| 📅 Monday, August 10, 2026 Full Edition | Fernandina Beach ⛅ 89°/77° |
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| 📰 | Top Stories |
Fernandina Beach voters have two city items on the August 18 ballot: the three-way race for City Commission Seat 4 between Scott Inglis, Len Kreger and Staci McMonagle, and the citizen-initiated paid parking referendum. The mayor's race between Genece Minshew and Tim Poynter is not one of them. Only two candidates qualified, so under the city's election rules there was nothing to narrow down and that contest goes straight to the November 3 general. We listed the mayor's race among the August items in our August 3 issue, which was wrong, and we would rather correct it now than after you vote.
On the parking question, a yes vote would require voter approval before the city implements paid parking in new areas. The city has said the existing downtown program would survive a yes unless commissioners separately vote to repeal it. The countywide ballot also carries County Commission and School Board races. Early voting runs through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily including both weekend days, and any registered Nassau voter can use any open site.
Read More → News4Jax Voter's GuideThe first visible piece of the $12.58 million marina redevelopment is not a bulldozer, it is a ticket window. The city posted on August 6 that the Pirate Voyages kiosk has moved to Parking Lot B, between its old spot and the new Waterfront Park, and that Amelia River Cruises is relocating shortly. Construction itself is expected to begin by the end of the month.
City officials told marina stakeholders the work runs roughly 18 months and that the marina stays open the whole time. The order of operations: move boats out of the work zones, take down the former Brett's Waterway Cafe, replace a seawall that is about a hundred years old, dredge the basin, then rebuild the docks. Completion is targeted for December 3, 2027.
Read More → City of Fernandina BeachNassau County schools open the 2026-27 year this morning. The change worth knowing about is at the bike rack rather than the classroom: middle and high school students now have to fill out an application, pass a safety course and be certified before they are authorized to ride an e-bike or e-scooter onto campus. Superintendent Dr. Kathy Burns announced the requirement in late July and the courses have been available since.
Two practical notes. Florida's back-to-school sales tax holiday runs through August 20, so anything you forgot is still tax free for another ten days. And afternoon pickup lands in the hottest, stormiest part of these days, so build in the extra time this first week.
Read More → News4JaxThe Florida National Register Review Board takes up the nomination of Bosque Bello Cemetery at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Room 307 of the R.A. Gray Building in Tallahassee. It is one of eight properties on the agenda statewide, and the only one from Nassau County. A favorable review is the step before a nomination goes on to the National Park Service.
The city says the burial ground at 1321 North 14th Street was established by the Spanish in 1798, which makes it older than the Old Town street grid it sits beside. A newer section was added in the mid 1940s. You do not have to drive to Tallahassee to watch. The board's agenda carries a webinar link and a call-in number, and public comment is on it.
Read More → Florida Division of Historical Resources| 📍 | Around Nassau County |
| ➤ | Fernandina Beach: The two city budget workshops still sitting on this week's meeting calendar, tonight and tomorrow, are not happening. Commissioners waived them on August 4 after seeing the proposed budget, and the next budget dates are the public hearings on September 3 and September 15. (More) |
| ➤ | Nassau County: Nassau NewsLine has published its 2026 election guide. Every candidate on the county and city ballots got the same questions and the same space, answers run in their own words, and where someone did not respond the guide says so. (More) |
| ➤ | Fernandina Beach: The third round of street resurfacing this fiscal year starts mid month and covers 1.3 miles of city streets. The road list is posted at fbfl.us/projects, which is worth a look before you plan a route. (More) |
| ➤ | Amelia Island: Amelia Island Opera announced its sixth season under the theme From Page to Stage, built around works that began as something written. The slate includes Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief, the annual Messiah Sing-Along and Massenet's Werther. (More) |
| 📌 | Briefly Noted |
- Moon River Pizza on South 14th Street is temporarily closed, announced July 21, about two months after longtime owner Andy Bottorff died in May.
- Your TRIM notice lands next Monday, August 17. The millage on it is the ceiling commissioners set in July, not the rate they adopt in September.
- The Army Corps has cleared escarpment lines along city beaches; the permit requires removing drops over 18 inches during turtle nesting season.
- Ash Street drainage is past its railroad boring delay, with paving on the last block due at the end of the month.
- Amelia Community Theatre opens And Then There Were None on Friday, closing its 45th season across three weekends through August 29.
| 🗓️ | This Week on the Island |
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11
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City Hall, 204 Ash St • 5 p.m. • Agenda posted, open to the public
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Wed
12
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City Hall, 204 Ash St • 5 p.m. • The board that reviews development proposals after the Historic District Council
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Thu
13
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1955 Island Walkway • Thu, Fri and Sat 7:30 p.m., Sun 2:30 p.m. • $25 adults, $15 students; the Sunday matinee is sold out
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Fri
14
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207 Cedar St • 7:30 p.m. • Agatha Christie murder mystery closing ACT's 45th season; box office (904) 261-6749
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Sat
15
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Any open site in Nassau County • 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. • After Saturday you vote at your assigned precinct on August 18
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Sat
15
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Fernandina Beach Farmers Market
N. 7th Street, downtown • 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. • Rain or shine, year round
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The downtown waterfront is about to be a construction site for the next year and a half. What is the one thing down there you hope comes back looking exactly the way you remember it? Hit reply and let us know. We read every response.
Old Town Fernandina holds a distinction no other place in the Western Hemisphere can claim. What is it?
Answer: It was the last town in the hemisphere platted under Spain's Laws of the Indies, the 1573 royal rulebook for laying out colonial settlements. Surveyor George J.F. Clarke drew the grid in 1811, with its central plaza and blocks running to the river, and roughly 26 blocks of it are still on the ground today. Downtown as we know it, the Centre Street district, came decades later.
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Fernandina Beach, FL 32034