One group’s boon is another’s blight.
The St. Augustine City Commission addressed mounting resident frustration over the scale and scope of the annual Nights of Lights celebration at a meeting Monday.
While the event serves as a vital commercial lifeline for local businesses and their staff, Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline said the thickening throngs are becoming untenable.
“We hear what the community is saying,” she said. “And we want a livable city. We still want to be able to live in a real city. This is a real city. It is not Disneyworld. People really live here. we have to be able to live here.”
Sikes-Kline noted that this year’s crowds were likely augmented by an extra $400,000 in marketing materials targeting those within driving distance of St. Augustine.
While that campaign sent registers ringing, Sikes-Kline said she witnessed big city-style gridlock for the first time.
“It was intense,” she said. “It was intense. And what I saw different this time was gridlock. Usually you have gridlock that moves. There’s moving cars. They move very slowly. This time they did not move. We are dangerously close to over-tourism.”
Commissioner Barbara Blonder said she has been inundated with constituent gripes this year, and personally waded into the bedlam to better understand the grievances.
“The traffic was so bad,” she said. “People were so frustrated that it was chaos.”
Blonder said that additional funding will be required to adequately manage the annual deluge — and that local taxpayers should not bear the burden.
“We’ve got to do something about Nights of Lights,” she said. “It’s great for businesses. That’s great. I’m definitely supportive of businesses. But not at the cost of our taxpayers who are footing the bill and not at the cost of our quality of life.”
Blonder urged county-level officials to re-position some monies that support the popular event.
“I want to see the county step up and not spend all the money on trying to get more tourists here and help us,” she said. “Help this city with the costs that the taxpayers are shouldering.”
Sikes-Kline suggested that ad campaigns target overnight travelers instead of the fudge and flee demographic.
Those visitors, she said, would patronize local hotels and restaurants as opposed to more snack and sweets-oriented vendors.
But local business owner held up the other side of the coin at Monday’s meeting, telling the panel that this year’s event was an inarguable success — and filled up coffers for both business owners and their employees.
“I want to commend the city for handling Nights of Lights so well,” Scott York said. “It is an amazing boost to the economy.”
He said political support for the event ensures that “our businesses and our citizens can survive the rest of the year.”
The City Commission will tackle the matter further once the event ends and an official report on this year’s numbers is compiled.
