Hundreds of people crowd downtown St. Augustine in November 2024 to see the annual Nights of Lights. | Noah Hertz, Jacksonville Today
Published on June 16, 2025 at 4:04 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
In an effort to make the city’s premiere holiday event run more smoothly this year, St. Johns County may give St. Augustine $1 million more than it did last year.
St. Augustine city officials have been working for months to determine how to make this year’s Nights of Lights less of a traffic nightmare than last year’s, but their ideas come with price tags.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Last year, the county pitched in $200,000 from its tourism fund to help pay for the event’s shuttle service and for the twinkling lights that brighten downtown St. Augustine.
This coming year, St. Augustine is asking for a total of $1.2 million from the county.
“We want this to be a success. We want this to be a safe, welcoming, wonderful Nights of Lights for everyone in the city,” St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline said during a St. Johns County Tourism Development Council meeting on Monday.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
The council is an advisory board that recommends how St. Johns County should spend the money it receives from tourists’ hotel stays.
“We really just kind of lay ourselves at your feet here to find a way to make the recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners to find the way to fund these costs,” Sikes-Kline said.
The $1.2 million would pay for expanding the free shuttle service the city offered last year from six days to 35 days, and for renting portable toilets and traffic barricades to assist with crowd control.
The Tourism Development Council — which includes Mayor Sikes-Kline as a member — unanimously approved moving forward with St. Augustine’s funding request, but with one hitch. First, St. Johns County’s staff has to determine whether providing that amount of funding is even doable.
The council directed county staff to determine whether $1.2 million could be allocated to Nights of Lights and, if not, how much the county could give St. Augustine for the event.
While the decision was unanimous, it wasn’t without some concern over whether adding another $1 million to the county’s budget was possible.
“We want a rollback also in our general fund,” said County Commission Chair Krista Joseph, who also sits on the tourism council. “You have to start looking at how you can save money and do it affordably.”
The tourism council will discuss the money once more on July 21.
