency order recommended
Oct 28	PANERA BREAD #1432	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	4	1	Administrative complaint recommended
Oct 28	SOUTH A PHILLY STEAKS AND HOAGIES	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	2	0	0	Emergency Order Callback Complied
Oct 28	THE HEMINGWAY HOUSE	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	2	0	0	Call Back - Complied
Oct 28	WAFFLE HOUSE #2333	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	8	1	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 28	WHATABURGER	ST AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	0	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 29	3NATIVES	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Complaint Full	1	1	1	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 29	ARBY’S #7513	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Food-Licensing Inspection	1	1	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 29	ASADO LIFE	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	2	0	0	Call Back - Complied
Oct 29	BURGER KING #19411	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Complaint Partial	2	2	0	Call Back - Complied
Oct 29	DE LEON	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	8	2	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 29	FARMHAND KCHN	ST AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	20	7	Administrative complaint recommended
Oct 29	LEGACY CATERING	ST AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	1	4	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 29	MAIN ST PIZZA & ICE CREAM	HASTINGS	Complaint Partial	2	1	0	Emergency Order Callback Time Extension
Oct 29	PAPA JOHNS PIZZA 5528	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Food-Licensing Inspection	1	1	0	Inspection Completed - No Further Action
Oct 29	QUALITY INN & SUITES	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Routine - Food	2	2	0	Call Back - Extension given, pending
Oct 29	TERRA & ACQUA	SAINT AUGUSTINE	Complaint Full	2	2	1	Emergency Order Callback Not Complied

License type codes on these rows are 2010 on 47 rows and 2014 on 1 row. The department’s public records page was retrieved this cycle. It prints no key for those codes.

Compiled by The Ledger from public records. Automated, then checked. Corrections: corrections@stjohnstattler.org

Jake Shimabukuro plays Cafe Eleven at 8, and Sunday ends by 10

2026-11-01T00:00:00.000Z

The room to know about tonight is Cafe Eleven, 501 A1A Beach Boulevard, out at the beach. Jake Shimabukuro, the ukulele player who fills theaters, is on at 8. Seated show. All ages, under 18 with a parent.

The venue’s page does not print a ticket price, and tickets go through GloryDaysPresents.com. Under 21 pays a $5 fee at the door. Budget the five.

The clocks went back an hour at 2 a.m., which means the evening starts in the dark now, and a Sunday that already ran early runs earlier.

The bureau calendar lists 18 rows for today and not one of them prints a cover. The late shift, such as it is: Smokin’ Joe Schauer at Meehan’s Irish Pub, 6 to 10. Damon Slaughter at O.C. White’s, 6:30 to 9:30.

Before dark you can work a line from Bad Dog Mama at Old Coast Ales at 2, to Dewey Via Band at Dog Rose at 3:30, to Craig Smith at Bin 39 at 4, to ZaZa Flamenca upstairs at La Cocina at 5, and still make the beach room by 8.

Two rooms the bureau page skips tonight. Mill Top, 19 1/2 St. George Street, runs Nathan Allen from noon to 4 and Jon Q from 4:30 to 8:30, off the venue’s own page. Prohibition Kitchen has De Lions of Jah from 6 to 9 tonight, off the room’s own calendar feed rather than anybody’s roundup. You only find that one by reading the room’s calendar.

If the plan involves the ocean first: a High Surf Advisory and a Rip Current Statement run through 7 p.m. Monday on the county’s southeast coastal zone and Flagler’s coast. The water is the wrong part of the beach today.

The free STAR bus runs 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. tonight, so the early sets are reachable without a car, and the 8 o’clock show means arranging your own way home.

Next on the beach room’s calendar: Keith Harkin, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 8 p.m.

Halloween Saturday: a free show at 7, three rooms past 11

2026-10-31T00:00:00.000Z

It is Halloween on a Saturday. Here is the night, priced where anybody printed a price.

the free one

Tangled Orchid plays Colonial Oak at 7. Free, in capitals, on the venue’s own listing.

