St. Augustine City Hall reopens Monday; parking enforcement returns to city

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The city of St. Augustine is slowly getting back to business.

On Monday city hall reopened to the public after being shut down by COVID-19.

Restaurants, retail shops, libraries, gyms, and barbershops are some of the businesses in St. Augustine coming back to life.

John Ginn was on his way to get a haircut when he learned that City Hall had reopened.

He used to attend the city commission meetings in person before the pandemic hit.

Now he watches online.

"I’ve attended the virtual meetings: it’s hard in the virtual meetings to get the same feel as being there in person," Ginn said.

Melissa Wissel, communications manager for the city tells Action News Jax that reopening city hall gives people the ability to pay parking tickets, water, sewer, and trash bills in person, rather than online or over the phone.

"The re-opening of city hall really is more about giving people that public access again that we had to close when those restrictions came in," Wissel said.

The city has even added safety features since reopening, like plexiglass on the fourth floor at the customer service desk, hand sanitizer, and having their staff members wear masks.

Now that City Hall is open, parking will be enforced Monday through Saturday. meaning you’ll have to start paying at these kiosks if you’re parked in pay-by-plate spots.

Ginn says the gradual reopening of his city is a step in the right direction.

"I think that the economy needs to get reopened, needs to get moving again. Anything that we can do to bring back normalcy in how things used to be, but doing that in a safe fashion, then we should do," Ginn said.

Although City Hall is open, city council meetings will remain online for now.

The city says that before in-person meetings resume, they may have to reconfigure the room in order to space people apart, to enable social distancing.

St. Augustine City Hall will be open Monday through Friday for regular business hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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