The county has moved up a notch, but the competition isn’t over yet.
St. Johns County, Fla. — St. Johns County is on top again. This is the result of a vote on the location of the yet-to-be-built Florida Museum of Black History.
Eight cities and counties in the Sunshine State were named with the name late last year.
As of last month, the nine-member Florida Black History Museum task force had narrowed a list of eight candidates to three, led by St. Johns County, followed by Eatonville outside Orlando and Opa-locka outside Miami. .
On Tuesday, the rankings remained unchanged, with a narrow 5-4 vote by the special committee that made St. Augustine and St. Johns counties the frontrunners for the museum site.
St. Johns County Governor Joy Andrews spoke at the task force in Tallahassee on Tuesday. She later told First Coast News that the vote to keep St. Johns County as the first choice was “monumental for the St. Johns community.”
St. Johns County and Eatonville residents attended a rally in Tallahassee on Tuesday to tout their communities’ financial support and location strengths after the vote.
St. Johns County Commissioner Sarah Arnold addressed the task force’s concerns about financial feasibility, citing some of the community partners providing support to the St. Augustine location.
“We have support from the Community Foundation of Northeast Florida, the Jesse Ball duPont Foundation, the United Way, three or four HBCUs, the Jaguars Foundation,” her list went on.
Angela Johnson, who spoke in support of Eatonville, cited nearby public transportation options and easy travel distance to I-95 and the airport, saying, “The location is not difficult to access. ” he said.
Some Eatonville supporters criticized the task force’s decision for St. Johns County.
“I don’t understand the decision-making,” Rep. Bruce Antone (D-Orlando) told the task force. He added: “I presented a plan. We did our homework!”
St. Augustine’s proposed site is at the intersection of Holmes Boulevard and West King Street, on the 17-acre site of the former Florida Memorial College, a historically black college.
The construction of a state-of-the-art Florida Black History Museum is expected to bring not only an economic influx of tourists and prestige, but also economic responsibility to the surrounding community.
Feasibility studies will now be carried out on all three locations.
The task force is scheduled to meet again on June 5 and possibly again later in June. Their final recommendations will ultimately go to the governor, Senate president, House speaker and other state leaders for a final decision.