It runs to 10 at 21 St. George Street.

A six-piece out of Jacksonville and St. Johns County.

before dark

The farmers market at the Amphitheatre is free, 8:30 to 12:30.

The corn maze at Sykes Family Farms opens at 10 this morning and its listing runs all the way to 10 tonight, which on Halloween is the whole point of a corn maze. The cost field on its listing reads Prices Vary and prints no figure at all. So bring money and ask at the gate itself.

Rebel Waters at Crisp-Ellert is free.

Noon to 4.

Early voting ends today.

All ten sites close at 6.

the 2 p.m. curtain trap

To Kill a Mockingbird is at 2 today. Not 7:30.

The theater’s own ticketing page says 2.

The aggregator calendar says 7:30, and every other Saturday in the run really is 7:30, which is exactly how a regular ends up outside a dark building. Trust the theater’s page and check before driving.

something haunted

The candlelight tour at the Ximenez-Fatio House is called Mortality and Mourning. $25, at 6:30, at 20 Aviles Street.

One hour.

The title promises women in black.

the music

The bureau’s calendar carries about 35 acts today. That is this paper’s count off the page it saved overnight.

Dr. Sick and the Etcetera play Prohibition Kitchen at 8. The listing bills members of the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

The feed prints no cover.

Grieves plays Cafe Eleven on the beach, 8 to 10.

past midnight, or close to it

Chuck Eliot Duo plays Mill Top, 9 to 11:59. The end time is the tavern’s own.

ZaZa Flamenca is at 17 King, 9 to midnight.

Pierre’s Pub runs three acts, 8 to 11:59.

Tradewinds is the complicated one.

The bureau lists Contact Buzz there, 9 to 1. The room’s own schedule marks the 31st OPEN. It says check its Facebook for changes.

Call it a maybe. Carry a second plan.

the late screen

Epic runs Scream, the 1996 one, at 7:50 and 10:30. Resident Evil starts at 10:50. Both are rated R.

getting home, and the water

The STAR shuttle is free and runs to 11 tonight, which is the city’s posted Friday and Saturday schedule, and it prints no departure times anywhere, so build in slack. Plan the ride home before the set ends.

The ocean is not part of the plan. A rip current statement runs through Sunday evening. A coastal flood advisory holds until Sunday morning.

Costumes and a king tide do not mix.

Mandarin took the unbeaten season away by one point in overtime

2026-10-31T00:00:00.000Z

Perfect no more.

Mandarin 32, St. Augustine 31.

Overtime.

9 wins. 1 loss. The whole season came down to 1 point.

the rest of friday

Nease 39, Sandalwood 0. A shutout.

Bartram Trail 43, Land O Lakes 14.

Creekside 49, Ponte Vedra 18. County against county.

Menendez 22, Tocoi Creek 9. Also county against county.

Beachside and Westside were on the card.

No score has been reported.

what it means

The regular season is over.

Two county teams finished first in a district. St. Augustine. Creekside.

Both went 5-0 in district play and the season ended Friday and the bracket that says who plays on is not posted yet and nothing this paper reads tonight carries it.

you

No county school has a game on its calendar next Friday.

When the pairings post, this paper prints them.

The city publishes Nights of Lights dates: Nov. 21 to Jan. 18

2026-10-31T00:00:00.000Z

The city put dates on Nights of Lights on Friday, in a release whose own subhead promises free shuttles and the return of downtown entertainment. The lighting ceremony of the holiday tree and the canopy of live oaks around the Plaza de la Constitucion begins promptly at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 21, and the 2026-27 season continues through Monday, Jan. 18, 2027, the first season the city has dated in public since the commission resolved in March that the dates would stand from year to year without further action.

Those two dates trace to two different documents, one adopted from the dais in March and one signed with a tour operator in April, and the release names neither of them. The opening follows the motion the City Commission adopted on March 23, which fixed the season permanently to begin the Saturday prior to Thanksgiving, and since Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26 this year that Saturday is Nov. 21.

The close follows the trolley operator’s performance contract instead, approved on the April 27 consent agenda with dates of performance running Nov. 22, 2026 through Jan. 18, 2027. It stops one day short of the adopted motion, which carried the season to the Tuesday after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, a holiday observed this season on Monday, Jan. 18, whose following Tuesday is Jan. 19 on anybody’s calendar.

Whether the engrossed resolution reads with the motion or with the contract is still not something this paper can check. The packet copy of Resolution 2026-07 is unsigned, its adoption line reading “this day of , 2026,” and the signed version has not been published anywhere this newsroom has found.

Getting to a published date took the commission most of a year. Eight of its meetings between October 2025 and September 2026 carried a Nights of Lights item, and the only one whose work outlasts a single season is the March resolution the release does not mention.

Light-Up Night, as the city lists it

The evening of Nov. 21 runs Showtime USA at 4 p.m. in the Parque de Menendez at City Hall, 75 King St., and the All Star Orchestra at 5:30 p.m. at the gazebo in the plaza. The lighting itself is at 6:30, which the release says begins promptly.

The shuttles are free, by the release’s own subhead. They are the practical half of the announcement, because the two restricted streets sit in the middle of where everybody is going.

Shuttle	Runs	Park at	Drop-off and pickup
Main, north and west city	1 to 11 p.m.	St. Johns County Health Department, 200 San Sebastian View; Broudy’s Lot, 198 W. King St.; San Marco Lot, 301 San Marco Ave.	Visitor Information Center, 10 S. Castillo Dr.
Anastasia Island, Light-Up Night only	4 to 11 p.m.	Anastasia Baptist Church, 1650 A1A South; R.B. Hunt Elementary, 125 Magnolia Dr.	Bridge of Lions, east end

Parking is prohibited all day on Cathedral Place between Avenida Menendez and Cordova Street and on the north side of King Street between Cordova and Avenida Menendez. Cathedral Place closes to vehicles from 5 to 8 p.m., and the release reserves the police department’s discretion to change any of it on security and public safety grounds. For island and beach residents within walking distance of its stops, the city recommends the free STAR Circulator as the walk-and-ride, a service whose posted Friday and Saturday hours run to 11 p.m. and whose departure times and frequency the city has never printed anywhere this paper has found.

The money underneath the dates

Nothing about the funding picture has moved since this paper read the March minutes. Commissioners are recorded there saying the county had provided $850,000 toward the event and that the city on its own could pay for thirteen days of it, and the season the city has now announced runs fifty-nine days, which is this paper’s count from Nov. 21 through Jan. 18 inclusive.

The tree lights at 6:30 on Nov. 21.

Mandarin 32, St. Augustine 31 in overtime, and 9-0 is gone

2026-10-31T00:00:00.000Z

Mandarin 32, St. Augustine 31. Overtime.

The statewide board tags the card F/OT and MaxPreps marks it Final (OT), and the 9-0 season is a 9-1 season.

Both teams finished 9-1. The Yellow Jackets scored 400 points this fall and gave up 116.

They won 4A District 4 anyway at 5-0, sitting first on the MaxPreps table when the night ended. That was settled before Friday.

One point, in the extra period, at The Corral. That was the whole year’s gap.

Friday, five finals and a blank

Four county teams won. Records are after Friday, as both boards print them. Visitor first. Venue names as FloridaHSFootball.com prints them.

St. Augustine (9-1) 31, Mandarin (9-1) 32, at The Corral. Overtime.

Nease (7-3) 39, Sandalwood (6-4) 0, at Dennis Bartley Field. The county’s only shutout of the night.

Land O Lakes (6-4) 14, Bartram Trail (7-3) 43, at Bear Stadium.

Creekside (8-2) 49, Ponte Vedra (3-7) 18, at Shark Tank. All-county.

Tocoi Creek (3-7) 9, Menendez (6-4) 22, at Veterans Stadium. All-county.

The five margins, smallest first, are 1, 13, 29, 31 and 39. That is subtraction this paper did on the scores above.

The game with no score on it

Westside at Beachside was a 7 o’clock card at Barracuda Stadium, and neither board has a result.

FloridaHSFootball.com prints the card Status Unknown, with no score on either row. MaxPreps says no result has been reported.

The card sits on the week eleven board with a television tag for the NFHS Network, a seven o’clock kickoff, Barracuda Stadium on the venue line, Westside on the top row, and the word Final nowhere on it.

Both boards still print the Barracudas at 5-4, which is the record without Friday in it.

When a result is reported somewhere this paper can read, it runs here, attributed to whoever reported it.

The season is over, and the bracket is not out

No county school’s own calendar carries a fall football game after Oct. 30.

The statewide week twelve board carries no St. Johns County school, and its bye list names one team, IMG Academy National.

The cards stacked around the county games on Friday’s own board already carry playoff names from other associations, with Class 11-Man North Quarterfinals and Class 8-Man State First Round printed across them the way a district label sits on an ordinary week. No county school is among them.

Creekside finished 5-0 in 6A District 1, first on its MaxPreps table, and ends the regular season on a streak the page marks 5 W.

Two county schools finished first in a district. What that buys them next is not printed on any board this paper reads tonight. When the pairings post, they run here.

Every score here was reported by FloridaHSFootball.com and every record by MaxPreps, and the two agree on all eight county schools. Nobody from this paper was at any of the games.

Eight schools, six games Friday, and St. Augustine is 9-0 at Mandarin

2026-10-30T00:00:00.000Z

All eight county schools play Friday night. Six games. Two are county teams playing each other, and no school’s own calendar carries a game after this one.

Records are as FloridaHSFootball.com’s scoreboard prints them.

The card

St. Augustine (9-0) at Mandarin (8-1), 7 p.m., The Corral, Jacksonville.

The only unbeaten record on the card visits the team that won 49-7 over Bartram Trail last Friday, on the same night St. Augustine was putting 42 on Fleming Island, and the scoreboard carries them a game apart at 9-0 and 8-1.

Creekside (7-2) at Ponte Vedra (3-6), 7 p.m., the Shark Tank, 460 Davis Park Rd., Ponte Vedra. County against county.

Creekside held First Coast to 6 last week. Ponte Vedra gave up 49 at Nease.

Tocoi Creek (3-6) at Menendez (5-4), 7 p.m., Veterans Stadium, 600 State Road 206 W., St. Augustine. The other county game.

Menendez won 42-8 over Westside a week ago. Tocoi Creek lost to Sandalwood by six.

Nease (6-3) at Sandalwood (6-3), 6:30 p.m., Dennis Bartley Field, Jacksonville. The early kickoff.

Sandalwood is the team that edged Tocoi Creek 23-17 last Friday, in the same hour Nease was scoring 49 on Ponte Vedra, and the two of them walk in carrying the same record.

Land O Lakes (6-3) at Bartram Trail (6-3), 7 p.m., Bear Stadium, St. Johns.

Bartram Trail comes home off the 49-7 night at Mandarin. The visitors are from Pasco County. Identical record.

Westside (1-8) at Beachside (5-4), 7 p.m., Barracuda Stadium.

Beachside won at Fletcher by one, 28-27. Westside took the 42-8 loss at Menendez.

Last Friday, for the record

Beachside 28, Fletcher 27. Mandarin 49, Bartram Trail 7. Creekside 27, First Coast 6. St. Augustine 42, Fleming Island 7. Nease 49, Ponte Vedra 35. Sandalwood 23, Tocoi Creek 17. Menendez 42, Westside 8.

All seven as the state scoreboard prints them.

What comes after Friday is not on any school’s published calendar yet.

When it is, it will be on this page.

Grand Oaks passed 5/0 with a donated park and no impact fee credits

2026-10-30T00:00:00.000Z

Grand Oaks ended its evening on Oct. 20 with a 5/0 vote, Ordinance No. 2026-36, and two conditions that were in nobody’s packet that morning: three commercial parcels donated to the county for a park, and the landowners agreeing not to seek impact fee tax credits. The $20,000,000 development agreement that replaces the 2018 obligation to four-lane roughly three miles of State Road 16 passed 5/0 immediately after it.

The record of the vote is the draft minutes of that meeting, which surfaced this week as the backup to item 22 on Tuesday’s consent agenda, where the board will be asked to approve them. The county has posted no recording of Oct. 20, so the draft is currently the only readable account of what the board did.

The vote came fifth, after four motions went nowhere

The modification cuts the remaining entitled units from 556 to 512 and the ceiling of the planned unit development from 999 homes to 954, against 442 lots already platted. What the draft minutes show is a board that could not find a second for most of an afternoon.

Commissioner Murphy moved to approve on the staff report’s six findings of fact, and the motion died without a second. Commissioner Taylor then moved to deny on the report’s seven findings, seconded by Commissioner Arnold, and the roll the draft prints reads Yea: Taylor, Arnold. Nay: Murphy, Joseph, Whitehurst. That is two votes for denial and three against, and the board went on to approve the project, so the motion failed.

The draft’s own summary line says otherwise. It reads “carried 2/3, with Murphy, Joseph, and Whitehurst dissenting,” which contradicts the roll printed directly beneath it.

The roll is the operative record.

The discrepancy sits in the document the board is asked to adopt as its own minutes on Tuesday, and nothing in the draft flags it.

After the failed denial came a failed motion to enact, a tabling motion withdrawn, and a tabling to Nov. 3 that also found no second, with Commissioner Joseph offering to second a delay to Nov. 17 instead. At that point, per the draft, the applicant’s representative stated that the applicant agreed to the commissioners’ requested terms and offered to donate the commercial parcel to the county for use as a park. The final motion folded that in, naming the three parcels, and carried with all five commissioners voting yes.

What the credits condition changes, and what the draft does not say

The condition that the landowners will not seek impact fee tax credits is a large number if it reaches the whole request. The proposed agreement posted before the hearing asked for a road impact fee credit of $19,505,738.80, which staff calculated at $19,396,839 after a reduction the Land Development Code applies to the required proportionate share. The draft minutes record the agreement in one sentence, that “the landowner agreed to forgo impact fee credits to move the project forward,” and the final motion’s words are “the landowners agreeing not to seek impact fee tax credits.”

What the draft does not say is which credits that language reaches: the credit request in the agreement, any credit generated by donating the three parcels, or both. The enacted ordinance and the executed agreement will say, and neither is published yet.

The draft is also silent on the two staff comments that were open on the day of the vote. Staff had put the required proportionate share for the 512 homes at $12,850,449 where the proposed agreement stated $2,471,306, and the staff report closed with those two calculations named as outstanding. The minutes record discussion of the developers’ anticipated fair-share credits and of phasing the road to four lanes, and no resolution of either number appears in them.

The agreement itself, DEVAGREE 2026-01, then passed 5/0 on a finding that it meets the requirements and intent of Section 11.09 of the Land Development Code, the proportionate fair share section. The $20,000,000 covers the transportation impact of the 512 remaining homes.

A dozen residents and a six o’clock finish

Roughly a dozen members of the public spoke in support of the modification, by this paper’s count of the names the draft lists, most of them urging the board to take the applicant’s proposal, while one person spoke in opposition, raising concerns about the community development district’s ownership and conflicts of interest. The board recessed at 6:14 p.m. after the second Grand Oaks vote, on a meeting that had been called to order at 9 a.m.

The board meets Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the County Auditorium at 500 San Sebastian View. Item 22 on the consent agenda is the motion that turns this draft, summary lines and all, into the approved record.

Halloween eve: the haunted trail moved, and tonight is its last night

2026-10-30T00:00:00.000Z

The haunted trail costs $20 if you book online and $30 if you pay standing in line, and after 9:30 tonight it is gone. EstuSCARY does not run on Halloween night, whatever its web address implies. Friday is the second of its two nights, 7 to 9:30, recommended for ages 10 and up.

It is also not where it was. The reserve’s page now carries a block headed LOCATION UPDATE: Guana River Dam, 505 Guana River Road, in Ponte Vedra Beach, with parking at the dam and at the GTM Visitor Center. Last week the same page said the South Beach Access lot, and at least one local event calendar still lists the old spot tonight. Go by the reserve’s own page, and wear closed-toe shoes. This one needs a car.

The free hour, and the free field

The genuinely free thing tonight runs for exactly one hour. Shores United Methodist Church has a trunk-or-treat from 6 to 7 p.m., free, per the event calendar. Arriving at 6 rather than 6:40 is most of the plan.

Football is the other big gathering, and every county school plays tonight. Four of the six games are home games. Land O Lakes is at Bartram Trail at Bear Stadium, and Westside is at Beachside at Barracuda Stadium. Creekside is at Ponte Vedra at the Shark Tank at 460 Davis Park Rd., and Tocoi Creek is at Menendez at Veterans Stadium at 600 State Road 206 W. All four kick off at 7. Neither the schools’ calendars nor the state scoreboard prints a ticket price, so bring more than you think the gate costs.

Music without a cover charge printed anywhere

The visitor bureau’s calendar lists 37 rooms with live music on Friday, counted off its own page, and prints a cover for none of them.

The late block is downtown and inside a walk of itself. Chuck & Eliot are at Mill Top Tavern from 9 to midnight. ZaZa Flamenca is at 17 King over the same hours. Sarbez has Reagan Bush at 7 and Sage Trunnell at 8.

The latest start on the page is Trae Pierce and the T-Stones at Prohibition Kitchen at 10 p.m. The venue’s own feed ends that set at midnight, where the bureau’s page says 1 a.m., so the safe plan is to be there for the front of it, not the end. Bottom Feeders play the same room from 6 to 9 first.

The water is out, and the free ride runs late

The rip current risk is high through Sunday evening, in the weather service’s own words, with Friday surf at 4 to 6 feet and a coastal flood advisory on both county beach zones until 3 p.m. The beach works as a place to stand tonight. It does not work as a place to swim. That holds all weekend.

The STAR Circulator is the free ride, funded by a state grant, and on Fridays it runs 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. between downtown, Anastasia Boulevard and A1A Beach Boulevard. The catch is the same one as always: the city publishes no departure times and no frequency, so it works as a bonus and not as a schedule. If the ride home has to happen at a specific minute, that minute needs a car.

Tomorrow is the actual holiday, and the one already marked free in a venue’s own words is Tangled Orchid at Colonial Oak, 7 to 10 Saturday night. The trail gets no tomorrow. The $20 version exists until you get in the car. After that it is the $30 one.

The county certified two enclaves Oct. 20. Three more come Tuesday.

2026-10-30T00:00:00.000Z

Two agricultural enclaves are certified in St. Johns County, about 241 acres between them, and they are the first this board has granted and left standing. The record is the draft minutes of Oct. 20, which surfaced this week as backup to item 22 on Tuesday’s consent agenda.

Carter Road Associates, about 200.75 acres at the northern end of Carter Road, carried 4/1. Commissioner Arnold moved it, Commissioner Whitehurst seconded, and Commissioner Taylor voted no. It is on page 9 of the draft.

Pacetti Oaks, about 40.5 acres at 3975 Pacetti Road, carried 3/2 on the same motion and second. Taylor and Joseph voted no. Page 10.

The 241 is this paper’s addition of two figures the county prints as approximate.

Certification is not a rezoning. It is stronger.

Under section 163.3162(4)(e) of the Florida Statutes, a certified owner may submit plans for single-family housing at the density of an adjacent parcel or development, and the county’s comprehensive plan, future land use map and zoning stop governing the land.

Neither application came with a unit count, because the statute does not ask for one at this stage.

How the board got to yes

Until Oct. 20 the running score was three denials. ENCERT 2026-01, the North Palm Valley application, was denied Sept. 15, and its applicant says it has taken that denial to circuit court. Heritage East and West, about 1,166 acres, were approved 3-2 on Aug. 19 and then denied 3/2 on reconsideration Sept. 28. Those Sept. 28 minutes were themselves approved on Oct. 20, on consent.

On Carter Road, the draft shows the no votes running out of seconds. Commissioner Joseph moved to continue the item to Nov. 17 and nobody seconded it. Taylor then moved to deny on the grounds the Sept. 28 denial was built on, that the application does not establish that at least fifty percent of the perimeter is surrounded by parcels within an urban service district, area or line, because a development area boundary is not an urban service area identified in the comprehensive plan with facilities in place. Nobody seconded that either.

The approval followed.

The applicants put numbers on the record as the votes got close. Carter Road’s representative offered single-family homes at 1.3 units per acre, per the draft. Star IV’s attorney offered to limit development to no more than three units per acre. An offer from a podium is not a condition of a certification, and the approval motions as drafted carry neither figure.

One withdrawn, one continued, two new

Adler Creek, the largest of the four at about 594.42 acres, never got a hearing. The draft disposes of it in one line: the applicant withdrew it. County staff had written that it did not appear to satisfy the statute, on ownership and on the perimeter test.

Star IV, about 70.83 acres south of the Grand Oaks development, was continued to Nov. 3 on a 3/2 vote after a continuance to Nov. 17 failed on the same split. Staff’s updated report says it does not appear to qualify. The statute’s 90-day clock certifies an application the board never decides, and Star IV is the one file whose clock nobody outside the county can date, because its backup prints no receipt date. The two certified applications were decided inside their published clocks, which run out at the end of November.

Tuesday the board is asked again. Star IV is item 1, the continued hearing. Items 2 and 3 are new: ENCERT 2026-14 and 2026-15, Osceola Lakes North and South, approximately 103.29 and 40 acres south of Wildwood Drive and north of Watson Road, about a mile west of US 1. That is roughly 143 more acres, this paper’s addition, and both are marked District 3 where all four of the Oct. 20 applications were marked District 2.

Residents spoke against all three items that were heard, sixteen times across the three by this paper’s count of the draft’s list, on the perimeter test, traffic, schools, conservation and the staff reports. The hearings ran from 1:10 p.m., when the board reconvened from lunch, until the Grand Oaks items that followed them.

The board meets Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the County Auditorium at 500 San Sebastian View. Tuesday is also Election Day. The polls close at 7 p.m., and the enclave file will be longer by morning either way.

For Seat 3 at the Beach, the Tattler endorses Jacob Dascomb

2026-10-29T00:00:00.000Z

This paper endorses Jacob Dascomb for St. Augustine Beach Commission Seat 3.

The reason is taxes, and it is not a slogan. It is in the city’s own ordinance.

St. Augustine Beach adopted a Fiscal Year 2027 budget of $15,542,456 and left its rate at 2.5000 mills. The city’s own ordinance records that flat rate as 3 percent above the rolled-back rate, which is the rate that would have raised the same money as the year before.

That is what a tax increase is. Florida has a word for it, and the city used the word itself.

A rate held still while property values climb is not restraint. It is more money, collected quietly, described as nothing having changed.

What the candidate says, in his own words

Mr. Dascomb runs a section of his site headed Lower the Tax Burden. He writes that the commission has voted to increase property taxes every year for twelve consecutive years, that it added a new stormwater tax of about $200 on a typical single-family home, and that taxes levied have risen 172 percent in twelve years while, in his phrase, the city “doesn’t seem to have gotten much better.”

Those figures are his. This paper has not verified the twelve years, the 172 percent or the $6.57 million in reserves he cites, and does not assert them here.

What this paper has verified is the direction. One sentence of his needs no checking at all, because it is a position rather than a number: tax property “for what is absolutely necessary to provide the essential services that make our community better, nothing more.”

We agree with that sentence, and it is the whole of why this endorsement exists.

What the record says she did

On Sept. 8 the commission met to set the property tax operating millage. The city’s own minutes record Commissioner George present, attending by Zoom.

The Finance Director gave the commission three numbers. The previously proposed rate was 2.6700 mills. The rolled-back rate, the one that would have raised the same money as last year, was 2.4273 mills. The rate on the table that evening was the 2.5000 they went on to keep.

The City Attorney read Ordinance 2026-09 in full. It was moved, seconded, and passed unanimously. The budget ordinance went the same way minutes later.

Unanimous, with her recorded present, is a vote, and it is hers.

Two things belong here that help her case, and leaving them out would be the cheap version of this argument. Staff brought the rate down from the 2.6700 that had been proposed, and the Finance Director told Commissioner Samora that no capital projects were cut to do it. There were roughly $128,000 of insurance savings and no new staff positions.

It is still above the rollback. 2.5000 against 2.4273 is three percent more of your money than last year took, and the city wrote that number in its own ordinance.

Public comment was opened at that meeting and nobody spoke. The rate was set in a room where no resident said a word, in the twenty-six minutes between the gavel and adjournment.

What the record does not say, and why

It does not say why. The final budget hearing was Sept. 24 and the city has posted no minutes for it at all.

So we can tell you what she voted for on the eighth and not one word of what she said about it on the twenty-fourth.

We asked her. On Oct. 25 this paper sent Commissioner George six written questions, the same six it sent her opponent, in the same message at the same minute, with a deadline of 5 p.m. on Thursday. One of them asked for a single budget line she would raise and a single one she would cut, with figures.

An officeholder who votes to take three percent more and will not spend ten minutes explaining why has told you something, and she has told it to you on purpose. The complaint this country was founded on was not the size of a tax. It was being taxed by people who would not answer for it.

So we report what she did. We cannot report why, because she did not say. That silence is hers.

We are also not saying Mr. Dascomb has a record. He does not. He has never held the seat, which is the ordinary condition of a challenger and is not a mark against him. What he has is a written position, which is more than this paper could find anywhere for the seat’s current holder.

The answers that did not come

Neither candidate answered. Not a word came back.

The questions went to both of them on Oct. 25, in one message, at the same minute. The deadline was 5 p.m. Thursday, and it passed with nothing from either of them, because the mailbox was working the whole time and other mail kept arriving in it.

This paper said on Oct. 25 that it would print both sets of answers in full, side by side, before the polls closed. There are no answers to print, so it prints the fact instead, about both of them: asked the same six questions at the same moment, Jacob Dascomb and Undine George each said nothing.

The two silences do not weigh the same, and it would be dishonest to pretend they do.

Mr. Dascomb has never held the seat, and he has no vote to account for. His silence to this paper leaves his own website as his record, and that website takes a plain position on taxes in his own words, which is more than the incumbent has put anywhere a voter can read.

Ms. George cast a documented vote to set a rate three percent above rollback, and then would not spend ten minutes saying why. That is not a challenger choosing to keep his powder dry. That is an officeholder who will not answer for a thing she has already done.

So the endorsement rests on what the record holds, and not on what either of them told us, because neither told us anything.

An endorsement is this paper’s opinion and it is the publisher’s to hold. The news story beside it is held to a separate standard, and it says plainly that this paper failed to print either candidate’s name for four days while people were already voting.

Vote for whichever of them you think will take less of your money for better reasons. We think that is Jacob Dascomb.